I started reading this Alternet article expecting to encounter an odd interpretation of this week’s election outcomes, and I actually found this very good point:
The Republicans themselves, meanwhile, are quickly understanding that the only way to recover from the drubbing they’ve just received is to move back to the center, and fast. Arnold Schwarzenegger has already figured that out — ditching the hard-right rhetoric that led him to humiliation in last year’s special election in California and making common cause with the Democrats on everything from global warming to new infrastructure bonds. The Governator was rewarded for his bipartisanship with a landslide re-election victory - making him the happiest Republican in America this week by quite some distance. Schwarzenegger, never one to suffer an excess of modesty, has even ditched the GOP red white and blue colors for a softer green and orange. Consensus and coalition-building is his new watchword. If the Republican have any sense, they’ll follow Arnold’s lead.
That’s not a bad thought.
I’m looking forward to watching the interplay between the hardcore and moderate wings of both the donkey and elephant herds as they retool for the ‘08 elections.
If Democratic activists forget that this year’s victory was in no small part because of expanding the tent to include social moderates and fiscal semi-conservatives, it might not be that long before the pendulum starts its rightward swing again.
And if Republicans fail to reform from having seen what expending too much of their political capital has done to them, this year’s thumpin’ could all too easily expand to be a period of Democratic monopoly that is as equally unpleasant as the GOP monopoly has been.
One could also hope that this week’s spanking of the GOP will have taught them a lesson quickly enough so that the upcoming lame duck session doesn’t drive any shenanigans. However, I’m definitely not holding my breath on that one.