Best of the Web (Wall Street Opinion Journal) James Taranto November 8, 2006

This column is scrupulously nonpartisan, but we will bend the rules for a moment and acknowledge that last night’s outcome was not what we were hoping for. As of now, the Democrats have picked up 28 House seats, giving them at least 228 (a majority is 218). Eleven more seats are undecided, so the Dem gain could be as high as 39. The Democrats also will take a 51-49 majority in the Senate, having won every close race except in Tennessee–though it may be awhile before that’s official, depending on whether Virginia’s George Allen decides to take his razor-thin loss gracefully like Richard Nixon or brutishly like Al Gore.

Well, we like to think of the glass as being half full, and there’s no use crying over spilled milk. (Yes, we know National Cliché Day was last Friday, but hey, better late than never.) So here are some reasons to be happy with the outcome.

Republicans deserved to lose. They arrived a dozen years ago promising reform and smaller government. They did deliver a very successful welfare reform law–but that was over a decade ago. What legislative accomplishments they have delivered since have mostly consisted in approving President Bush’s initiatives, which is something, but far from the “revolution” they promised in 1994.

Consider these results from a poll of voters in 12 swing GOP-held congressional districts, conducted by OnMessage Inc. (PDF):

No, these results are not typographical errors:

  • When asked which Party they believe would cut taxes for the middle-class 42% said the Democrats while only 29% chose the Republicans.
  • When asked which Party will work toward reducing the deficit 47% chose the Democrats while only 22% chose the Republicans.
  • Again, when asked who will keep government spending under control the Democrats held a 17 point edge (38% Democrats, 21% Republicans).

Despite all this, voters in five of the districts elected or re-elected Republicans, vs. four districts for Democrats (three are still undecided as we write). While it’s hard to conceive of Democrats as the party of frugality, Republicans have been spending like mad, while Democrats have lacked the power to do so, so there is a certain logic to preferring the Dems here.

This is not to say every Republican who lost deserved it. We were especially sad to see Rick Santorum and Michael Steele go down to defeat. But as a party, the Republicans needed to lose sometime. And better this year than in 2004, when it would have meant President Kerry–a prospect that even the most diehard Bush-hater knows in his heart would have been catastrophic.

It was not a referendum on Iraq. One of the most pro-Iraq lawmakers in Congress, Sen. Joe Lieberman, ran as an independent and trounced anti-Iraq Democratic nominee Ned Lamont. Meanwhile, of the five remaining Republican members of Congress who voted against Iraq’s liberation, three lost: Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R.I.), Rep. John Hostettler (Ind.) and Rep. Jim Leach (Iowa). Only two anti-Iraq Republicans will return to the 110th Congress: Reps. Jimmy Duncan (Tenn.) and Ron Paul (Texas).

The Associated Press reports that while “three-fourths of voters said corruption and scandal were important to their votes, . . . Iraq was important for just two-thirds.” Both groups tended to favor Democrats.

It was not a victory for the left. Lieberman’s victory over Lamont should be sufficient to establish this, but also, as we noted last week, the Democrats nominated many moderates for Congress, including Heath Shuler in North Carolina and Bob Casey and Chris Carney in Pennsylvania. (Carney, who beat Rep. Don Sherwood, got an endorsement from Richard Perle at a cocktail party we attended last month.)

In 1994 Republicans won Congress by nominating strong conservative candidates in districts long held by the other party. In 2006 Democrats did the same. It will be interesting to watch how Speaker Pelosi mediates between her ultraliberal committee chairman and the moderate freshmen to whom they owe their jobs.

It seems clear America is a center-right country, rather than a center-left one–though the Northeast is an exception. In fact, with Reps. Jeb Bradley and Charles Bass of New Hampshire and Nancy Johnson of Connecticut going down to defeat, and the Nutmeg State’s Rob Simmons trailing by 170 votes with a recount pending, Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut may soon be the only GOP House member in all of New England.

Victory may prove cathartic for the Angry Left. America’s liberal left, and the Democratic Party more broadly, has been in an unhealthy emotional state ever since Bill Clinton’s impeachment eight years ago. The 2000 election controversy made things much worse for them, and led them to respond to their string of election losses since by lashing out and claiming the elections were stolen.

No one on the left will claim the 2006 election was stolen. They won fair and square, partly because of GOP complacency and partly because the Democrats got smart about candidate recruitment.

Of course, if the Angry Left calms down, it’ll be a mixed blessing for this column, which has gotten an enormous amount of mileage out of it. But at least we still have John Kerry to kick around, and now he almost certainly is running for office–either president or, more likely, re-election in 2008.

George Allen will not be the Republican presidential nominee in 2008. Enough said.