Post-Election Wrap Up

I'm not saying following points are the most important, they are just things that I want to point out:

1. Keeping everything near status quo seemed unimaginable 2-6 years ago. We had sweep after sweep, and the conventional wisdom was that there was little chance Dems could keep the Senate with so many seats up for grabs, plus a number of retirements. But, if someone told me Obama would win AND Dems would not merely hold the same number seats, but gain, I would have thought they take back the House for sure. But they didn't. One possible explanation for the GOP keeping the House was that in 2010, when the GOP dominated in the House and in state legislators, they were able to lead re-districting efforts. The gerrymandering is thought by some to be favorable to the GOP, which allowed them to retain majority in the House.

2. Super-PAC's and millionaires (and billionaires!) allowed the Romney campaign to pull in more cash (counting everything) than an incumbent president's campaign - pretty unusual. But it was pretty close, as Obama received a massive amount from small donors. He received a lot from rich donors, as well, but the Obama campaign's  ratio of money from small donors to rich donors dwarfs Romney's. I don't know what that means for the future, but I think Dems should worry a bit about the possibility of not always being able to pull in this kind of small donor money.

3.The GOP really overlooked how much the wave election of 2010 was due to anger about the recession, and how that's really a one-time deal if things are getting better. People who thought you'd have a similar turnout in 2012 were kidding themselves. That being said 2014 is a bit of mystery, since we don't know if the  economy will improve and if so by how much. However, Dems shouldn't kid themselves into thinking their demographic advantage in presidential election cycles will serve them as well as non-presidential election cycles. Young people don't vote in off years, but seniors do. I don't know why this is, but it is extremely important.

4. It looks like we will have gridlock for at least the next two years, as looked to be the case for awhile now. No, the GOP will not "learn a lesson" from the election, and no, it's not clear that what they have been doing is a bad strategy, as far as getting elected is concerned. There are still a lot of members of the GOP Congress who believe exactly the same thing they have for the last two years. Dems might be able to use the looming "fiscal cliff" to get some sort of deal, but I'm not optimistic it will be anything big.

So it goes...