A few thoughts on the 2010 elections...

While I didn't like the negative tone of some of the commercials, I thought Governor Perry's "Texas is open for business" tag line was very good.  It emphasized the economy and jobs at a time when that was the #1 issue for most voters, and it contrasted well with the problems in states like California and Michigan.


I often find myself aggravated with various "moderate" Republicans.  The Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe come to mind — they are all-too-often too quick to "compromise", too willing to increase the size, scope, and expense of government, and too slow to advocate lower taxes and limited government.  That said, Delaware Republicans did American voters a disservice by nominating Christine O'Donnell instead of Mike Castle for the Senate.  Republicans could have taken the seat now-Vice President Joe Biden had held since 1973.  Castle, while he would've been one of those classic northeast moderates, would've been a vote against Harry Reid for Majority Leader, for extension of the Bush tax cuts, and was a critic of ObamaCare.  Instead, we got a candidate who was poor at articulating positions, gave intellectually-devoid answers to questions, and who had a questionable personal background that Republicans would've been all over had a Democratic candidate had similar problems.  The result?  A slaughter at the polls, and a Democratic hold in Delaware.


The upside of the Senate election was Marco Rubio's victory in Florida.  Already legendary for his mugging of Charlie Crist — driving the formerly-popular (and incredibly ideologically flexible) governor out of the GOP and into a failed independent bid — Rubio is Reaganesque in his ability to articulate the case for limited government and individual liberty effectively and with a smile.  Senator Rubio will be a welcome addition to the upper chamber.


That said, as much as Senator-elect Rubio deserves the attention he's gotten and as much as I love what Governor Chris Christie is doing in New Jersey, we need to stop this idea that every refreshing new political candidate that comes along should now be a candidate for President.  Let's give people a chance to stand and deliver before we start anointing the next Great Hope.  We've seen how inexperience and a lack of vetting have worked the past 2 years.


I find it ironic that while the press continues to characterize the Tea Party as a bunch of white racists, it was largely Tea Party support that propelled Rubio to the Senate, African-American conservatives Allen West and Tim Scott to the House of Representatives, and minority Republicans to the governorships of Nevada, New Mexico, and South Carolina.


I really hated to see Carly Fiorino and Meg Whitman lose their respective races for Senator and Governor in California.  Both would've brought great business experience to the job that is so often lacking in politicians.  Regardless of what one thinks of Fiorino's CEO tenure at HP (it was a controversial topic during the campaign), her experience dealing with regulations, meeting a payroll, and seeing firsthand the real-world impacts of various government intrusions on the marketplace would've been a great asset in the halls of Congress.  Whitman's loss means that Jerry Brown has an interesting book end of records:  he is the youngest person ever elected Governor of California, and he is the oldest person ever elected Governor of California.


Another interesting fact about Jerry Brown:  his first tenure followed Ronald Reagan, who was of course an actor before he entered politics.  Brown's second tenure will follow Arnold Schwartzenegger.


The Texas House of Representatives went from 76-74 to 99-51, adding such great new, young voices as Sarah Davis in the Houston area and Stefani Carter in the Dallas area, and upbeat conservative Jim Murphy in Katy.  Look for great things from these three.


I didn't like Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski's write-in campaign following her loss to Joe Miller in the Republican primary, but I do hope that the vote counters give the benefit of the doubt to those who misspell her name.  If the intent is reasonably obvious, the benefit of the doubt should go to the voter.  That said, I still hope she loses.


When Bill Clinton and Al Gore were elected in 1992, a Republican (Mike Huckabee) took over for Clinton as Governor of Arkansas, and Republican Fred Thompson was elected to the remainder of Gore's Tennessee Senate seat.  Fast-forward to 2010, and Republican Mark Kirk is elected to Barack Obama's Senate seat from Illinois, and of course Biden's seat was winnable.  In contrast, the replacement for George W. Bush as Texas Governor just won again and is the longest-serving governor in state history.


There is a lot of conjecture among pundits (mainly right-leaning commentators) that the Bush tax cuts — all of them, including those on "the rich" — will be extended at least for a few more years, perhaps in the lame duck session.  The thinking is that Speaker Pelosi's hold on power will be weakened, and senators who come up for election in 2012 don't want to have a tax increase on their record given the results from the midterm.  Let's hope this isn't just wishful thinking.


I'm quite tired of hearing that the health care reform is unpopular because people don't understand it.


Democratic West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin, who won the race to fill the remainder of the late Robert Byrd's Senate seat, will no doubt get plenty of "whip" pressure from his caucus to toe the party line on spending and tax votes.  As governor, however, Manchin has received high marks from the libertarian Cato Institute on his tax and spending policies, having cut taxes on business and individuals as well as cutting government spending.  He has reportedly already said he intends to vote for extending all of the "Bush tax cuts", and he joins the Senate early since his was a special election.  Even if he veers left, he'll certainly be a welcome change from his predecessor.


It will be interesting to see how the freshman members of Congress — many of them anti-establishment and associated with the Tea Party movement — will fit in with the old guard.  There was some friction back in 1995 when the freshman class set out to shake things up, much to the chagrin of many of the veterans who were taught to wait their turn and abide by a certain decorum.  Now many of those one-time "young turks" are themselves the establishment.  How will the styles mesh?


In the days before the vote, writer and wit P.J. O'Rourke (who's latest book is titled Don't Vote — It Just Encourages the Bastards) said that it wasn't so much an election but a restraining order.  Let us hope that the expansion of government and encroachment of liberty have been restrained.