The Perfect Strategy

Trey Smith

The Democrats made only the most perfunctory effort to win back control after the record loss of 65 House seats in 2010. This political fact is demonstrated most clearly by the comparative performance of the Obama reelection campaign and the Democratic House candidates in ten “battleground” states that were the focus of the election. Obama won nine of the ten states, with the Romney campaign finally conceding Florida Thursday night.

Obama won 121 electoral votes in these ten states — Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida — compared to only 15 for Romney. In the congressional totals for those ten states, however, the results were 79 seats for the Republicans and 41 for the Democrats.

The Democratic Party and the Obama campaign poured in resources to win these states for Obama’s reelection, but there was no comparable effort to elect Democratic congressmen. It perfectly suits the right-wing purposes of the reelected Obama White House to have a Republican-controlled House to serve as a political partner, giving the administration a ready-made excuse for its program of social cuts, tax breaks to corporate America, attacks on democratic rights, and militarism, in the face of opposition from below.
~ from US Elections Leave House and Senate Balance Nearly Unchanged by Patrick Martin ~

I read somewhere that nearly $6 billion was spent this election season and, for all that money, nothing much changed! The configuration of Congress is about the same and, of course, so too is the president. Couldn't we have found a cheaper way to do this?

You must admit this represents an ingenious strategy to move the nation further to the right. Fight hard to retain two of the three elective portions of the federal government, but basically cede the third piece to the opposition. As Martin points out, this tack provides Obama the political cover he needs to proceed with his own version of the shock doctrine.

As I've pointed out before, it boggles the mind how stingy the Obama team was in terms of support for Democratic House candidates. I don't think he stumped for ANY of them and very little money was shared either. About the only conclusion one can draw from this unorthodox strategy is that he didn't want his own party to take back the House because he didn't want to be forced to the left. He wants to eviscerate the "social safety net" and this configuration of Congress will allow him to do so.