2014 Midterm Election Post-Mortem: What's Next?

Now that the votes have been counted, the tears have been shed, the champagne has been consumed, and the unemployment insurance claims filed it is time to consider what the results mean for government and governing in America over the next two years.  I'll start with a look at the House of Representatives, the Senate, and then the executive branch.

The House of Representatives

As of November 9th the GOP controls 244 seats in the House to 184 for the Democrats with seven races still undecided.  A quick look at the NY Times big board indicates that the GOP is likely to capture five of those undecided seats.  That will put them right around 250 seats, their largest caucus since Herbert Hoover was president.  Archie Bunker would be proud.  Does the increased majority make it more likely the House GOP starts governing again?  I think it does and here's why:

John Boehner and Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker and Majority Leader in the House, are for the most part moderate establishment politicians.  They're not obstructionists like some of their fellow bomb-throwing extremists who demanded a shut down of the federal government in 2013 and threatened to allow the nation to default on its sovereign debt.  Boehner and McCarthy are conservatives without a doubt but they are conservatives who want to see Washington work efficiently.  Sure, they live in a fictional bubble where smaller government is possible and Big Bird loses his head but, hey, you have to dream big in order to keep waking up every day, right?

Seriously, the larger majority in the House for Boehner allows him to do something he has not been able to do since being elected Speaker in 2010...tell the Tea Party to take a hike and get with the program or become irrelevant.  The question is whether he will do it or not.  My bet is he will and we will see a much more productive House in 2015 and 2016.  We might even see some major legislation emerge such as immigration reform and tax reform.  To be sure, it will reflect Republican priorities so Boehner and McCarthy will have to do some negotiating with the president if they want it to become law.  I think they'll find a way to get it done.  The alternative is to go into the 2016 presidential election as the party that controlled Congress for two years and did nothing.  Given the different electorate we are likely to see in 2016 I do not think that is a very good strategy.  I suspect Boehner and McCarthy would agree with that assessment.  Had the Republican House such a majority in 2014 I suspect the bipartisan immigration reform bill passed by the Senate would have been brought to the floor of the House and passed with bipartisan support and then signed into law by President Obama.

The Senate

It appears right now the GOP will net nine seats in the Senate, which will put them at 54.  That's not enough to end a filibuster if a the Democratic minority decides to play the obstructionism card the way the GOP did for the past four years.   There are a core group of institutionalists within the minority that will prevent obstruction from becoming the norm for the next two years.  Further, the Democrats have nothing to lose and everything to gain by working with newly minted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to find areas of common ground to move policy forward.  They likely will not get everything they want but history shows that Democrats have been much more willing to compromise in order to govern than the GOP has in recent years.  As of now, I see no evidence to indicate that will change in the 114th Congress.  The wild card is Harry Reid, the presumptive minority leader.  Reid has the potential to make life hell for the GOP if he wants to.  I wouldn't blame him if he did after what he has been through for the last four years but eventually the time comes to stop playing tit for tat and acting like a grown up.  Perhaps both McConnell and Reid will realize that the time has arrived.  Otherwise they both ought to retire to some Kentucky stud farm.

Taking control of the Senate also means that Republicans can no longer point fingers at the Democrats for failing to pass a budget, ignoring the minority, and all the other ills that Harry Reid has been accused of passing on to the country.  The GOP will have to stand or fall in 2016 based upon its own performance.  America has given the party a chance to prove it can govern.  Govern it must or 2016 will see a return of a Democratic Senate, though the odds are somewhat longer of that happening if the GOP does indeed have 54 seats.  Donkeys would need to net four seats and the presidency in 2016 or five seats if the GOP wins the presidency.

The President

In some ways, losing control of Congress has got to be a relief for the president.  He is now free to work with Republicans without regard to what Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi wants.  The major players for the president now become John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.  Sure, that doesn't mean they'll sit around holding hands, sipping Kentucky Bourbon, and singing Kumbaya.  But it does mean the president has an incentive to accomplish some things over his final two years in office.  If the president is wise he will employ the triangulation strategy that worked so well for Bill Clinton.  In essence, President Obama will attempt to co-opt some of the Republicans priorities in the next Congress, which allows him to get the credit when they enact what is essentially their agenda.  Such a strategy only goes so far, however.  It is unlikely the president will give on his core principles, which is sure to setup a showdown with the new Republican Congress.

Moving Forward

The takeover of the Senate by Republicans may well be a blessing in disguise for the president and the Democratic Party.  As I said, if the GOP fails to govern for the next two years it benefits the Democrats in 2016.  Using a spatial analysis approach, what matters most over the next two years are the pivot points for the major players.  Pivot points reflect the optimal position of the 218th member of the House, the 51st (or 60th) vote in the Senate, and the preferred position of the president.  The larger majority in the House may mean the 218th vote position has moved slightly right or slightly left from where it was in 2013-14.  If it has moved to the right (due to greater Tea Party strength) then the next two years will be an exercise in brutal futility as there will be little ground for compromise.  If the pivot point for the 218th member of the House has moved slightly left (due to greater moderate strength among new members) then there may be more room for deals to be struck with the Senate and president.

The pivot points in the Senate have shifted significantly to the right with the GOP taking control.  The 51st vote now rests with the 4th least conservative Republican as opposed to the 4th least liberal Democrat.  That means John McCain or Lisa Murkowski is likely to hold the 51st vote on items that can be passed on a simple majority vote.  If 60 votes are required due to a Democratic filibuster (or threat thereof) the 60th vote will likely come from Jeanne Shaheen or Michael Bennet (40th most liberal).

The president's pivot point is likely to also shift rightward.  Despite the rhetoric of many conservative Republicans many of President Obama's actual policies have been quite conservative from the tax cuts implemented in 2009-2011 to the transfer of wealth from individual citizens to big insurance companies under the ACA, which was modeled on a plan first proposed by the conservative Heritage Foundation.  Since Obama has shown little hesitancy to move to the right when a deal could be struck with the House leadership I expect him to continue to do the same in 2015-16.  Only now the deals will be between Obama, Boehner, and McConnell.  If Boehner and McConnell can reach agreement then the president is likely to come along unless it involves a gutting of Obamacare or any of his other signature accomplishments.  The most likely major agreements are on immigration reform and tax reform in the next two years.  There will also likely be some tweaks to Obamacare but unless the Supreme Court declares it unconstitutional it is here to stay.

Newt Gingrich, the Conservative Media Elite, and the Romney Express

It seems sort of surreal, like a classic episode of the old game show "What's My Line?" where contestants listen to people trying to convince them that they are a well known person by answering questions about the person.  In this case, however, we can all see that the person is Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House and conservative icon in the mid 1990's until his precipitous fall from grace after the 1998 midterm elections, which resulted in a net gain of 5 seats for Bill Clinton's Democrats, something that hadn't happened since 1934.  That Newt Gingrich was a fiery orator who fiercely defended the Republican majority and attacked President Clinton whenever and wherever possible, endearing him to the conservative flock.  By the end of 1998, Newt's speakership was in jeopardy, he resigned as Speaker knowing he couldn't muster the votes for another term and then abruptly resigned from Congress altogether.  He spent much of the next decade peddling access to a former Speaker, meeting with members of Congress, writing (or ghostwriting) books, consulting for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, promoting climate change initiatives (with Nancy Pelosi), arguing in favor of the Heritage Foundation's individual mandate (THE key component of the Affordable Care Act, AKA Obamacare), and pontificating on conservative issues for the American Enterprise Institute.  After toying with a run for president in 2008, Newt decided to take the plunge in 2012, ostensibly to retake the nation from the current president with the Kenyan, anti-colonial mentality, Barack Obama.  To do so, Newt has had to rewrite the past in many ways.

First, Speaker Gingrich would have the faithful believe he is the candidate most like Ronald Reagan in the field of four remaining Republicans.  In some ways, it is true.  Reagan was a pragmatic leader who knew when to stand his ground and when to compromise.  Newt has shown similar qualities, particularly after losing the battle with Bill Clinton over the budget in 1995-96 that resulted in two government shutdowns and a huge boost in Clinton's favorability ratings.  But Newt is not Reagan and, in fact, often criticized Reagan's foreign and domestic policy choices.  The conservative media have recognized this and begun a concerted effort to ensure that Newt Gingrich is never the Republican nominee.  For example, the conservative Washington publication National Review Online runs a story by Elliott Abrams in which the author points out that not only did Gingrich not help Reagan defeat the Soviet Union but referred to Reagan's summit with Mikhail Gorbachev as "...the most dangerous summit for the West since Adolf Hitler met with Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in Munich."  Ouch!  Gingrich is also quoted as saying that President Reagan has "failed" on both domestic and foreign policy.  This in the spring of 1983 when unemployment was still over 10% in the longest such stretch since the Great Depression.  In contrast, unemployment hit 10% under President Obama for just a single month, October of 2009.  Using his Reagan standard, Newt should be singing the praises of President Obama for stopping the rise of unemployment as quickly as he did.

Second, even conservative blowhard Ann Coulter, famous for her defense of the late Senator Eugene McCarthy and McCarthyism, has gone on the attack against the former speaker.  Speaking about his 'doodles' during the House ethics investigation into Gingrich in the '90's she says that Newt saw himself at the "...center of the universe" and "...the designer of civilization."  She also called him "pompous and boring" when participating in debates without cheering audiences.

Meanwhile, over at the American Spectator, Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. calls Newt Gingrich the conservative version of Bill Clinton without the charm.  Other attacks from the conservative media elite have come from the editors of National Review, Glenn Beck, and even Rush Limbaugh.  For his part, Limbaugh urged the Speaker to lay off the media saying it will play well with conservatives, who have bought the lie of a liberal media hook, line, and sinker, but it will alienate moderates whom the GOP will need to attract if it hopes to defeat President Obama in November.

Why has the conservative media elite turned on Newt Gingrich so ferociously?  Simply put, Newt's upset win in South Carolina has scared the hell out of them.  They understand that Newt Gingrich is a loose cannon, extremely arrogant, and more than likely unelectable.  Though they're not in love with Mitt Romney, they're not even in like with Newt Gingrich.  In fact, many see him as a grave danger to the conservative movement and someone that could do the kind of damage that Barry Goldwater did to the party in 1964 (ensuring Republicans would be a minority in the House for another 30 years).  It's not that Republicans couldn't recover from a disastrous flameout and landslide to win the presidency in 2016.  They certainly could since Americans rarely award either party more than three consecutive terms (and that hasn't happened since 1988, before that 1932-52).  No, the reason conservatives are so nervous about Newt Gingrich is many realize that this election is the only chance they will have to stop the forward progress put in motion by President Obama.  If they do not win the White House the Affordable Care Act will be fully implemented by 2014, barring an activist decision by the conservative wing of the Court to override the will of the people and their elected representatives.  Further, as the economy continues to recover from the ditch it plunged into in 2008 President Obama, not the GOP, will get credit for the growth.  That means 2016 would favor the Democratic candidate, though only slightly as evidenced by the 2000 election and the defeat of Al Gore in spite of a record of economic growth from 1996-2000.  Once a law or program is fully implemented and the people come to like it, the possibility of repeal diminishes rapidly.  Just ask the Republicans who oppose Social Security and Medicare.

What we are witnessing is a coalescense of the conservative establishment around Mitt Romney and against Newt Gingrich.  Some argue that there is no conservative establishment.  I disagree.  I think there are two wings to the establishment, however.  There are the party insiders, who have mostly been pushing Mitt Romney for the past year or so, contributing to his campaign, helping his ground organization in Iowa (it's why he finished a close second while spending very little time in Iowa), and so on.  Then there is the conservative media elite, the 'echo chamber' of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh (and other conservative talk radio hosts), and the Wall Street Journal.  The media wing has been all over the board, searching for the one 'true conservative' heir to their idol, Ronald Reagan (the myth, not the actual Reagan).  That's why we heard speculation about Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, Chris Christie, and others.  It's why Gov. Rick Perry was going to 'change everything' if he got into the race.  He did, but not in the way they expected.  He made the insider choice the most palatable of what by most accounts has been a very weak Republican field this year.  And now the elite conservative media have begun to climb aboard the Mitt Romney express.  No, they'll never fall in love with Mitt Romney.  No, he'll never be the next Ronald Reagan (there will never be another Ronald Reagan).  He'll just be Willard Mitt Romney.  And if he's lucky enough to get elected in November, the conservative media will tolerate him. It's what conservatives do.  Liberals grumble at their presidents for not being liberal enough.  Conservatives embrace and defend theirs, even if privately their hearts pine for a true conservative hero.

In just 5 days, voters in Florida will either choose the Republican nominee or throw the GOP race into chaos.  If Mitt wins, there won't be much in his way to stop his coronation by Super Tuesday (March 6th).  If Newt wins, chaos ensues and the likelihood of a lengthy nomination fight increases.  Why is Florida so important?  Simply because Florida is the first winner-take-all state.  The winner gets all 50 delegates to the National Convention.  That's 49 fewer than Florida is supposed to have because the state violated RNC rules by holding it's primary before March 1st and leapfrogged Nevada, which was supposed to be 4th.  Nevertheless, 50 delegates is a little less than 5% of what is needed to secure the nomination (1144).  Who will win on January 31st?  Watching the two wings of the conservative establishment coming together over the past week, my money's on Mitt Romney.  If so, the party will do just as it always does...nominate the guy whose turn it is.