The Pendragon's Hall

As the only Republican not on suicide watch today, the Pendragon offers my own take on yesterday's elections. I am disappointed obviously, but not particularly surprised. The blame is not on President Bush or on the media or on the gullible American public--the blame lies with the hierarchy of the Republican Party. Here in New York, John Fase and John Spencer faced incredibly steep uphill battles against well-known, decently well-liked, opponents with deep pockets and they faced it without any help from the state Republican Party, let alone the RNC. The Republicans did not run this election like they wanted to win, and so, naturally they lost. Yet there is a silver lining here if you choose to see it: in the Senate race, Hillary won handily, right? Wrong! She garnered 67% of the vote, which is impressive if you're running against an equal opponent. But Spencer, the lone voice for sanity in the Senate, managed to walk away with 31% of the vote despite spending only $6 million compared to Hillary's $30. And this in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1! Hillary cannot be too happy about this--she is far from invulnerable if only the Republican leadership in the next two years choose to see it. The Pendragon does not hold out much hope that they will, but it's nice to think about. A further silver lining is that the Republicans tend to fare better as an opposition party anyway: they never really acted like a majority--now, perhaps, they can get back to what they do best: standing athwart history, yelling, "Stop!" And it won't be long, of course, before corruption is exposed in leading Democrats and the Republicans will regain the moral high ground. In the meantime, the best that can be hoped for is that President Bush will not back down, and that the new Democratic majority will be made up of people like Senator Liebermann, who put country ahead of partisan politics. There is some good reason to hope for this. Despite being as dismayed as anybody over the defeat of Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, the Pendragon notes that the new Democratic senator, Bob Casey Jr, is the son of a former governor of the commonwealth who was banned from speaking on Clinton's behalf because of a hawkish foreign policy stance and the fact that he was pro-life. If his son follows his footsteps, at least we can hope that the Democrats will act in the best interest of the country ahead of their own personal self-interest. I'm not holding my breath, but sometimes human nature has a way of surprising us.