Sorry, O, the voters were saying 'No'

NY Post ^ | November 15, 2010 | John Podhoretz

[Scanian]

President Obama sounded a bizarre note upon his return home on Sunday when asked about upcoming ne gotiations with Republicans in Congress: "They're still flush with victory, having run a strategy that was all about saying no," he said.

The thing is it doesn't matter what the GOP strategy was in the election's run-up. What matters is what the voters said by the way they cast their votes. It was the voters who said no.

A remarkably original analysis of election results by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research makes this not just an assertion but a matter of fact. The study demonstrates that more than 20 seats lost by Democrats -- at least a third of the overall loss -- went to the GOP as a result of liberal policy votes.

In one sense, the survey should make Obama feel a little better, since Republicans needed 37 seats to take control. This means he can assign the Democratic loss of control in the House to the economy alone. Why? Because the survey estimates that 40 seats were lost to Democrats due to the economy's weakness.

In another sense, it should make him feel far worse, because the 20-plus seats lost above and beyond the economy are -- according to the Stanford survey -- entirely attributable to Obama's left-liberal policies.

Obama clearly wants to blame the economy's woes for his crushing defeat, in part because he seems to assume he bears no blame for them. Yet that is, to be charitable, a profoundly problematic assumption.

[KeyLargo]

[Buckeye McFrog]

It is difficult to understand how the Dens could nominate someone so stupid.

You’re talking about the party here that’s been out there hawking affirmative action for four decades.

[Redleg Duke]

Humor...lighten up!