Swing voters in the South and the Heartland who gave Republicans their majority in the House on Tuesday have gotten a rude awakening in the 48 hours or so since results were announced.
These voters elected the Republican candidates in their districts based on the candidates’ promises to make fiscal responsibility and job creation their top priorities.
But the swing voters should have been listening more carefully to the men back in Washington who will be their local reps’ leaders.
For example, in the final days before the vote, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made it clear in his campaign stump speeches that the Republicans’ real objective had nothing whatsoever to do with the economy:
The Kentucky Republican made the statement during an interview with National Journal. But it’s a variation on a line he has been using as he has stumped the country on behalf of Republican candidates in advance of the Nov. 2 midterm election.
“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” he said in the interview.
Even after McConnell failed to deliver a GOP majority to the Senate on Tuesday in what should have been a wave election year, he made the same declaration on election night, which was the first time voters nationwide had heard it.
Reacting to outrage among voters who learned they had been hoodwinked into believing the economy and jobs were the Republicans’ top priority, McConnell reiterated his position on the over-riding importance of unseating the president in a speech to the Heritage Foundation, a Republican “think” tank, on C-SPAN yesterday.
While McConnell was out barnstorming to undercut the Republicans’ economic message, his partner in the House, Minority Leader John Boehner spent the last couple of weeks of the campaign rushing to any available camera and bellowing, “Where are the jobs, Mr. President?”
No one ever bellowed back in response, “They’re in China and India, where you shipped them,” of course.
But now in his first interview since the election, Speaker-Elect Boehner is, of course, ”
refusing to answer the question he asked so often:
DIANE SAWYER: And let me just get a sense on a few of these critical issues, at this moment, where you stand. Jobs. How many — new jobs can you create and how soon?
JOHN BOEHNER: Well, as a former small businessperson — I understand what’s going on, I think in the business community. And businesspeople around the country are looking at all the spending and all the debt. They’re looking at all the policies coming out of this Congress and this administration the last two years, and they — it’s created all this uncertainty. And until the uncertainty starts to go away —
DIANE SAWYER: So, how long will that take? Will it take one — till February of next year? Will it take —
JOHN BOEHNER: Well, I’m hoping that it can start — yet this year. Let’s make sure we extend all of the current tax rates for all Americans. That will begin to reduce the uncertainty.
What this points to, if anyone would notice, is a fundamental lie in the GOP’s rhetoric over the past year. It is fundamental to Republican orthodoxy that government can’t create jobs, and yet, Republicans won the election by repeatedly attacking the president and the Democrats for not creating jobs … which they also say the government can’t do.
It’s a lie that the government does not create jobs — Halliburton and Blackwater are two shining examples of taxpayer dollars paying big salaries to private contractors — and the Stimulus has created thousands of jobs.
Tax cuts for the wealthy were the cornerstone of the Bush economic agenda. And yet, Bush economic policies not only created negative job growth, they led directly to the economic crash in September 2008. That’s a fact that swing voters chose to ignore when they voted the same clowns who rubberstamped Bush’s agenda back into office. They will only have themselves to blame when the utter absurdity of what they did on Nov. 2 hits home.
I have to agree with you 100%, Jon. Those who voted for republicans in the midterm have a huge shock coming to them as they see the republicans waste taxpayers’ money on issuing subpoenas and starting investigations. Whatever made them think that job creation was the #1 thing the republicans wanted to do if they became the majority is beyond me since none of them wanted to talk about it before November 2. Well, they’ll reap what they sowed with their votes as they watch the republicans work to continue destroying our country’s middle class.
Once again, American voters play the role of Charlie Brown rushing up to kick the football held by Republican Lucy Van Pelt, only to see her snatch it away just before contact is made. Like poor ol’ Charlie, they will never learn. Hope will always trump logical thought in their reptilian brains.
Not only do I agree, these same, poor, desperate people are about to have their unemployment ended, as well. Ironically, it won’t even save the taxpayers any $$$, because those same people will now be welfare eligible. On the plus side, guess we’ll see the wave back in our favor come 2012.
And at least I live in a very blue state, where the naitonal trend was bucked.
I don’t think it makes much difference if we vote republican or democrat because they both serve the same corporate masters. Both promote war, deregulation, off shoring jobs, bailouts, corporate welfare, public funding of religion, tax cuts for the wealthy, privatizing the military, war profiteering, conservative ownership of the main stream media(conservative control of the narrative), support for the Jewish theft of Palestinian lands and persecution of the Palestinian people, taxpayer support for every oppressive right wing government on earth while attacking, blockading, undermining or outright assissinating the leaders of any left leaning government, the murder of hundreds of thousands of muslims on behalf of the christain community as part of their christain crusade. We no longer even have the semblance of democracy in America. I for one am absolutely done with voting for either democrat or republican for national office.
Actually, no President since Hoover has had a record of negative job growth. It is true, however, that GW Bush had the lowest average annual rate of job growth since Hoover. According to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, during Bush’s two terms we averaged .2 million jobs created per year.
Well said, Mr. Ponder. This problem will be compounded in many states, where newly arriving Republican governors and majority legislatures seem intent on job-killing policies of their own — e.g., cutting state taxes, usually weighting the cuts at the top and for businesses, just as in the case of national Republicans.
However, when all these moves backfire, that’s when the real GOP agenda kicks in. As you note, the only job cut that matters to the GOP is getting rid of Obama. To that end they will blame him and the bare Democratic Senate (which will, as we know, remain quite dysfunctional thanks to arcane procedures like holds and filibusters). Why, only if we turn the government entirely over to Republicans will we see real job growth.
Of course, Bush had that very opportunity for part of his administration, and the economy sputtered and jobs kept on going overseas and didn’t grow fast enough here.
My other concern is that an end to extended unemployment benefits and other job-creating fiascoes will only serve to heighten anger in the tea bagger types who paid no attention whatsoever to these effects the last time the GOP was in charge. I doubt they will this time, either, except to project their animus once again to remaining Democrats.
Heck, if things got to a point that the entire Democratic representtion in Washington consisted of one congressperson, I’ll bet the GOP would still be telling everyone to blame that guy for the failure of Republican ideology.
The premise of the question is in error. Politians do not create jobs. Private sector companies do. That is the Republican position. Cut taxes and government spending and leave the job creation to the businesses.
Conservative GA: If it’s true that only the private sector creates jobs, why do Republicans always blame the government for unemployment?
I’m beginning to believe that Independents should not be allowed to vote until they pick a party. They blow with the wind in every election. They’re the sheeple who follow anyone who scares them enough. In two years the pendulum will probably swing back to the dems. Unfortunately, for us in Ohio, we’ll still be stuck with Portman as Senator and Kasich as governor and Husted as Secretary of State. Gonna be a bleak 4 years here.
I warned all you people who threatened to vote for republicans about what was going to happen. They dont care about you; they only care about themselves. As a result of your shortsightedness, you are in danger of losing your Medicaid, Medicare AND Social Security. The rethugs want to privatize Social Security which will tie it to the stock market and we see how well the stock market is doing, dont we? You all cut your own throats! Dont you feel pretty stupid now? Just remember who you voted for while youre out begging in the streets or sleeping under a bridge in your little cardboard home. Unfortunately, I may be joining you there even though I didnt vote for the rethugs. Wanna split a can of dog food? I hear its really tasty.
I am opposed to immigration “reform” (amnesty). This country is overpopulated, and 21 million Americans are out of work.
Don, the conservative estimate for the cost of rounding up 21 million undocumented men, women and children is $85 billion. I’m not sure if that includes the cost of holding these families in private prisons along the border while their cases are adjudicated. Many of the children will be US citizens and so entitled to all the rights you and I have while they’re being incarcerated.