God on our side

On the 8th day God created Republicans

This postmortem was written weeks ago, but still the depth of the losses was hard to imagine.  I couldn't believe Scott, Snyder, Walker and Brownback would all hold onto their gubernatorial seats.  The Democrats only managed to oust Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania.  These Republican governors all rode the crest of the big Tea Party wave in 2010 and seemed destined for wipe-outs this November, particularly Brownback, whose "Kansas Experiment" has been a total failure.  Yet, with huge outside financial support these governors all won.  Walker by a substantial margin in Wisconsin.

If you zoom into the election maps you will see that the GOP won big in the rural and suburban areas once again.  All those red counties with little islands of blue centered in metropolitan centers.  For whatever reason, the GOP has secured the country vote, and in states where the population is not centered in metropolitan areas like Kansas and Wisconsin, this is crucial.

The other thing that is readily apparent is that Republicans know how to play the endgame.  There was a lot of hope at the beginning of this election cycle that Democrats would score major victories, maybe even in Texas, but in the last month these campaigns appeared in complete disarray.  Last minute campaigning by Obama didn't help Mary Burke in Wisconsin, who had been in a virtual tie with Walker in recent polls.   At least Burke recognized the President, something many Democratic gubernatorial and congressional candidates didn't.  They all lost, badly in some cases like Allison Lundergan Grimes.

You have to wonder how a country that is enjoying so much prosperity, having risen up from the economic collapse of 2008 (largely brought about by Republican economic policies) could once again vote all these Republicans into office?  Well, this election wasn't about the economy, stupid!

Bill Clinton may be the biggest loser in this election cycle

The reappearance of Bill Clinton on the campaign trail didn't do a single Democratic candidate any good.  Grimes, who most warmly embraced Bill, lost by 15 per cent to Mitch McConnell, who can now preside over the Senate like a lord these next two years.

Of course, he can't take credit for this sweeping victory, as he was struggling to keep his own seat throughout the campaign.  It seems to be "dark money" that fueled all those advertisements showing America being overtaken by a plague of Ebola or ISIS warriors seeping through our porous national borders, resulting in a "Zombie Apocalypse" if the Republicans didn't win the Senate and take matters into their own hands.

For  many Americans, we seem to be continually living on the "Eve of Destruction," drawn largely from a religious fundamental view that dark days are forever around the corner and that we need to find our faith in the Lord to carry us through this purgatory to the shining light of Heaven above.  It is easy to dismiss such thoughts as folly until you look at the statistics which show that 75 per cent of Americans bęlievę the Bible was inspired by God, 28 per cent believe it to be literally so.  That's a very strong base for a political party that views itself as the Party of God.

The Republicans have successfully embraced every single religious-based issue dear to Bible-thumpers' hearts, including the idea that Armageddon is upon us.  It is hard to take Millennialists seriously, but they have won public offices across the country, mostly at the state level.  Probably, the most high profile Millennialist has been Michelle Bachmann (soon to retire from the House), but now we have Joni Ernst in the Senate, representing the great state of Iowa.

Falwell chats with Reagan, 1983

These are the children of a religious movement in politics that began in 1980 with Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, which backed Reagan and helped to turn so many religious conservatives Republican, even if it went against their best interests in terms of the heinous economic policies the Republican Party promoted.  The merging of this neo-conservatism with religious conservatism can only be explained by the need for authority figures, with Reagan elevated to sainthood in religious conservatives' minds.

Yep, when you look at this election along religious lines, you more easily see how the Republicans won.  It doesn't matter that they still promote an outdated supply-side economics that has been an abysmal failure, particularly in Kansas.  As long as they have God on their side they win.