The.Hillsdale.
Forum
Midterm Elections Special
Anna Williams
Editor in Chief
It’s hard to believe
that two years have passed
since Obama’s victory and
the despairing “whither
conservatism” debate.
Stranger still that the
former both provoked
and solved the latter.
Between the unsuccessful
stimulus package, the
healthcare debacle, and
the national debt, the
Obama administration
has brought change,
alright, but the hope is
coming from somewhere
else. A liberal president
has inadvertently goaded
into action a growing
conservative base.
So where do the
numbers stand? Real
Clear Politics reports that
38 House races remain
toss-ups; 207 races
favor Republicans, and
190 favor Democrats.
(The current House is
255 Democrats to 178
Republicans with two
vacancies.) In the Senate,
Democrats hold a 59 to
41 majority but can only
count on keeping 48
seats, while 46 will likely
go Republicans and six
races are still toss-ups.
But Republicans
might just manage
to win a majority in
the Senate. College
Republicans President
Elliot Gaiser summarized
Leadership Institute
Morton Blackwell’s
theory thus: In an election with
enough momentum to change
the House majority, you have
enough support to change the
Senate because House districts
are gerrymandered to favor
incumbents. “If you can change
[the district representative],
that means you have enough
support to change the state,
because they haven’t figured
out a way to gerrymander a
state yet,” Gaiser said.
Volume XI, Issue I
Nevertheless, it could More important in the long-
be better strategically for the term than the national elections,
this fall, “Whoever wins the
governors’ races and the states’
Republican Party to remain a though, are those at the state houses’ races will control the
minority with 49 Senators and level. Based on the 2010 census, mechanics of politics for the
217 Representatives: “enough every state will be allotted next 10 years… What happens
[seats] to stop everything, but a new number of electoral here lays the groundwork for a
not enough to take any of the votes and seats in the national 10-year opportunity to roll back
blame,” as Gaiser said with a House. The state government government.”
Conservatives argue
about the best method of
doing so: whether they
should try to win as much
national power as soon as
possible, or whether they
should first ensure that
Republican politicians
are ideologically pure.
Gaiser, for one, favors
the latter. “Now is the
time to lay a foundation
with the brightest, the
best, the most idealistic
candidates we can get:
because what happens
here [in the midterm
elections] is going to
define the ideology of
the…establishment
Republican party for the
next 10 years,” he said.
The independent Tea
Party movement will
play a major role in this
process, Gaiser believes.
He predicts that the heads
of local Tea Parties will
step into local politics,
just as the colonists
who ran the committees
of correspondence in
the 1770s became their
counties’ representatives
in the new American
government.
In fact, citing the
Pledge to America, Gaiser
said that “the Tea Party
has done what it set out
smile. Under a liberal president,Drawn by Natalie Knudsen to do,” for it has reminded
a slim conservative majority America of her founding
would be held accountable will determine the district principles. The Pledge to
for the nation’s good but assigned to each national seat, America is a 21-page document
unable to implement their and the majority party can that House Republicans
policies—better, then, to remain gerrymander districts in its released on September 23, and
a unified minority capable own favor. That Republicans
only of stopping liberals could boast 36 governors (a
it reads like a cross between the
Declaration of Independence, an
from implementing theirs. 50% increase over the current application essay to Hillsdale,
Republicans might as well 24) this January is thus very and the keynote speech at a
embrace their identity as “the good news. As Gaiser explained Tea Party. In it the Republicans
party of no” until they hold the the vital importance of state- lay out a legislative agenda for
presidency, too. level races to conservatives 2011-2012 based on a promise to
October 2010
defend freedom, cut spending,
repeal Obamacare, encourage
traditional values, promote
government transparency, and
“honor the original intent” of
the Constitution.
Such specific conservative
pledges from a party that could
hardly articulate a goal in 2008
indicate one thing to Gaiser:
“The Tea Party managed to
move the middle.” America’s
unpredictable independents
have swung rightward:
“The new middle is to freeze
government spending because
the new extreme [on the right]
is to abolish the government,”
Gaiser explained. Whatever
your opinion of the Tea
Party movement as a whole,
it has undeniably allowed
conservatives to set the terms of
the national debate. As Gaiser
joked, “In 2008 it was right-
wing to suggest that we don’t
expand government. Now
that’s what Obama’s saying.”
Not a bad accomplishment for
a movement once proclaimed
dead.
In.this.issue
Professors’ Election
Predictions
Pg. 4 & 5
Local Politics
Pg. 3
The Tea Party and the
Pro-Life Movement
Pg. 2
Free Speech and the
Koran
Pg. 6
At the (Future) Movies:
Reagan and Avatar 2
Pg. 7