The GOP and Dems win, conservatives lose

Looking at the results of last night’s off-off year elections is a bit like looking at a Jackson Pollack painting. You see in it what you want.

Did the GOP win? Well, yes and no.

They won big in Virginia and in a squeaker in New Jersey, but lost a seat in upstate New York they won by a big margin in 2008.

Did the Democrats lose? Well, yes and no. They lost two governorships, both in states that President Obama carried last election. But exit polls show that a majority of voters in these states approve of Obama and didn’t consider him a factor in the election. And there is that upstate N.Y. win.

There is only one clear loser in this election – conservatives.

Oh, how they wanted to win NY-23. It would be their equivalent of the storming of the Bastille. The first step on the way to a grand revolution, with countless moderate traitors carted off to the 21st century equivalent of the guillotine – denunciation by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin.

Instead, those damn moderate GOP sluggards in DC were right – Doug Hoffman only split the vote and gave the seat to the Democrats. (Is there anything that can be called a “safe” GOP seat after this?) At least we were spared the crowing of Sarah Palin on TV about “Sarah’s values” last night. Instead, there was only the thought of the quiet smile on Mitt Romney’s face.

To be perfectly honest with you, I wish Hoffman had won NY-23. It would have turned the birthers, the tea baggers, the Club for Growthers into a rabid mob, howling for RINO blood. I could have seen the Democrats picking up even more seats in 2010 in such a situation.

But now, the Democrats have to be careful. The way Bob McDonnell won in Virginia is THE model for the GOP to follow: appeal to the moderates by avoiding contentious social issues (abortion, guns, and religion), and concentrating on the economy and jobs. (If the party was smart, they would replace Michael Steele with Tom Davis immediately. Davis SO gets it.)

Although, as the Washington Post notes today, McDonnell’s problem is now the opposite side of the coin of President Obama’s problem – how to govern so that you don’t alienate the moderates by being too far to the right, but not being so moderate that you alienate the far-right base. Virginia is now the kind of state that could flip again and again because of this new “bipolar” make-up of the state.

Yet I think that Democrats probably can rest somewhat easy. These are the fruit loops of the GOP that we’re talking about, the folks the least connected to reality. Losing in NY-23 will not slow them down for a second. Instead, I can see this loss being blamed on Dede Scozzafava. “If we can just get rid of the moderates earlier,” the thinking will go, “then we won’t split the vote.” What the conservatives don’t understand is that moderate Republican voters will switch to the Democrats faster than independents will – exactly what happened in NY-23.

And Rush Limbaugh might want all those fifth columnists out of the GOP, but that’s the road to ruin, not to victory. Ronald Reagan understood that. (The situation with Ronald Reagan and the GOP reminds me of something that the great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung once said: The best thing about being Carl Jung is that I’ll never be a Jungian.” Reagan has been co-opted by a generation of conservatives who only want his brand, not his ideas.)

So I think that we can anticipate bloody GOP infighting in Texas, Florida, maybe even Utah. Democrats should do what they can to quietly encourage the birthers, et al, by calling them impotent. Nothing will make them work harder.

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And just a thought about the votes in Maine and Washington on gay marriage and same-sex benefits. I’m a firm believer in gay rights, and I’m deeply proud of my former country, Canada, for legalizing gay marriage. But I’m not such a big fan of marriage.

That’s a funny thing to write today, my 15th wedding anniversary. But I know my wife feels the same. Marriage as an institution is a patriarchal creation that came about so that men could control women, children and land. Period. That’s not a feminist statement, just an historical fact.

The reason I got married 15 years ago today was so that I could come and live with the woman I loved in the United States. That was the only way it was going to happen. If I had been an American, or her a Canadian, we might never have married. Yea, maybe sometime over that 15 year period we might have said, sure, why not. But we never would have done it because it would have “legitimized” our relationship. It was already legitimate.

The current problem is that unmarried couples in many states have many of the same rights as married people, but gay couples don’t. I do believe that gays and lesbians should have the choice to marry if they so desire, but having domestic partner benefits is honestly more important. Marriage is the icing, but the benefits are the cake.

That’s why what happened in Washington State is so important. Both votes actually show how divided Americans are on the issue – gay marriage lost in Maine by a few percents and domestic partnerships won in Washington by a few. But domestic partnerships are easier for many people to accept and it’s the right way to go. Get the cake before you get the icing. As time passes, more and more people are accepting of gay and lesbian rights.

It took almost 100 years after the Civil War for African Americans to win their full-rights, and that was only after a step-by-step struggle. I hope rights for gays and lesbians won’t take a 100 years, but those of us who support them must understand it’s going to take time.

Eyes on the prize. Remember, eyes on the prize.