The 2010 Midterm Election in Perspective

From Peter Wehner of Commentarymagazine.com:

In shifting through the fine analysis that emerged in the aftermath of last week’s midterm elections, a few data points are particularly noteworthy:

» Republicans picked up more House seats than in any election since 1938. Republicans now control the most House seats, and Democrats now have the smallest number of House seats, since 1946.

» Fifty incumbent Democratic congressmen were defeated, while only two incumbent House Republicans lost.

» Independents comprised 28 percent of the electorate and supported Republican congressional candidates by a margin of 56 to 38 percent. That represents a 36-point turnaround from the last midterm election, in 2006, when independents supported Democratic congressional candidates by 57 to 39 percent. In addition, independents trust Republicans to do a better job than Democrats by a margin of 23 points on jobs and employment, 23 points on the economy, 27 points on government spending, and 31 points on taxes.

» Voters support repealing/replacing ObamaCare by 51 to 42 percent. Democrats oppose repeal by 80 to 16 percent — but both independents (by 57 to 31 percent) and Republicans (by 87 to 7 percent) want to repeal and replace it.

» Sixty-five percent of voters said that the stimulus bill either hurt the economy or did no good — and those voters overwhelmingly favored the GOP.

» Fifty-four percent of those voting said they were dissatisfied with the performance of Barack Obama — and they broke 85-11 for the Republicans.» Republicans have captured the seats in at least 57 of the 83 Democratic-held districts in which Obama won less than 55 percent of the vote.

» Democrats hold a majority of the congressional delegation in only three states — Iowa, New Mexico, and Vermont — that don’t directly touch an ocean. Republicans similarly routed Democrats in gubernatorial races across the Midwest and the border states, from Ohio and Tennessee to Wisconsin and Iowa.

» Republicans picked up 680 seats in state legislatures, the most in the modern era. In the 1994 GOP wave, Republicans picked up 472 seats. The previous record was in the post-Watergate election of 1974, when Democrats picked up 628 seats. The GOP gained majorities in at least 19 state house chambers. They now have unified control — meaning both chambers — of 26 state legislatures. And across the country, Republicans now control 55 chambers, Democrats have 38, and two are tied. (The Nebraska legislature is unicameral.)

» Republicans have not enjoyed this much power in state capitals since the 1920s.

» Voters who identified as ideologically conservative accounted for 41 percent of the turnout, an increase from the 34 percent figure in 2008 and the highest level recorded for any election since 1976.

This was no ordinary midterm loss by the party in power, predicated on a bad economy. Sounds like a repudiation of Barack Obama and the Democrats to me.

review - Justice Society of America #44

I found the art to be pretty good, but the writing wasn't what I had hoped for. I feel like I'm reading a book from the worst days of the 90s. Dark, brutal and bloody are not words I'd normally use to describe the adventures of the Justice Society, but that's what we got here. Which is not to say that we haven't seen violence in the book before, particularly in "The Next Age" opening arc, but this issue felt far more brutal to me. There was no charm and humor to counter-balance the darker elements of the storyline.

Some super-powered terrorist is being held in a CIA secret prison in Afghanistan. He escapes and slaughters everyone guarding him. He heads to America and attacks a city, so the Justice Society heads out to stop him. This nameless, motiveless, unknown plot device of a villain proceeds to trash the group with ease, bloodying everyone up and breaking Alan Scott's neck. In the end, after hours of fighting in which a good chunk of the city is destroyed, Lightning stops him by seriously electrocuting the guy, while Dr. Fate contains him.

Aside from the fact that Alan Scott/Green Lantern was declared the most powerful man on Earth just two issues ago, and here he's taken out in five seconds flat, didn't we just see a team member seriously wounded and near death in the last storyline? And Alan Scott himself has already been nearly killed back during the Johnny Sorrow storyline early in the run of the JSA title, making this feel like a retread idea.

A few more nitpicky points...

- Does it seem out of character that the polite, doesn't drink, smoke or cuss Jay Garrick flies into a rage and calls the villain a "bastard"? Sure he's shocked at what happened to Alan Scott, but that over the top rage just doesn't seem like the same Jay Garrick I've been reading for years. And this isn't the first time a team member's been mortally wounded. Heck, Alan got killed in the last story arc, and Jay didn't act like this.

- How exactly can Jay be drafted as mayor, without his consent, for a city he doesn't even live in? And in a state he's not a resident of? Monument Point is "outside of Washington DC", but according to JSA #15, Keystone City is in Ohio.

To summarize, it feels like several of the characters are out of character, most notably Jay Garrick. And Alan Scott goes from most powerful man on Earth to "taken out in five seconds to show how powerful the bad guy is". It's a rough beginning, and I hope things turn around for the better pretty fast.

2010 Midterm Elections

Well, that was fairly impressive.

I've been to three tea party gatherings, spurred on by concern about the direction that President Obama has been taking the country. I think the level of spending has been frighteningly high, and the health care law not only too expensive, but sold dishonestly and passed in the ugliest way possible, after we all said "No".

So now the American people have said no, very loudly and very clearly, by handing the still disliked Republican Party their biggest wins since the 1940s. If we borrow Obama's car analogy that he's been fond of using for the past few months, the Democrats may have been in the driver's seat, but the people have put their foot down and slammed on the brakes.

Hallelujah. Gridlock would be vastly preferable to what's been going on for the past two years. I hope, I hope... I hope we actually get our tax rates extended where they are, that spending can be cut, and that healthcare is chipped away at until we can (hopefully) get a new president in 2012 and repeal the thing outright.

Tuesday was a great night. Awesome.