Louisville Courier Journal Reads Elections' "TEA Leaves", And We Read It With Them, Too.
Tea leaves
Tea-leaf reading provides a lot of fodder for cable news and Internet pundits, but it’s probably best left to the professionals who hang palm signs on their shingles. It’s a tricky business for everyone else. A tale of two Election Days proved that.
The results from last November brought choruses of punditry about the rise and arrival of the tea party. In the months since, that outlook became part of the accepted, conventional wisdom. Radical elements within the movement and the Republican Party came to believe their own publicity, and they did what other chesty opportunists with inflated heads and ambitions do: They overreached. And they came up short.
That’s the national headline of this past Election Day, as extreme measures in two states were roundly and soundly rejected by voters: in Mississippi, the attempt to confer “personhood” on fertilized eggs, and all but end access to abortion and several forms of birth control in that state; in Ohio, a law to limit bargaining rights of public union members such as police, firefighters and teachers and to ban strikes.
Moreover, Maine voters repealed a new law enacted by the Republican-controlled legislature to require voters to register two business days before an election. The overturned law had replaced a “same day” registration provision that has served the state well since 1973, and was part of the national GOP strategy to make it harder for young people and minorities to vote.
Additionally, the Arizona state senator who crafted that state’s hateful new immigration law, which has served as a template for other states’ efforts, was recalled (the first in the state’s history) in favor of a GOP candidate who opposed the law.
All four issues are at the heart of the right-wing agenda. And all four issues were turned back by voters in those states.
Given that miniseries of slam-dunks, as well as the red state of Kentucky’s almost complete Democratic sweep of Tuesday’s contests, it’s tempting to think one hears a chorus announcing the departure of one faction and the arrival of another, more progressive contingent.
But it would be dangerous to assume that now, or to take for granted that this Election Day was a meaningful, or long-term, political sea change. It could be — but these are volatile times, and it would be folly for the victors to overreach as some of the vanquished did. As Newsweek’s John Avlon wrote, “Republicans are being put on notice for being too extreme and reaching too far, but Democrats should not misread this as an overall victory.”
A lot can change in only a year. And despite appearances to the contrary, voters are paying attention to power hogs and power grabbers and putting them in their place when they overreach, as they did in Mississippi, Ohio, Maine and Arizona.
Tea-leaf reading provides a lot of fodder for cable news and Internet pundits, but it’s probably best left to the professionals who hang palm signs on their shingles. It’s a tricky business for everyone else. A tale of two Election Days proved that.
The results from last November brought choruses of punditry about the rise and arrival of the tea party. In the months since, that outlook became part of the accepted, conventional wisdom. Radical elements within the movement and the Republican Party came to believe their own publicity, and they did what other chesty opportunists with inflated heads and ambitions do: They overreached. And they came up short.
That’s the national headline of this past Election Day, as extreme measures in two states were roundly and soundly rejected by voters: in Mississippi, the attempt to confer “personhood” on fertilized eggs, and all but end access to abortion and several forms of birth control in that state; in Ohio, a law to limit bargaining rights of public union members such as police, firefighters and teachers and to ban strikes.
Moreover, Maine voters repealed a new law enacted by the Republican-controlled legislature to require voters to register two business days before an election. The overturned law had replaced a “same day” registration provision that has served the state well since 1973, and was part of the national GOP strategy to make it harder for young people and minorities to vote.
Additionally, the Arizona state senator who crafted that state’s hateful new immigration law, which has served as a template for other states’ efforts, was recalled (the first in the state’s history) in favor of a GOP candidate who opposed the law.
All four issues are at the heart of the right-wing agenda. And all four issues were turned back by voters in those states.
Given that miniseries of slam-dunks, as well as the red state of Kentucky’s almost complete Democratic sweep of Tuesday’s contests, it’s tempting to think one hears a chorus announcing the departure of one faction and the arrival of another, more progressive contingent.
But it would be dangerous to assume that now, or to take for granted that this Election Day was a meaningful, or long-term, political sea change. It could be — but these are volatile times, and it would be folly for the victors to overreach as some of the vanquished did. As Newsweek’s John Avlon wrote, “Republicans are being put on notice for being too extreme and reaching too far, but Democrats should not misread this as an overall victory.”
A lot can change in only a year. And despite appearances to the contrary, voters are paying attention to power hogs and power grabbers and putting them in their place when they overreach, as they did in Mississippi, Ohio, Maine and Arizona.
Labels: News reporting
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 8:04 AM
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