Election lessons

Every two years, the two major political parties take stock of how they did in the election. They hope to learn what they did right and what they did wrong.

The GOP made historic gains last week, but Republicans are debating whether the Tea Party won them the day or lost them a takeover of the Senate.

{mosads}Christine O’Donnell had little chance of winning Joe Biden’s old seat in Delaware, but Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) would certainly have done so. O’Donnell, a Tea Party favorite, stunned Castle in the GOP primary, but in doing so set up the triumph of Sen.-elect Chris Coons (D).

Other high-profile Tea Party candidates who lost include Sharron Angle in Nevada and Ken Buck in Colorado.

On the other hand, some Tea Party stars, such as soon-to-be Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), won handsomely, and Republicans also benefited hugely across the board from Tea Party energy.

Debate over the pros and cons of the GOP-Tea Party link is fierce; Republicans, it seems, hotly dispute their direction even in the wake of victory. 

Democrats don’t appear to be suffering from such existential anguish, despite being buried by November’s landslide. Either that or they are doing a fair job of concealing their self-doubt.

It’s a big contrast with the aftermath of 2006. Back then, Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) stepped down as Speaker and Republicans sheepishly admitted they had strayed from their principles so far that it had ceded the party its traditional hold on the high ground of fiscal respectability. 

Four years later, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is not stepping down from the leadership of her caucus and has staunchly defended the accomplishments of the 111th Congress. Democrats from the president down reject suggestions that the election amounted to a repudiation of their policies. Their failure, they argue, was not in what they did but in the way they did it — that and the economy.

It is harder for Democrats to concede errors of substance in the wake of this defeat than it was for Republicans to do so in 2006 and 2008. That’s because, unlike the Republicans, the Democrats did not stray from their animating beliefs; they spent money on new federal programs, expanding the role of government.

In September, congressional Democrats rejected former President Clinton’s advice to counter the GOP “Pledge to America” with a Democratic plan for the future. Instead, they ran on their record.

 It is always harder to blame the person in the mirror if that person is someone you are proud of. 

Republicans learned lessons from the 2006 and 2008 elections, but not overnight. And polls show the GOP still has much work to do to repair its standing with voters.

Reassessment may be more difficult for the Democrats. But it’s necessary if they are to win back seats in the House and hold the Senate and White House in 2012.