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RUSH: Mitch Daniels, this is in TheHill.com: ‘Mitch Daniels: Weak Candidates Hurt GOP Drive for Senate.’ I guess Mitch Daniels needs some lobbying money from Trent Lott. ‘Republicans fell short of winning control of the Senate because of some weak candidates, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels told The Hill. ‘We didn’t turn up the strongest candidates.” Compared to who? Jerry Brown, Dick ‘I’m proud of my service’ Blumenthal? We didn’t put up the strongest candidates?

‘Tea Party-backed Republican candidates in Colorado, Delaware and Nevada were defeated Tuesday. Overall, Republicans gained six seats. … Daniels said he believed the parties could come together on some issues: ‘It’s in the interest of everyone.” It’s not in the interests of everybody, Mitch, if we’re the ones compromising. We did win. But, of course, the pressure will be brought to bear on all arriving Republicans. Trent Lott and Lindsey Graham have prepared a greeting for all of them.

(playing of spoof)

Listen to them and that’s how you get it done.

This is from the Wall Street Journal, but he wrote it at the New Republic on November the 4th: ‘William Galston, former domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton,’ meaning he’s a Democrat. ‘Although the share of the electorate [who were Independents] was virtually unchanged from 2006, their behavior was very different. In 2006, Democrats received 57% of the Independent vote, versus only 39% for Republicans. In 2010 this margin was reversed. This year 55% of independents voted Republican,’ 55%, and the Republicans didn’t do anything to get it. They just sat there. They didn’t have to do anything. They just weren’t Democrats. Fifty-five percent of the precious independents. This is where political consultants and professionals live, the independents, the 20 to 25% of the moderates, independents, the uncommitted, they’re the ones that everybody spends all the money to get, and 55% of them went Republican, 39% Democrat this year. ‘If independents had split their vote between the parties this year the way they did in 2006, the Republican share would have been 4.7% lower.’

Now, why did they change? Remember, this is William Galston, a former domestic policy advisor to President Clinton. Why did the independents change? ‘Here we reach the nub of the matter: The ideological composition of the electorate shifted dramatically. In 2006, those who voted were 32 percent conservative, 47 percent moderate, and 20 percent liberal. In 2010, by contrast, conservatives had risen to 41 percent of the total and moderates declined to 39 percent, while liberals remained constant at 20 percent. And because, in today’s polarized politics, liberals vote almost exclusively for Democrats and conservatives for Republicans, the ideological shift matters a lot.’ This is a liberal, Mr. Galston, confirming what I have said. There is a conservative ascendancy, and when conservatism is approached in an ideological basis, where the Republicans, in other words, appeal to voters ideologically as conservative, it works. In 2010, conservatives had risen to 41%, liberals 20%.

It’s further evidence we are being governed by a minority. And wait a minute. We were told that the Tea Party would drive independents away, the Trent Lotts, the Lindsey Grahamnestys, the John McCains, I don’t care who you go to in the Republican establishment all told us that the Tea Party would drive independents away. The Tea Party saved Lindsey Graham’s bacon. The Tea Party saved the Republican Party. Were it not for the Tea Party, all of this that we’re discussing would be academic. The Republicans would not have won diddly-squat. And yet, and maybe precisely because of that, the Tea Party is as resented by the Republicans as voters at large are held in contempt by Democrats. The Republicans are actually a little miffed at how they won. When you get right down to it, they are. How else do you explain that stupid story in The Politico yesterday? Failure. Failure, in the midst of a wipeout, in the midst of an historic win, 63 House seats, six Senate seats, we get a story about failure, Republican Tea Party failure because the Republicans did not win their precious chairmanships in the Senate.

So what we’re faced with today is a Republican establishment ticked off at how they won, and doing their best to this moment to convince everybody that the Tea Party is why they didn’t win even bigger. Well, that and the fact I talked about football too much. Mr. Galston continues: ‘This shift is part of a broader trend: Over the past two decades, moderates have trended down as share of the total electorate while conservatives have gone up. In 1992, moderates were 43 percent of the total; in 2006, 38 percent; today, only 35 percent,’ of the electorate, and yet they’re the wonderful, smartest in the room people, they are the ones we have to go after. For conservatives, here are the numbers. In 1992, 36%. In 2006, 37%. In 2010, 42% versus 35% moderates.

‘So the 2010 electorate does not represent a disproportional mobilization of conservatives: If the 2010 electorate had perfectly reflected the voting-age population, it would actually have been a bit more conservative and less moderate than was the population that showed up at the polls.’ What’s happening here is that independents are shifting conservative. And who made that happen? Who’s responsible for that, aside from me, of course, the Tea Party. The Tea Party is the reason and Obama is the reason independents started voting conservative. Regardless why, there is a conservative ascendancy. And who do you have trying to beat it down? The Republican GOP establishment, led by Lindsey Graham and Trent Lott and whoever else you want to throw into it, using willing accomplices at The Politico.

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