The Vomiting Year: Just Another Postmortem

By all accounts, Tim Walz should not have won. He has no prior political experience. When he started, he had virtually no money and little support. He ran in a blood-red district against a popular incumbent. But he won, riding a political wave, the likes of which America has not seen since 1994 (fitting, as the incumbent--the hapless Gil Gutknecht--rode in on that very 1994 wave).

Tim Walz's story is both unique and strangely familiar; in countless races across the country, Democrats won where they shouldn't have. The extraordinary wave that swept Republicans into power just washed them back out, and Walz was the perfect man, running in the perfect place to reap the benefits. Walz's Cinderella campaign had synergy. His military experience gave him heightened credibility on Iraq in an election that was--in many ways--a referendum on that issue. His integrity gave him heightened credibility on the creeping corruption the Republicans have brought to congress.

If I were a fan of intelligent design, I would say that Tim Walz's campaign is proof that God exists; I can't think of a way for his candidacy to be better tailored to his district (MN-01) or this wave election. The synergy, the constructive interference of Walz's campaign made a perfect storm in Southern Minnesota--amplifying the wave enough to topple Gil Gutknecht, the once-popular incumbent.

Tim Walz is an extraordinary candidate, but he couldn't have won without the wave. The incumbency bonus is too strong, and Gutknecht knew how to bring home the bacon. The wave was a response to the Bush II Administration and their disastrous legacy.

This congress and this president are marked by their failures. They failed to deliver a same-sex marriage ban. They failed to deliver an abortion-rights ban. They failed to deliver Social Security reform. They failed to save New Orleans. They failed to secure Iraq.

Their date rape bi-partisanship, and heavy-handed tactics have produced breathtakingly bad policy (Medicare Part D, Iraq, etc.). With Republicans in control of the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and--arguably--the Judiciary, they were able to exclude Democrats almost completely from the policy-making process. And exclude they did!

The result of this exclusion was an attempt at non-incremental policy that frustrates the Republicans' extremist base and angers the more moderate electorate. Republicans promise their base sweeping, massive changes. When they fail, they lose legitimacy with their base; when they succeed, they produce poor legislation too extreme for the America's moderate palate. The Republicans managed to lodge themselves firmly between a rock and a hard place, and we saw the consequences yesterday.

Wave elections are like vomiting. When a party refuses to govern from near the middle, choosing to "stay the course" in the face of any criticism, it becomes necessary for the electorate to expel that poison from the body politic. 2006 was a vomiting year. This president and this congress have treated government like a sledgehammer, and the result has been spectacular policy failures and inexorably dropping approval ratings. They have ignored Madison's advice at their own peril, believing that their faction could retain control of government without backlash or consequence. The power of federal government was meant to be fractured, it was meant to be slow and careful, it was meant to be incremental. The Republicans evidently forgot this.

When Congressman Walz, Speaker Pelosi, and the rest of the Democratic Party assume control of the House, the Republicans will have only themselves to blame. Future factions take note; no one wants to be vomit.