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Get Over the Midterms: Now the Fun Begins
November 6, 2014
By Reid Cherlin
Tuesday night's Republican landslide — or drubbing, or shellacking or whatever we are calling it — was broad, and deep, and for MSNBC viewers, depressing and perhaps a little terrifying. What it wasn't was surprising. Since the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt in 1934, multi-term presidents have gained Senate seats in their final term exactly zero times; in every other incidence save one (the 1998 midterms under Clinton, when there was no change) the president's party has lost anywhere from six to 13 Senate seats. The drama this cycle, if there was any, was mostly to be found in whether various individual officeholders — several of them Democrats in states that Mitt Romney won by huge margins — would manage to hang on (Answer: no). We waited for the Democrats to lose big, and then they did. So much demagoguery, and so much preening, and so little to look forward to.
Maybe, or maybe not. I'm not going to argue that the last several years haven't been sour and deeply lame — but they also haven't been particularly meaningful. Lots of people are tired of Obama? They've been tired of Obama since the first midterm wipeout, in 2010. I understand that many out there feel personally wrapped up in election the results, either despondent or exultant, and that's allowed. But believe me, the feeling will pass, and it should. What's behind us is nothing more than a long and boring formality. What's ahead of us — for political junkies at least — is the good part...
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