Remember Wendy Davis, the champion of women's rights? She was the Texas state senator who spent all night on her feet to protest a law that would ban late-term abortions. The U.S. (and Canadian) news media turned her into a hero, then cheered her on as she ran for governor, looking to strike a huge victory against the Republican war on women.
Ms. Davis got clobbered on Tuesday. She lost by 20 points. Texas voters had many issues on their minds, but it turned out that late-term abortions wasn't one of them.
Democrats (and much of the media) were stunned by the pounding the Republicans inflicted in the midterms. Their predicted wave turned into a tsunami. Republicans won almost every race for senator and governor across the country. As one MSNBC commentator gloomily pronounced, "The Obama era is over."
Lots of people blame President Barack Obama, who dragged the Democrats down like a pair of cement booties. He's so unpopular that a lot of Democratic candidates told him to stay away. But could something else be going on as well? Could it be that Republicans (some of them, at least) understand the voters better?
Take Wisconsin, a swing state where the Democrats launched a full-frontal assault on Republican Governor Scott Walker. Mr. Walker had the audacity to take on the state's public-sector unions and roll back their pension benefits and wages. To most of the Canadian media and The New York Times, Mr. Walker is right-wing arch-villain. To most Wisconsin voters, he's a pragmatic reformer. It was supposed to be a squeaker, but he won handily.
Down in Florida, Charlie Crist, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, lost to his exceptionally unlikeable opponent, Rick Scott. Mr. Scott campaigned on being good for business. Mr. Crist campaigned on climate change. The trouble is, nobody in Florida gives a rat's wazoo about climate change, least of all the Hispanic and black voters he needed to elect him. They stayed home.
The Republicans did other things right. They weeded out the loony-tunes candidates and largely dropped their so-called war on women. (The Democrats continued to fight them on it, which just made them look silly.) The Democrats' edge with women is eroding, while white men are voting Republican by a margin of 65 to 35 per cent. The Republicans are said to have a women problem – but you could also say that the Democrats have a men problem.
In Canada, the liberal elites (which is to say, just about all the people I know) pretty much agree that despite his unpopularity, Mr. Obama hasn't been that bad a president. Obamacare is working out okay, the gridlock in Washington isn't his fault, the economy isn't his fault and the Middle East is an unfixable disaster that also is not his fault.
This is not the view of most Americans – including a lot of Democrats and women. Their take is that Mr. Obama may be well-meaning, but he's incompetent. The health-care rollout was botched and Obamacare is a schmozzle. He waffled on Ebola. He's anti-business. He's a foreign-policy amateur who projects weakness. The gridlock in Washington is everybody's fault, including his.
After the midterms, even Mr. Obama's allies in the liberal media are deeply disillusioned. Their views are summed up in a Washington Post piece this week headlined Where Did Obama Go Wrong? It quoted prominent political scientist Ian Bremmer, who said: "Bush is a leader who didn't like to think. Obama is a thinker who doesn't like to lead."
Many Canadians find it awfully hard to understand why Americans vote the way they do. The U.S. liberal media have the same problem. We'd like to believe that most Americans are really liberals at heart, or would be if they weren't so brainwashed by the Republicans, religion and the gun lobby. But what if they really aren't liberals at heart? What if Sarah Palin understands them a whole lot better than Wendy Davis and Barack Obama do?
Personally, I think most Americans are essentially pragmatic. Domestically, they want governments that function, and globally they want strength without adventurism. That seems reasonable enough to me. As for Mr. Obama's legacy (apart from being the first black president), right now, it's hard for me to see it. I wouldn't be surprised if he sinks without a trace.