There really were no surprises in the midterm elections,
especially not the elections around here. State reps. Stephen Barrar and Chris
Ross were shoe-ins for re-election, as was U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts. All three are
Republicans.
Statewide, Republican Tom Corbett won the gubernatorial race
as most suspected, and fellow Republican Pat Toomey won the U.S. Senate seat.
That race was expected to be close, but it played out as anticipated with
Democrat Joe Sestak taking an early lead based on votes cast in Philadelphia,
but then losing that lead as results from the central and western parts of the
state came in.
Pat Meehan defeated Bryan Lentz for the congressional seat
vacated when Sestak opted to run for the Senate.
While tea-party movement candidate Christine O’Donnell lost
her senate bid in Delaware, others across the country did win and the U.S.
House of Representatives is back under Republican control, as are numerous
state houses and governorships.
But will this be a true change or just another phase in
business as usual? Each of the Republican candidates talked about smaller
government, less intrusion and getting out of the way so business can create
needed jobs. Did they mean it or will 2010 be just another 1994 when the GOP
took back control of the congress, then went back to being just as big a
spender as the Democratic Party?
As one Chadds Ford Republican commented as the polls were
closing, “If it’s like 1994 again, the Republicans are finished.”
The party may not be “finished” under those circumstances,
but it would prove the point that many people contend, that there’s no
difference between the Republican and Democratic parties.
Even the victory this year doesn’t point to a difference
beyond rhetoric, not yet anyway.
It should be noted that none of the tea-party movement
candidates (all Republicans)—or any of the Democrats for that matter—spoke at
all about the continued military involvement in Afghanistan, keeping 50,000
troops in Iraq, Predator drone strikes in Pakistan or maintaining more than 700
military bases in 130 different countries. None of the candidates said anything
about making peace with the rest of the world, how that would cut spending and
help restore sanity to the nation’s economy. And none spoke of the presidential
decision to order the assassination of an American citizen without any due
process.
Will the newly elected Republicans actually do anything
worthwhile, or will they revert to the same mindset their predecessors have had
since the days of Richard Nixon when the GOP turned its back on small
government and focused on dictating what people do in their bedrooms and what
they may or may not ingest?
Will they really do anything to cut spending and restore
fiscal responsibility, or will they be like George W. Bush who increased the
national debt by 54 percent? That’s more than Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton
combined.
Time will tell whether they were worth the votes—and the
hopes—of Americans.
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