GOP Comes Up So Short

Yesterday's election was a referendum on the Bush Administration and GOP's central policies (mostly the war). It is not just a six-year-itch, following some law of history.

From an article in Slate today:
Wars help presidents so long as the rally-round-the-flag effect holds up. The Iraq war did so for Bush in 2002 and even 2004. On the other hand, a conflict that has no clear end in sight vexes Americans of all political stripes, summoning up deep strains of both conservative isolationism and liberal anti-imperialism. As my Rutgers colleague Ross K. Baker, a congressional expert, wrote last spring, "Combat fatigue is not a condition found only on the battlefield; it is also an affliction that has often been diagnosed in the voting booth." If there's a history lesson to be drawn from this year's election results, that one would be closest to the mark.

...Though many of distinctions are arguably superficial bewteen the parties, this marks a shift in shallow waters. The question remains whether the Dems will actually deliver on anything substantively different.