Well, there you have it. None of what happened was unexpected. If anything, the Republican Party managed to over-perform certain expectations, as Sens. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and probably Gordon Smith, R-Ore., Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Norm Coleman, R-Minn., will hang on to their seats. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., on the other hand, lost in a landslide. The House Republican minority continued to implode, while Republican presidential nominee John McCain performed merely to expectations, although the loss of Indiana is particularly embarrassing since President Bush won the state by 20 percent in 2004.
Now the real test begins for the left. For the first time in more than a decade, the Democratic Party has control of the presidency and both chambers of Congress. It will be able to claim full credit for its successes, but there will be no Bush to blame for its failures. If President-elect Barack Obama is successful, he could be a transformational figure in the mode of Ronald Reagan.
This is contingent upon which Obama shows up to the White House: the general election triangulator or the man that attended Jeremiah Wright's church for 20 years. The former has the potential to create the sort of permanent Democratic majority the Republicans used to dream about holding for themselves in 2004 (this should show us how quickly things can turn around in American politics). The latter will create a 1980-style situation all over again, where Democratic rule in D.C. was repudiated by Ronald Reagan, who ushered in more than a decade of conservative rule.
Republicans shouldn't be too gloomy about Tuesday's results. In the long term, it will have been better to have cast aside the mediocre McCain and the downright cringe-worthy Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for more vibrant, articulate defenders of conservative principles such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., Reps. Mike Pence, R-Ind., and Eric Cantor, R-Va., and Govs. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., and Bobby Jindal, R-La., all of whom will surely assume visible positions on the national stage in the years to come. Only by being completely cast into the wilderness will the GOP be able to force upon itself the sort of modernization, reform and soul-searching it so desperately needs.
Most importantly, though, Republicans must show class and dignity in the years to come. We have rightfully mocked Democrats for suffering from "Bush Derangement Syndrome" and of being completely unable to rationally process information about Bush and living only to obstruct his goals, rather than further a productive agenda. If Republicans suffer from BDS, too - Barack Derangement Syndrome - then the Obama victory will only have been vindicated. Obama successes and bipartisan outreaches should be commended, and any war aims that he conducts should not, under any circumstances, be obstructed. Republicans can't root for Obama to fail, play the "Not My President" game or become less patriotic over a Democratic federal government. We're not liberals. We don't conflate America with its federal government. We don't play petulant children's games. The only proper reaction to this Democratic victory is stand up, once again, and become the party of ideas - and ideals - in order to reclaim the presidency and Congress. This election was not a repudiation of conservatism but of a party bankrupt of ideas, optimism and conviction.
Obama was right about one thing: this was an election about the future, and the Republicans failed miserably in "getting it." It's time for the GOP to transform into a party of the future, with fresh faces, a bold new agenda and a soaring new optimism. Then, and only then, can we become a majority party once again.
Alex Knepper is a freshman in the School of Public Affairs and a conservative columnist for The Eagle. You can reach him at edpage@theeagleonline.com.
