Don't Worry, Be Happy!

Not every observer is repeating the same mantra; this one actually seems to have original thoughts. How interesting. Lawrence D. Bobo is W. E. B. Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard.

There are good reasons to be hopeful after the midterm elections. Just look at what happened in 1994. For Democrats, this election is worse than the 1994 midterm with regard to losses in the House; Obama's losses are worse than Bill Clinton's. Obama, however, has presided over a far deeper recession. At the time of the 1994 midterm elections, the national unemployment rate was around 6 percent. Today unemployment is closer to 10 percent, indicative of much more widespread economic uncertainty and hardship. And this is almost certainly the principal reason that Obama's midterm setback in the House involves nine more seats than Clinton lost.

I'd like to see what the numbers were for total voters. Plus, Harry Reid won, the not-witch and Angle lost.


The difference here is the state of economy. To wit, this election is not a repudiation of a liberal agenda run amok or of an Obama administration out of touch with the American people. It is a loud declaration of deep disappointment with the weak and uneven pace of the economic recovery after a catastrophic economic downturn.

How interesting, that he sees the same evidence others see, and interprets it rather differently.


So the 2010 midterms were a setback for Democrats. Let's remember that this outcome was completely foreseeable in light of the economy. Republicans will celebrate with some measure of justification. But the presumption that Americans have repudiated Democrats and endorsed Republican ideology, or that Obama's electoral fate is now sealed, is just plain wrong. Assuming the economy continues to improve and the Democrats, including Obama, heed the lessons of Massachusetts, I'm feeling pretty good about 2012.

Ditto, I guess.