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Some of these were our errors; some of them were the Democrats'. One of them was an equal-opportunity mistake. On our side, the mistakes helped keep the Republicans from having a double-plus-good Election Night, with cherries on top; fortunately, the Other Side's mistakes ensured that the Republicans would at least have a double-plus-good Election Night. So some problems were worse than others.
1. “The 2008 Elections ended on Election Night 2008.” (Democrats)
It’s probably fairly natural to want to take a breather, once one has finished a big job--and on Election Night 2008, it certainly looked like the job was over for the Democrats. Only it wasn’t . . . quite. The Senate election in Georgia had been close enough to require a recount, and weather conditions had dictated that two House elections in Louisiana be delayed for a month. All three elections were important to Democrats: GA-SEN would have put the Democrats within grasp of 60 votes; LA-02 was simultaneously vulnerable and embarrassing to Democrats to lose; and LA-04 was an open seat and an opportunity to stem the slow degradation of the Democratic brand in Louisiana. But the Democrats (read: President Obama) did not seriously contest any of the three races, and the Republicans won all three of them. This provided the Republican base with hope--which was rather badly needed at the time.
2. “Unlike in 1994, we’re prepared for 2010.” (Democrats)
And how many times did we hear that during the 2010 election cycle? It was pretty much the obligatory ending to the increasingly-nervous articles about how the Democratic party seemed headed for electoral wrack and ruin; the Left kept confidently insisting that this time they wouldn’t be caught by surprise. This proved of some interest, given that the Democrats never actually did anything with their foreknowledge, except watch the political dinosaur-killer asteroid loom ever larger and larger in their telescopes.
3. “Conservatism is enough.” (Republicans)
Except in CO-SEN, CO-GOV, DE-SEN, NV-SEN, NY-SEN, NY-GOV, and a good number of House races . . . and those are just the ones off the top of my head. Conservatism + good campaigning + efficient campaign operations = win, sure (especially if the Democratic candidate melted down); but where the campaign was poorly led or poorly run, the Republican challenger lost. I know that people don't want to hear that, and I won't name names for the sake of politeness—but I don't have to, do I?
4. “The Big Three national committees are irrelevant.” (Republicans)
Particularly the RNC; and the meltdown of that organization is an indictment of everybody in the Republican party, from the party bosses that let it implode to the grassroots operatives who threw up their hands and visibly stopped caring that the only group that could coordinate a national GOTV effort was in a death spiral. The GOP was exceptionally fortunate that the RGA (Republican Governors’ Association) was able to patch together a substitute voters’ drive program, and that the midterms typically have a lot of governors’ races going on. The GOP is also going to have to think about what it’s collectively going to do if the RNC has the same problems in 2012 that it did in 2010—and ‘nothing’ is not a good answer.
5. “Money is everything.” (Both sides) Well . . . it was in 2006 and 2008, but in 2010 the Democrats let their money advantage blind them to the fact that their policy positions were hated by the American people, and the Republicans let their ability to drop large amounts of grassroots cash into the accounts of the GOP flavor-of-the-week blind them to the fact that raising money is merely the first step to winning.
