Uncommon Commentary #436: Midterm Examination

The Democratic “National” Committee has, to quote a news story, “named a 10-person panel to examine the party’s struggles during the 2014 and 2010 elections and recommend solutions.”  Appointing what has been described as a “task force” is unnecessary.  The Democratic Party fared poorly in the past two midterm elections (as well as in those of 1994) because they occurred two years after a presidential election won by a Democrat whose leadership deficiencies harmed the USA, and that each set of midterm elections in question was a referendum on those deficiencies. (It is true that a Democrat also won the presidency in 1996, and that his doing so did not adversely affect his party’s fortunes in 1998; the initial dynamism of the Republican majority in both chambers of Congress, however, and President (Bill) Clinton’s lack of the same quality, clearly left the former instead of the latter setting the country’s agenda after 1994.) Of course, if Dumbocrats were astute enough to understand this, they wouldn’t be Dumbocrats, would they?