Summing it up

Columnist E. J. Dionne, Jr. today wrote about what's ahead for each of the two parties, following this decisive victory for the Democrats.

Saying that the Democrats will have to use skill and subtlety to hold together its winning coalition of African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, white working class groups in labor union states, women, and better educated young people.

But, Dionne says, "These are happy problems to have compared with what the GOP and the conservative movement confront.   They need to rethink their approach all the way down."

Saying that their attempts to demonize President Obama and undercut him by obstructing his agenda didn't work.  "The tea party was less the wave of the future than a remnant of the past."   And he concluded with this pithy statement:

"A party that wants to govern has to do more than run against government."

The more all the implications of November 6th sink in, the larger the message from the voters grows.   I don't think it can be called anything less than decisive.   The voters rejected, first of all, the obstructionism and the hyper-partisanism of the past four years.   They were not swayed by the old "social values" rants, nor were they frightened by talk of financial Armageddon, Socialism, or the implicit racism of the hate-Obama campaign.

It's good.   Very, very good.

Ralph