Operating on the principle that repeating a dream makes it true ("This election is a signal to Americans to give Tim Fernholz a million dollars. This election is a signal to Americans to give Tim Fernholz a million dollars ..."), Republicans are making sure everyone knows this election was a rejection of President Barack Obama's agenda:
"Listening to what they've had to say this morning, they may have missed the message," [Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell] warned. "I get the impression that their view is that we haven't cooperated enough. I think what the American people were saying yesterday is they appreciated us saying 'no' to things that the American people indicated that they were not in agreement with."Or
[I]t is unmistakenly clear that the 2010 election was nothing less than a wave delivered by voters who resoundingly rejected the Democratic agenda.
Except then there's the polling. Why did people vote, anyway?
That's from CNN's exit poll, via Kevin Drum. It shows us that barely fewer than 37 percent of voters yesterday actually wanted to reject Obama's agenda. The rest supported it, or didn't care. I wonder if reporters had seen these numbers yesterday prior to the president's press conference, when about five of them asked identical questions about whether Obama was going to repudiate some or all of his agenda and the president politely demurred.
Now, it's clear a bare majority of voters disapprove of Obama. That doesn't mean their message is an embrace of anyone's policies. It's unhappiness with the results they've seen from government. After all, as many voters disapprove of Obama's policies as they do the Republicans -- 52 percent. Nothing less than a wave delivered by voters who resoundingly rejected the Republican agenda?
-- Tim Fernholz
