Ben’s Election Results Analysis

Most of the mainstream media claims the election yesterday is the result of voters’ anger at Washington.

Voters sent a clear message on Tuesday: They don’t like the way Washington works. But they sent a mixed message on what would make it work better, which adds up to a virtual guarantee that it might be a long time before Washington actually does work better.
Source

Let’s do our own analysis.

Joe Sestak, a progressive Democrat beat former Republican Arlen Specter. This one’s easy. People didn’t want someone who became a Democrat just because he thought it would improve his chances of getting re-elected. While Specter is for the most part a good man, he’s part of the problem. Democrats decided they wanted a progressive to move our country forward.

Rand Paul took the teabagger/nut-job approach to beat Trey Grayson. Paul wants to ban abortion in pretty much all cases, wants to repeal civil rights legislation, wants to cut taxes, cut spending, eliminate several federal departments including the Dept. of Education… your typical right-winger. Grayson is far too moderate for the Republican party. He’s an Episcopalian: one of the more liberal branches of Christianity. He fought budget cuts and wanted to increase spending. And said something negative about Sarah Palin. He didn’t have a chance!

Democrat Mark Critz beat typical right-wing-nut-job Republican Tim Burns in a special election to fill John Murtha’s seat. Critz is a tech guy pushing for new energy sources to help Pennsylvania and has done a lot to help veterans.

In West Virginia, Mike Oliverio beat incumbent Alan Mollohan. Oliverio is a conservative Democrat who wants to ban abortion and supports a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Mollohan has a long history of corruption.

And so, it’s a little too simplistic to just say people wanted the incumbents ousted. That’s just the way it worked out.