EMAIL OF THE DAY

” Both Truman and Ford ran for reelection after suffering the mother of all shellackings in mid-term elections two years before. We all know about the 1974 election, but 1946 is noteworthy as the last time the Republicans won a majority of the votes cast for House seats until 1994. It was as dramatic a midterm rejection of the incumbent as 1974 or 1994.
The populace was angry, they didn’t respect the President, and they let him know in the mid-terms. Ford and Truman were both able to recover, in Truman’s case successfully and in Ford’s case within a hair’s breadth of success, based on the excesses of their opponents.
I’m not sure what this says about Bush, but perhaps it means that the Democrat and Independent outrage is building up bigger than ever–and the Republican romp in 2002 was the worst possible result for Bush’s reelection. Or maybe it just means that political junkies spend too much time reliving the past and boxing in their own minds with old patterns.”