Winner: Republican minorities<\/strong>. \u00a0From Marco Rubio and Nikki Haley to lesser-known figures like\u00a0David Rivera of Florida and Quico Canseco of Texas, all of whom were victorious on Tuesday. \u00a0Other minority Republicans ran and lost, including three Asian-Americans (Tran, Chao, Djou). \u00a0The GOP still needs to do a better job of reaching out to people of color, especially African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans, but it becomes less monochromatic everyday.<\/p>\n Loser: Republican women, and women in general<\/strong>. \u00a0Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman had a lot going for them: sophisticated, intelligent, competent, extraordinary experience as entrepreneurs and executives, with loads of money and strong connections in the business community. \u00a0At a time of financial peril, with California and Washington facing budgetary crises the likes of which we have not seen for a generation or two, with a maligned President of the opposing party \u2014 they still could not get elected.<\/p>\n They made missteps, to be sure. \u00a0Neither one is exactly a magnetic personality. \u00a0But the liberal elite and their fellow travelers in the media are as fierce in their opposition to Republican women as they are to conservative African-Americans. \u00a0Whitman was called a \u201cwhore\u201d \u2013 and a NOW leader clarified that calling her a \u201cpolitical whore\u201d is okay. \u00a0Nikki Haley, another impressive conservative woman, was hurt by unproven accusations of sleeping around. \u00a0During a recent visit to Boston, I saw the cover of a Boston Phoenix<\/em> issue, and it depicted Sarah Palin and Christine O\u2019Donnell in a sadomasochistic lesbian encounter on a satanic altar.<\/p>\n Angle and O\u2019Donnell also lost, and their weirdness (together with that of Michelle Bachmann), played up ad nauseum <\/em>in the media,\u00a0arguably hurt the image of the conservative woman. \u00a0All were made out to be shrieking harpies. \u00a02010 was billed as the rise of the conservative woman \u2014 and especially the conservative Christian woman. \u00a0Yet it was tough. \u00a0Angle lost by a surprising margin, O\u2019Donnell lost by an unsurprising but very large margin, and Fiorina and Whitman also lost handily. \u00a0The Mama Grizzlies and the Mama CEO\u2019s didn\u2019t fare so well.<\/p>\n Democratic women were not treated much better, at least in the conservative media. \u00a0Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi were not made out to be shrieking harpies, but they were made out to be cackling old crones. \u00a0In fact, the witch image seemed to be pretty omnipresent this election. \u00a0Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the House, lost the gavel.<\/p>\n The only women to come out of the whole mess ahead were Sarah Palin, who helped shape the narrative in many elections, and Hillary Clinton, who is looking more and more like the Democrat who should have been President.<\/p>\n Winners: Jim DeMint and Joe Lieberman<\/strong>. \u00a0Jim DeMint established himself as a conservative kingmaker in this election. \u00a0Of all the elected leaders of the Tea Party movement, DeMint had the most established Washington power. \u00a0Boehner and Mitchell were not exactly Tea Party leaders, and those who were<\/em> Tea Party leaders (Palin, Rand Paul, Rubio, etc.) were either out of power or had not yet come to power. \u00a0DeMint had, from the Tea Party point of view, impeccable credentials, and he had consistently fought against his own party to push it further to the Right. \u00a0DeMint comes out of this \u00a0smelling like roses.<\/p>\n Joe Lieberman is one of several Democrats (or independents who caucus with Democrats) who would have received a great deal of pressure to convert to the Republican party if the Senate had come out 50\/50, or even 49\/51. \u00a0Since the Republicans cannot seriously believe that 3 or 4 Dems will convert, Joe is safe. \u00a0I don\u2019t think he would have converted anyway. \u00a0Apart from foreign relations, and especially Israel and the war on terror, he\u2019s a pretty true-blue Democrat.<\/p>\n Losers: Nepotism (for Democrats). <\/strong> Younger politicians with names like Reid and Salazar last their elections. \u00a0And do you think Beau Biden regrets not running for his father\u2019s seat? \u00a0When Mike Castle entered the race, Beau decided not to. \u00a0There was no way he would win, right? \u00a0After O\u2019Donnell won the primary, Beau must have been kicking himself.<\/p>\n Winners: Tea Party apologists. <\/strong>If the Republicans had fallen one or two seats short of controlling the Senate, then Tea Parties would have been condemned for helping to elect people like O\u2019Donnell and Angle in the primary. \u00a0And one must wonder how the Tea Partiers in those states, who voted in favor of those candidates, are feeling now. \u00a0They could have knocked off Harry Reid, and they could have colored Joe Biden\u2019s seat red.<\/p>\n But when Karl Rove said that the Tea Party was unsophisticated, he meant that it was a nascent populist movement and that there is always a learning curve. \u00a0The Tea Party is on its own learning curve, and I suspect they will pay a little more attention to electability in 2012. \u00a0In any case, Tea Party apologists must also <\/em>be glad that they no longer have to defend everything that Christine O\u2019Donnell or Sharron Angle say and do. \u00a0They were not strong representatives of the movement, and, frankly, the public image of the movement is better off without them.<\/p>\n Losers: California, and California weed growers. <\/strong>The 2010 election just shows how firmly the state of California is in the grip of the public employee unions that have bankrupted the state and crippled its economy. \u00a0The Republicans had very strong candidates, in very favorable conditions, and yet they couldn\u2019t close the deal. \u00a0The Governator has hurt the Republican party as well, but the greater part of the blame for the appalling condition of California has to fall on the Sacramento politicos who are in thrall to the unions that have made spending cuts and pro-growth measures all but impossible to implement.<\/p>\n Which makes it all the more disappointing that Californians won\u2019t have weed to take their minds off it all. \u00a0Just kidding.<\/p>\n Loser: Religious Comity. <\/strong>Finally, attacks on the basis of religion were flying fast and furious over the course of recent months, against Rand Paul, Christine O\u2019Donnell, Sharron Angle, Carly Fiorina, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Nikki Haley, and\u2026well, it looks as though all of them were Christian conservatives, doesn\u2019t it? \u00a0Hmm. \u00a0Many folks on the Left want religion \u2014 and especially conservative Christian religion \u2014 out of the public square. \u00a0More on this to come.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Winner: Republican minorities. \u00a0From Marco Rubio and Nikki Haley to lesser-known figures like\u00a0David Rivera of Florida and Quico Canseco of Texas, all of whom were victorious on Tuesday. \u00a0Other minority Republicans ran and lost, including three Asian-Americans (Tran, Chao, Djou). \u00a0The GOP still needs to do a better job of reaching out to people of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,51,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-separation-of-church-and-state","category-tea-party","category-the-obama-presidency"],"yoast_head":"\n