The GOP won the election by campaigning against President Obama. In all of the Senate races the GOP campaigns focused on linking the Democratic candidate to President Obama. The GOP covered all of the bases in their campaign against the president. Laughably, they referred to him a tyrant and dictator, while the also claimed that he was a weak president. Apparently, the public prefers a weak president on domestic policy, but a strong president on foreign policy. The president's signature domestic policy victory was the Affordable Healthcare Act. The GOP, with the help of the media, turned his victory into a defeat. The administration's disastrous roll out of the act gave the GOP an opportunity to develop another line of attack against Obama and the administration. He was transformed into an incompetent tyrant who also happened to be weak. The public generally has a negative attitude about the competence of the government. The Obama administration provided a lot of ammunition that was used to feed the incompetence theme.
President Obama won two presidential elections by successfully energizing the democratic base and getting out the vote. The GOP's attack on the president succeeded in getting its supporters to the polls. Democratic candidates, who ran away from the president in their campaigns, were left with little to stir up their base. Many tried to link the GOP candidate to the Tea Party but that was not available to candidates in red states where the Tea Party and anti-immigrant sentiment are powerful.
The Republican Party won the election but we have many important issues that will require positive leadership. The GOP offered no new ideas during the midterm elections. The issues that they did raise are the same old issues that lost them two presidential elections. Most of them are 200 years old and have little to do with the problems that we face. They are a part of the problem rather than a solution.
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