John Hood isn?t the only expert documenting historic GOP gains in elections across the United States. In an article dubbed ?The Liberal Crisis,? Commentary editor John Podhoretz touches on similar themes:
Obama has acknowledged that he took a ?shellacking? in the November 2 election, though in point of fact he had not personally been shellacked. Instead, more than 750 elected Democrats (or positions held by elected Democrats) from the House to the Senate to governors? mansions to state legislatures were ousted from office in the largest and deepest partisan rout in American history.
It was perhaps more meaningful that Democrats who had had nothing to do with the controversies in Washington?the ones serving in state legislatures? were wiped out at the same time that 66 House seats went from Democratic to Republican control. You have to go back 37 national elections to find a larger number of Republicans in the House. You have to go back 82 years to find as many Republicans in state legislatures.
These numbers are particularly significant because they suggest the end of one of the shortest eras in American political history?a period lasting two elections, in which non-liberal, non-leftist voters in Republican-leaning states flirted with the possibility that the Democratic Party and a charismatic young liberal might have answers to problems the GOP was unable to address effectively.
