I don’t know Michael Barone but my brother used to work with him at U.S. News & World Report. He liked him personally but described him as “extremely conservative.” I had a laugh at that because Michael Barone is a borderline wing-nut. So, it is with some relish that I see he has dropped telling us that GOP will hold the house and, instead, decided to tell us that a Democratic Congress won’t really matter. He does this by analyzing the other big wave elections in American history and noting that most of them didn’t change things a whole lot.
His interpretation of history is badly warped, but that is not what interested me. What interested me was his interpretation of the 1974 ‘Watergate Baby’ election.
Similarly, the big Democratic gains in the Nixon-Ford year of 1974 did not produce policy gains or lasting partisan gains for the out party. The new 2-to-1 Democratic majority in the House did stifle attempts to come to the relief of Saigon. But under Gerald Ford and his successor Jimmy Carter domestic policy did not move far left. Deregulation of transportation and communications proceeded, and a 2-to-1 Democratic House passed a tax bill that cut the capital gains tax and included the great generator of individual investment accounts, Section 401(k).
Barone conveniently ignores that the Congress, between 1975 and 1979, enacted FISA, the first campaign finance laws, re-opened the JFK investigation and concluded it was a conspiracy, investigated the MLK and RFK assassinations, exposed the ‘family jewels’ of the CIA, and much more. The equivalent today would be to refuse to continue the occupation of Iraq, to pass FISA (again), to do election reforms, to expose the wrongdoing of the executive branch and intelligence agencies, and to re-open the 9/11 investigation.
If Barone thinks that is nothing, good for him. I call it a start. But first we have to have a wave election, and this could be a ripple or a tsunami. The polls are close in dozens of races. So do some GOTV, talk to your family, friends, and neighbors. Send them links to good articles. Help prove Michael Barone wrong.
