Editorial from today’s New York Times
Tuesday’s election was indeed a “shellacking” for the Democrats, as President Obama admitted after a long night of bad news. It was hardly an order from the American people to discard the progress of the last two years and start over again.
Mr. Obama was on target when he said voters howled in frustration at the slow pace of economic recovery and job creation. To borrow his running automotive metaphor, voters threw the keys at Republicans and told them to drive for a while, but gave almost no indication of what direction to drive in.
Republican leaders, who will take over the House and have a bigger minority in the Senate, say they heard the American people tell them to repeal the “monstrosity” of health care reform, in the words of the likely House speaker, John Boehner. In fact, the American people said no such thing. In polls of Tuesday’s voters, only 18 percent said health care was the nation’s top issue. While 48 percent of voters said they wanted to repeal the health care law, 47 percent said they wanted to keep it the way it is or expand it — hardly a roaring consensus.