NYT Election Post-Mortems

First, it’s heartening to see that the New York Times reminds readers this morning: “the likely House speaker, John Boehner” has made a few boasts that aren’t true, such as, American voters want to repeal health care reform and they blame Obama for our economic problems.

In its “Sorting Out the Election” column, the NYT said: “The ‘loud message’ to cut spending cited by Mr. Boehner was actually far more muted. The polls showed that 39 percent of voters say cutting the deficit should be the highest priority of Congress, but a statistically equal 37 percent prefer spending money to create jobs. Fully a third of those who want to spend money to create jobs were Republicans.

“More voters (correctly) blamed President George W. Bush for the economic problems than President Obama, and even more (also correctly) blamed Wall Street.”

It’s no doubt a path Boehner is going to stick to—claiming results for this election that aren’t true--because the GOP has failed to propose alternatives to Obama’s policies.

Or, as the NYT said this morning, “The question is how the Republicans will act. For two years, they have refused to cooperate on any of those ideas (Obama’s) simply to deny Mr. Obama a policy victory and try to reduce his re-election prospects. If they are serious about accepting Tuesday’s mantle, they will join in governing and not simply posturing."

Now that the GOP has won an advantage, John Boehner and his cohorts are going to have to put aside their horror at having a black president and start working for the good of the country…if they can remember what working for the good of the country entails.