Democrats don’t always win – by design

Despite the media hysteria, the midterm elections were not the worst drubbing any political party ever received. Democrats often get whipped badly, most notably in 1938, 1946 and 1994.

In the 1938 election, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s disastrous New Deal policies had delayed recovery from the Depression and pulled the economy back into a recession. Voters were tired of waiting for the prosperity said to be just around the corner. The Democrats lost a whopping 81 House seats and eight Senate seats.

They had such a huge majority that they kept control – on paper. In those days there was such a thing as conservative Democrats, and they helped Republicans keep the New Dealers in check.

After World War II, the nation was deep in debt.

There also was deep discontent with the Democratic administration under President Harry S. Truman, whose popularity had declined significantly since the war’s end.

Giving the GOP control of Congress set the stage for economic recovery.

In 1994, slick Bill Clinton’s mismanagement led to a GOP takeover of the House and Senate, with their Contract with America, followed by the first balanced budget in decades. Reading the tea leaves, Clinton declared he would “end welfare as we know it.”

The reasons for the changes this year can be debated at length. But Eye on Jacksonville asked U.S. Rep. Aaron Bean, whose district includes a large part of Jacksonville, for his assessment.

The veteran politician, noting the record of constant change, said:

“We thought we could defy history and we could not.”

“The war, gas prices, it was everything. The wind was in our face,” Bean said.

“They didn’t win it — we just lost it.”

Bean said Republicans now have an opportunity to regroup. He said the House will continue to produce good legislation but It’s up to the Senate. He said the Senate is holding 650 bills the House has passed, including four versions of the Save America Act.

Political fortunes wax and wane. It was the genius of the Founding Fathers to provide checks and balances that has kept America, so far, from foundering on the rocks of extremism.

Whether voters exercise this mechanism deliberately or instinctively, it works.

Here are the changes in control since 1950, showing that both parties can lose favor. (Note the repeating pattern, from one party to the other.)