The American mid-term elections: what now?

Isabel Hilton

9th November, 2006

Isabel Hilton, writer, broadcaster and editor of Open Democracy magazine, tells the Ecologist what the results of the mid-term elections mean for America and the world…

The Ecologist: What does the result of the election actually mean for American politics?

Isabel: This is the end of four years of one party rule and the first electoral defeat for Karl Rove and George Bush after many years of highly effective successful machine and constituency building. It is the biggest gain for the Democrats in a mid term election since 1974, the immediate post Watergate period. And I suspect that now as then it reflects not so much a new enthusiasm for the Democrat agenda as disillusionment with Bush, even in his core constituency. Exit polls suggest that recent scandals among the Republicans have been damaging: voters put sleaze and corruption at the top of their concerns, above terrorism, the economy, and Iraq. Values and immigration, which have been strong Republican themes, came last. The values question -- the culture wars that were such a strong theme in the last election -- suggests some fragmentation of the core religious base that Rove and Bush have relied on. Moral and religious issues are still there, but they have lost their dominant position -- in South Dakota, for...

 

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