THE WARP SPEED OF CONVENTIONAL WISDOM

Last night and this morning we were inundated with analyses, punditry, and crystal ball gazing about the election results and what they politically mean. In an earlier time, say 40 or 50 years ago, it would take some time for the results to be interpreted and implanted into the public mind. Now, in this age of the 24- hour cable news cycle, online newspapers, and the intense competition between the networks and the multitude of blogs, it takes little time for the instant analysis of the pundits or the "talking heads", as President H.W.Bush called them, to become conventional wisdom or CW, as it is now conventionally called in the texting/tweet world. Much of this CW was already being dispensed by the media at the end of the primary election season.

So what is today's state of analysis cum CW?

1. The Tea Party. As expected, the Tea Party (TP) has had a significant impact on our politics and now, in the aftermath of the elections, the first place it will have to be dealt with is within the Republican party, the home of the TP winners. The TP wins, although losing some very visible races in Delaware and Nevada, mean the GOP "Party of No" must now accommodate the more extreme conservatives and their backward-looking promises of the direction the country must take. Now Democats in the House who narrowly won and those in Senate up for re-election in 2012 must immediately assess what the Tea Party's conservatism means to them. The TP pushed the GOP further to the right so some Democrats must now consider whether they have to become more conservative to survive?

2. Special session of Congress. The most important issue to be dealt with in the special session coming in two weeks will be the for-or-against extension of the W. Bush tax cuts for the upper income group, currently defined as those families making more than $250,000 a year. There is also the issue of reinstating the higher rates on the estate tax. The GOP will seek to make all of the income tax cuts permanent or at least settle for extending the temporary cuts for an additional 1-2 years. When last heard from on this issue, President Obama wanted to end the upper income reductions on December 31, while congressional Democrats were split on the issue on ending the cuts now or extending them. The second big issue on the agenda for the special session is a further extension of unemployment benefits. Republican lawmakers have resisted such extension and the election results are not likely to soften that position.

3. Obama and 2012. After a break for Thanksgiving./Christmas holidays, the real political confrontation begins. That is the runup to the presidential election in 2012. The number one issue will remain the economy and the President can expect little help from the Congress to get the kind of legislation he thinks is needed to get beyond the current sluggish growth. But now Republicans, in taking over the House and increasing their Senate seats, will own a piece of the problem and can't simply say it's Obama's fault. The next election will be the ultimate showdown between the re-born GOP, thought dead just two years ago, and President Obama and his fellow Democrats who two years ago seemed to have created a new era of Democratic political dominance.

4. House of Boehner. Unlike the Senate, the GOP's comfortable majority means that chamber can get passage of much of what the leadership wants. In the new Congress, that means the House will be passing multiple bills to reduce spending, end earmarks, and undo some key elements of Obama's health care reform and increased regulation of the financial markets. There also may be legislation on such things as curbing the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to control industrial pollution. And various House committees will conduct hearings/investigations on a variety of issues such as alleged efforts (alleged by the right wing) by some scientists to manipulate data to support the case for global warming, and Obama's handling of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. To create a bit of my own, less headline-grabbing CW, any chance of legislatively easing travel to Cuba is dead with Representative Ros-Lehtinen of Florida taking over the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. (Here is where I would like to inject a personal thought. As a political leader John Boehner is as phony as his suntan looks. But, on second thought, that also may be CW for somewhere under 50 percent of us.)

5. Senate gridlock. Whatever bills are passed by the House will crash into the Senate wall where a diminished Democratic majority will not hesitate to use the 60-vote rule against the Republicans who had considerable success in keeping important parts of the Democratic agenda from reaching the Senate floor for debate. There will be a few conservative Democrats such as Ben Nelson of Nebraska who will be siding with Republicans on some issues. The Senate will be the chamber of legislative stalemate that will keep House-passed bills from reaching Obama's desk, although some pundits will be arguing that the congressional split will open up opportunities for more compromise. Republicans will continue to block many of Obama's nominations for judgeships and appointments to ambassadorships and administrative posts. And as another contribution of this blog to CW, the GOP will also block Obama's getting the necessary two-thirds approval of the missile reduction treaty with Russia.

There is much more instant or soon-to-be CW coming out of the media, but I thought this quick if incomplete summary of such would relieve me of coming up with a new and different angle on what the elections mean, or rather what we are being told they mean.