How large was the R sweep?

[L.Wood]

The Republican sweep into House control of Congress was large (60). How large requires that you put it into perspective.

Historical Mid-Term Losses

1930-(R)..Hoover...........60

1938-(D)..FDR................79

1946-(D)..HST................66

1958-(R)..Ike.................60

1966-(D)..LBJ................56

1974-(R)..Nixon.............52

1994-(D)..Clinton...........62

Source Wikipedia

Why did it happen? Economic forces in America always fund a strong backlash. Note the huge losses FDR experienced. Likewise compare it to the huge agenda he pushed through most of which remains today.

There was a sea change in the 21 months following Jan 20, 2008 too. Rachel Maddow summarizes it:
.....
"But in this moment, before it is judged by voters, what did Democrats do? What did Democratic politicians do? What did the Democratic Party do with these last 21 months? What did they stand for? What were they made of?

It turns out what they were made of was historic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
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BRIAN WILLIAMS, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: The White House started this day on a much different note, as President Obama signed his first bill into law. The new law makes it easier for workers to sue for pay discrimination.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With the stroke of a pen, another big break from the Bush era. Democrats in Congress have been trying to get this equal pay law through for nearly two years. Today, it became a reality.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

MADDOW: The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act for women—that was President Obama and this Democratic Congress‘ first legislative achievement together way back in January of 2009, a bill that had languished in Congress for years.

The start of much more legislative achievement to come.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today, the president signs the bill imposing new rules on credit card companies. The bill was aimed at sparing consumers from sudden interest rate hikes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today, President Obama signs a bill that gives the Food and Drug Administration unprecedented power to regulate tobacco. The bill will allow the FDA to reduce nicotine in tobacco products, block labels such as low tar and light, and tobacco companies will also have to put large graphic warnings on cartons of cigarettes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president and Democrats can point to one imminent success here in Washington for the marchers. That is the imminent passage of a hate crimes bill that would make it a federal crime to commit an assault based on sexual orientation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Senate has passed a bill that the president has been pushing that would extend government-sponsored health insurance for about 4 million uninsured children.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
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MADDOW: Children‘s health instance, hate crimes legislation, tobacco regulation, credit card reform. Taken individually: all major legislative accomplishments. Taken together: some of the underpinnings of the most legislatively productive 21 months in decades.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
CHUCK TODD, NBC NEWS POLITICAL DIRECTOR: The president did make an additional bit of history. A major revamping of how college student loans are going to be handed out for years to come.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The legislation ends a 45-year program that provided federal subsidies to banks and private lenders that offered government-backed college loans. Starting July 1st, those guaranteed loans will be offered only by the Department of Education.

CHRIS MATTHEWS, “HARDBALL” HOST: Three major figures of the Democratic Party: President Obama, Senator Ted Kennedy, and former President Bill Clinton, all gathered together with Republican Orrin Hatch for the signing of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. The bill triples the size of the country‘s national service programs which are now as AmeriCorps.

WILLIAMS: We also have new numbers tonight on just how successful this cash-for-clunkers trade-in program actually was in the end.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thanks to the cash-for-clunkers program, pretty much entirely do it. It‘s going to be a pretty solid August in terms of those auto sales.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)
MADDOW: Bailing out the American auto industry, which worked by the way, tripling the size of AmeriCorps, America‘s national service programs. A fundamental reshaping of this country‘s student loan industry, which as someone who was up to my neck in student loans for a very long time, I can tell you it was an unbelievably stupid system, in drastic need of reform.

Taxpayers were guaranteeing those loans, so assuming all of the risk and paying private companies to administer the loans at a profit. So the student loan companies took on no risks and got paid for providing no service, other than an insulating, pointless, waste-only layer of bureaucracy. That is now gone at long last. And the savings from that being gone means more loans for more Americans to go to college, student loans.

And these other reforms accomplished and signed into law in not even two years. And we haven‘t even gotten to the big-ticket items yet.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Less than a month in office, and the president made dramatic history with a simple stroke of the pen.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There you go. It‘s done.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Signing into law America‘s largest economic recovery package ever.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: You‘ve certainly heard a lot about the stimulus bill over the last 18 months or so. In terms of its historic oomph, though, not just the way it‘s being fought about in this election, consider that the stimulus was the single largest tax cut ever. It was the largest investment in clean energy ever. It was the single largest investment in education ever.

Also, there was something that the kids call health reform.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: It‘s as close to universal health care as America will likely ever come, and it will improve the health care of millions of Americans in size and scope. It‘s being compared to Medicare and Social Security. And tomorrow, health care reform will be signed into law by the president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)
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MADDOW: Health reform—the legislative white whale that had eluded Americans for generations. Health costs, the thing in the middle of our deficit and debt fights that nobody ever talks about and that nobody was ever able to do anything about despite the fact that they were massively responsible for America‘s fiscal disaster.

Health reform—done. Health reform done with the stroke of a pen—not single payer, not a European-style government system. But a system that will get more than 95 percent of the country on to health insurance and that will control a raging out-of-control disastrous health care cost for the first time ever.

Then, four months later—
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

WILLIAMS: Almost two years now after the entire banking system almost collapsed, President Obama signed the financial reform bill into law.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With the stroke of a presidential pen, the new financial regulatory reform law is aimed at curbing the excesses on Wall Street, while protecting average Americans who live and work on Main Street.

OBAMA: All told, these reforms represent the strongest consumer financial protections in history—in history.

MADDOW: Wall Street reform, a landmark rolling back of financial deregulation that led this nation into the fiscal—the financial catastrophe that we experienced at the end of the Bush administration and the deepest recession in nearly a century. Historic headline-grabbing achievements like that ultimately overshadowed lot of other major agenda items of the last two years.

Quote, “The 111th Congress may be remembered for banner legislation such as health care reform, financial reform regulation, and the Recovery Act, but, in our view, the real successes were the passage of bills that affected every veteran in America.” That‘s the national commander of the American Legion.

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President Obama and the Democrats in Congress did more for veterans in these last 21 months than has been done in a very long time. They approved the most funding ever for the Veterans Administration. They expanded V.A. access to veterans. They authorized assistance for caregivers of veterans and for female veterans.

Over the last 21 months, Democrats passed 21 separate tax cuts. They passed the most significant land conservation bill in nearly two decades. They created a consumer financial protection agency.

And—oh, by the way, they shrunk the federal deficit in the process.

The Democratic Party has had control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives for the last 21 months. Forget the individual fights over the individual provisions of the individual bills. Forget the lost amendment fights and the process complaints.

Democrats had a choice when they became the governing party. When they won those last two elections and they took control of the two branches of government that are subject to partisan control in our country, they could have governed in a way that was about accumulating political capital with the primary goal of winning the next election. They could have governed in constant campaign mode.

Or they could have governed in a way that was about using their political capital, not accumulating more of it, about spending the political capital they had to get a legislative agenda done, to tackle big, complex, longstanding problems that had languished.

The record of legislative achievement of the last 21 months was not designed to win the midterm elections and it will not win the midterm elections. The pendulum will swing back toward the Republicans and we‘ll go back to divided government again.

The legislative agenda of the last 21 months was policy, not politics. It was designed to get stuff done for the country. And in that sense, it‘s an investment in long-term political reward, not short-term political reward, as Democrats expect after a list of accomplishments like this to be judged as the party that took on problems when it had the chance, even if they had to pay a short-term political price.

The political capital that Democrats accumulated over the last two elections was spent in these last 21 months. And it was spent on policy, hard votes with long-time horizons that don‘t translate into killing the other party in the next election.

If you listen to the criticism, particularly from the left, heading into these elections, what you often hear is that Democrats are going to lose in these elections because they didn‘t get enough done. You know, big picture, if that were true, that would be depressing."
....
Transcript of Maddow's Nov 1, 2010 show is here

To see the full Rachel Maddow Show video of Nov 1, 2010 go here.

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