What’s the message?

I’m hearing a lot of bloviating punditry on just exactly what message the electorate sent to Washington on Tuesday.  Depending on who is “analyzing” the election results, the possibilities are as follows:

1.      The electorate is angry about the “socialist agenda” of the Obama/Reid/Pelosi “axis of evil,” and we all voted for the Republicans to “repudiate” that agenda.

2.      The electorate is angry and scared about the economy.  The Democrats have had two years to fix it and they’ve failed, so we all voted for the Republicans to try something different.

3.      The electorate is just generally angry, so we all voted for the Republicans to change things.

4.      The electorate is angry at both parties because they’ve been too busy playing partisan politics to do anything effective to address the economic problems we’re facing, so we all voted for the Republicans to punish the incumbents.

I’m sure that some segment of the electorate voted for only one of these reasons, but I suspect that others’ motivations were far more complex and nuanced.  Unfortunately, the pundits’ simplistic analyses will become the accepted narratives.  Sad to say, all but #4 can and will be interpreted by the Republicans as a “mandate” not to compromise or cooperate with the Obama administration and the Congressional Democrats.  As always, the Republicans will cleave to their base” and remain the Party of NO.  In addition, they will have to accommodate the agenda of Republican freshmen who were elected as Tea Party candidates.  And although I will enjoy watching Boehner and McConnell deal with their Tea Partiers, I’m sure that their problems will not facilitate any genuine progress in the House or the Senate. 

It seems to me that it would be a good idea if we all communicated with our elected representatives on a regular basis, just to remind them that we expect them to actually DO SOMETHING to make things better.  I’m planning on doing just that.  Will you make that commitment?   Will you ask your friends to spread the message?  Who knows?  Maybe we can make a difference over the next two years. . .