The Biggest Losers of Election 2014

After reviewing the huge Republican wins, I want to focus on the Biggest Losers of Election Day 2014. Despite conservative fears that law-abiding, God-fearing Americans were losing the culture war, that the supposedly inexhaustible cache of Democratic campaign cash would overwhelm strong yet under-funded challengers, Republicans won unprecedented electoral victories: House, Senate, legislatures and governorships. The losses on the left side of the aisle were staggering, and the many players have much to reconsider in future campaigns.

The Democratic Party (President Obama)

Of course, the Democratic Party bottomed out this year. Their losses were staggering. The turnout was better than 2010, though not as great as 2012. So, all this talk about the non-voting two-thirds means nothing. The Democratic Party's presidential prospects are looking bleak. President Obama will face two years of humbling resistance from a diverse yet united Republican Congress. The Democratic brand is in tatters. Democrats in the most successful of states, (success defined by implementation of progressive policies), find residents fleeing rather than settling. High taxes, outrageous regulations, spending deficits and unhinged debt, pandering to illegal immigrants while ignoring legal residents: blue states have gotten bluer, red states have gotten better, and everyone sees the difference.

Hillary

Hillary Clinton was the inevitable 2008 Democratic Presidential nominee, and yet unexpectedly lost by a not-so-compelling margin, to leftist Illinois senator Barack Obama. After standing by her man (not Bill) for four years, then walking away with an unaccomplished record (aside from four deaths at Benghazi), Hillary has more baggage than George Herbert Walker Bush in 1992. She is the Democratic Party's John McCain: the unenvied successor to the Presidential mantle for the party, the standard-bearer who will have to defend the Last Eight Years, including the first four as the failed Secretary of State. The Middle East is burning, Europe is churning, and the world at large (including the United States) is yearning for leadership to thwart evil and affirm life and liberty.

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Hillary Clinton will likely not run for President in 2016.

Democratic Presidential Prospects 2016

Democrats will have a hard time fielding someone else for 2016. Where is the deep bench of Democratic candidate ready for Presidential prime time? Among the US Senators, not many. Five of them lost (or will lose) reelection this year, and of those who got elected in 2012 do not inspire confidence or consensus. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts? Definitely. She is unapologetically progressive, socialist to the brink of stupidity. A female George McGovern or Walter Mondale, she will turn off gun-rack, conservative Democrats, plus the millions of jobless millenials mugged by hunger pangs and weak employment prospects. Governor Jerry Brown of California? Perhaps, but he is the quintessence of Old White Male, everything which the Democratic Party has tried not to be.

Big Media

A small-time US Senator from a big-time state of corruption coasted on anti-war, anti-Bush sentiment to take down a decorated war veteran. How did he do it? The Mainstream Media (with king-maker Oprah Winfrey) held his juvenile hand all the way to Convention Day. The first African-American general election candidate, the son of a broken home, global student, an intellectual married to another one, connected with one of the most deeply entrenched (and sclerotic) political machines in the country, Barack Obama carried all the network novelty that the Big Three (CBS, NBC, ABC) were craving. Their desires ate them from within. President Obama was one of the least transparent administrations in modern history. With an enemies list and a reckless Department of Justice, Obama marginalized or terrified journalists. Besides direct assaults on their integrity and purity, Big Media's complicit silence on Obama's growing list of scandals delegitimized its role in American culture, and diminished its relevance. A new media composed of upstart websites, independent bloggers, and the far-reaching influence of sites like Breitbart, Townhall.com, Hot Air, and others have challenged the lie of an unbiased reporting apparatus. Aside from Fox News, cable networks and news programs are tanking in the ratings, losing key demographics.

Big Labor

Labor unions are losing membership as businesses flee the country, or employers reject unionization. The remain viable collective bargaining units, public sector unions, suffered two huge blows to their hegemony in two state gubernatorial races: Wisconsin and Michigan. Incumbent Scott Walker survived his third election in four years, humiliating Big Labor's latest desperate attempt to remove the leaders who curbed their undue political influence. Incumbent Rick Snyder survived his own reelection bid, which will let stand his right-to-work reforms, both pro-worker and pro-economic growth. Other states can learn from their examples to enact union reforms, save their bankrupting states, and end the easy money which labor unions have unfairly taken from their members.

Gun Control Advocates

Nanny state Michael Bloomberg spent millions on gun-control candidates, and they all lost. The Democratic Party shot at the wrong adversary when targeting the NRA and gun owners, many of whom prize self-preservation and government opposition over political affiliation. Pro-Second Amendment Democrats were replaced by pro-gun Republicans. Why? Their party platform and spokesman, Barack Obama, aggrandized gun violence to seize firearms from law-abiding gun owners. How quickly liberals forget: it was The Shot Heard Round the World which ignited the rebellion, which birthed a new nation conceived in liberty, dedicated to equality of all men. The Biggest Losers in 2014 all opposed the Constitution, the proper domains of the state, the necessary checks and balances on political power. They were soundly rebuked, and resoundingly rejected.