Clinging to the Raft

Despite a poor night in the mid-term elections, President Obama can count himself lucky he did not yield both Houses like Bill Clinton in 1994.

The situations have strong parallels; a young, inspiring Democrat President takes the top job just as the economy starts 'tanking'. Naturally he gets a disproportionate degree of blame. It makes Obama's task as progressive a whole lot more difficult having the Democrat majority in the lower House overturned. Nancy Pelosi's tenure as Speaker is certainly over and she has handed to Republican John 'Perma-tan' Boehner (above).

But the Senate was not lost. The surging tide of the Tea Party stopped at Nevada where the rather grey but totally solid Harry Reid fended off the extraordinary challenge of the eccentric Sharron Angle. Reid's narrow win was pivotal in keeping a Democratic majority and also symbolic in defeating the shrill disaffected voices of extreme politics.

Angle ran, by any standards, a disreputable campaign. She showed a poor grasp of the subject matter which was exposed by the simplest of media questioning. Her response was to no longer engage with the media except at arms length photo-ops. Perhaps that lost her the final momentum. In an ideal world her loss would have been caused by a backlash from her endorsement of somewhat racist camapign ads where Latinos were pictured busting through border fences to terrorise white communities. Nevada has no border with Mexico.

But some other Tea Party favourites are to be elevated and their mysterious view of modern America will have a greater voice. It is odd from this side of the Atlantic to see middle and lower income voters rush to support candidates like Rand Paul (Kentucky) and Joe Miller (Alaska) who argue about withdrawing the provision of medicare and even the minimum wage.

Paul in his victory speech said, "We've come to take our Government back," which implies a presumption to govern and a certain contempt for democracy. Many millions of dollars poured in anonymously from a small group of corporate heads to fund the Tea Party campaigns eventhough one of their few uniting principles is fighting against these powerful and hidden elites.

We are now at the phase where both sides make futile gestures toward bi-partisanship then retreat to plot bloody murder. The test will be whether the strengthened Republicans still wish to make good their commitment to continue with Bush's colossal tax cut for the top two percent of earners. To do so would mean abandoning from the outset any ambition to significantly reduce the deficit let alone balance the budget.

There is a battle going for the soul of the Republican Party and the old guard will have to ensure Sarah Palin does not make it as their candidate in 2012. Esteemed journalist and speechwriter to Bush Jnr, David Frum, warned fellow Republicans there was no future in simply portraying President Obama as "some kind of Kenyan interloper," if they wanted to see a more substantial support for conservatism.

But Boehner has already said he wants to "reverse" Obama's healthcare reforms. The system of voting in the Senate may be obscure but if they try and dismantale his achievements at least the Constitution gives Obama the biggest of all trump cards: the veto.