Before we conservatives get carried away celebrating our big win, we need to remind ourselves what the win means. If the voters don't like us, and our policies, much better than they like them, and their policies, why did they vote for us? Answer: they did not vote for us; they voted against them. The big vote is not necessarily an endorsement of our values.
In a two-party system, the only effective way to punish one party is to vote for the other party. Our good fortune is a result of voters being really mad at the Democrats. So we may win a lot of House seats, several Senate seats, and quite a few down ballot seats because angry voters want to take them away from Democrats.
That means there is nothing keeping the electorate in 2012 from pivoting and voting just as strongly for the Democrats. If two years from now they are as disgusted with us as they now are with them, they will vote against us.
Two years ago pundits were writing that the GOP was dead, now we're doing great. Two years from now we could be dead again. As President Obama is discovering, winning a lot of votes doesn't equal a mandate for ones program. It turns out his program isn't popular.
Obama was the beneficiary of a lot of votes against President Bush. We may now be beneficiaries of a lot of votes against President Obama. Between now and 2012 we'd better figure out what the electorate wants done and be seen to be working hard toward those goals.
