All of The Internets are busily writing history this morning, but I'd like to zero in on this bit of CNN exit polling:
Sixty-two percent of voters named the economy as their most important issue this year. Health care ranked a distant second, at 19 percent, with illegal immigration and Afghanistan trailing at 8 and 7 percent.
This seems right on track with what we’ve seen from other news outlets. To the vast majority of voters, this election was about the economy and – to a lesser degree – about health care reform. Practically the only argument not being made is that yesterday’s election was a national referendum on social issues.
Let me, then, step into that lonely void.
Yesterday’s election marks a dramatic return to the culture wars.
The 112th Congress will be dominated by fights over social issues, from abortion to family planning to abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. Two years from now, we will look back on November 2, 2010, as the day that far-right Republicans used a wave of economic frustration to usher in the most anti-choice, anti-sex ed, anti-LGBT, anti-family planning Congress in our nation’s history.
And this "bait and switch" will take most of the country entirely by surprise.
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