The health insurance industry has proposed $300 billion in taxpayer subsidies for … the health insurance industry. 

We are shocked. 

In the Senate, the Republicans have just elected pork barrel champion Trent Lott (R‑MS) to be their second-ranking leader. I guess the GOP wants to get a headstart on losing the 2008 election. 

Over in the House, the battle over the majority leader’s position is being fought between John Murtha (D‑PA) and Steny Hoyer (D‑MD). According to the Washington Post, Murtha is a corruption-tainted supporter of the recent orgy of congressional earmarks, while Hoyer is a more moderate and sensible choice for leader.

But let’s not get too excited about Steny Hoyer. In a 2004 story, the Washington Post portrays him as an unapologetic champion of bringing home federal spending goodies to his Maryland district. Indeed, he is one of the 10 most prodigious porkers in the House. When asked whether Congress ought to end pork barrel spending, Hoyer said “I hope not…pork barrel is in the eye of the beholder.”

The election is over, and the time has come to determine what the voters said by looking at the exit polls. Here’s what I see in the data served up with two caveats.

First, “the people” don’t say much except “No.” Of course, “no” to the ruling party also means “yes” to the alternative, in this case to the Democrats. But there is no collective mind that instructs the government in any detail beyond “no.”

Second, I’m going to compare 2006 exit poll data to a similar survey in 2004. But there are two differences. The electorate in the 2004 presidential contest was about 50 percent larger than the turnout last week. Many of the differences between 2006 and 2004 you are going to hear about in the next week or two will be relatively small. For example, self-described conservatives made up 34 percent of the voters in 2004 and 32 percent this year. That difference may just reflect the relative propensity of conservatives to vote in presidential and midterm elections (or it may just be random variation). (I can’t compare 2006 to the last midterm in 2002 because of problems with the latter poll). For this reason, I’m only going to pull out of the data largish differences between 2004 and 2006.

In general, the 2006 electorate was not all that different from the 2004 group. However, there are some differences:

Self-identified independents (26 percent of the vote) went from a 48–49 Republican-Democratic split to 39–57 favoring the Dems.

In 2004, 84 percent of self-identified conservatives voted for the GOP. This year 78 percent did.

Self-described moderates split 45–54 Republican-Democrat in 2004. This year the division was 38–60 against the GOP.

45 percent of the electorate said in 2006 that they attended church once a week or more. The GOP lost 6 percent of that group compared to 2004 while the Democrats were up 4 percent.

The Republicans also were down 5 percent among Protestants and 8 percent among Roman Catholics. Just over 80 percent of voters identify as Protestant or Catholic.

Asked about the importance of various topics, 67 percent said Iraq was either extremely or very important. 82 percent said the same about the economy; 74 percent said the same about corruption and ethics.

What does it all mean? The GOP lost significant support among independents, moderates, conservatives, and the pious, especially Roman Catholics. Each of these groups is a significant part of the electorate.

The question of the independent is especially interesting. 26 percent of the electorate told exit pollsters that they were independent of party. Earlier studies suggest only about 10 percent of the electorate are actually independent, and they are less likely to vote. Most “independents” do vote for one of the major parties whatever they say to exit surveys. My guess is that the GOP lost the votes this time of a lot of self-identified independents who normally vote Republican.

Exit polls do not ask people whether they are libertarians. My thought – yet another guess – would be that libertarians might identify themselves as independents in party and either as moderate or conservative in ideology. If so, the GOP lost their vote too.

Commentators often say the Republican party is a balancing act between economic libertarians and social conservatives. A GOP majority is always precarious: what pleases economic libertarians must alienate social conservatives and vice-versa. In 2006, the Republicans’ conduct of government along with the Iraq war alienated both aspects of its base along with many other voters who are not attached to one of the parties.

The picture is not all bleak for Republicans in 2008. In 2004, President Bush won two-thirds of the open and formerly Republican House districts that elected Democrats in 2006. Many of them could return to the GOP in 2008.

Democrats will have two years to dig in their incumbents in. If they can hold their majority in 2008, I would not bet against a Democratic House for a generation.

Finally, a strange result. When exit polls asked “Will the Democrats make American safe?,” fully 29 percent of Democrats answered “no.” The party apparently has yet to convince on national security.

In today’s American Spectator online, I ask what it would be like if coffee shops were run like public schools. The piece was inspired by (and references) a recent Seattle School Board meeting that went badly off the rails.

On Friday I picked my son up at Union Station. He came home for the weekend to go see Corteo with the family. He has only been at college for a few months. I miss his smile. I miss his questions. He and his girlfriend were so polite. They were being the adults while I was being the child. I just couldn’t help myself. I told them all about my new job, what I had done that day, what I had done the day before, my plans for the weeks to come.

On the way home in the car, Nathan said, “Hey, Mom. I’ve written a new poem.”

“Really?” I answered, realizing how selfish I’d been. “Let’s hear it.”

And I ask you

Speak to me of freedom? You know not what it means
but take its name and shackle those with whom you disagree
You wave a flag of righteousness; you bellow and you scream
That those who are not as you are they never should have been

Speak to me of god and tell me what he thinks
of bigotry and hatred for the love each person makes
A fellowship, a flock for which you try to build a wall
The blackest sheep is slaughtered as an offering to them all

Speak to me of love and tell me what it takes
to make a love and test it true, the arrow to be straight
One path is true one path is tried one path we will allow
Two people bound in heart and mind but cannot give a vow

Speak to me of law and tell me what is just
a chance for those with tyrant tendencies to run amok
A forum for the many to oppress a hapless few
Virginia is for lovers, but there’s no room here for you.

Nathan Revere (Nov. 2006).

In my book, Buck Wild: How Republicans Broke the Bank and Became the Party of Big Government, I argue that many voters no longer see the GOP as the party of small government. 

Now a new poll from the Club for Growth provides more quantitative backing to my narrative. It’s based on a survey taken in 15 congressional districts. Each of the districts was represented by an incumbent Republicans and each district was generally considered among the most competitive for the GOP this year. Neither were the Democratic or Republican candidates on the ballot in these districts suffering from a scandal that touched them directly.

Two damning results:

Q: “Now tell me whether you think the following phrase better describes the Republicans or the Democrats in Washington: “The Party of Big Government”

Republicans: 39.3%
Democrats: 27.9%
Both: 16.3%
Neither: 9.3%
Don’t know/​Refused: 7.4%

Q: Would you agree or disagree with the following statement: “The Republicans used to be the party of economic growth, fiscal discipline, and limited government, but in recent years, too many Republicans in Washington have become just like the big spenders that they used to oppose.”

Agree: 65.8%
Disagree: 26.4%
Don’t know/​Refused: 7.9%

The Wall Street Journal published a great lead editorial this morning (subscription required) on the GOP House leadership’s losing campaign strategy of using immigration as a “wedge issue.” The strategy obviously failed.

As the Journal’s editorial staff observed:

Republicans on Tuesday managed both to lose their majority in Congress and alienate a fast-growing bloc of Latino swing voters. Other than that, the House GOP strategy of trying to save itself by bucking President Bush and using immigration as a wedge issue worked pretty well.

Republicans can’t say they weren’t warned. Like trade protectionism, the immigration issue is the fool’s gold of American politics. Voters like to sound off to pollsters about immigrants, yet they pull the lever with other matters foremost in mind. Elections seldom if ever turn on immigration, and the GOP restrictionist message so adored by talk radio, cable news and the nativist blogosphere once again failed to deliver the goods.

Such GOP anti-immigration crusaders as J.D. Hayworth of Arizona and John Hostettler of Indiana were tossed out of office by wide margins. Exit polls suggest that Republicans suffered a sizeable drop in support from Hispanic voters turned off by the harsh Republican rhetoric aimed at Hispanic immigrants. 

Of course, I call it a great editorial because it and this week’s election returns confirm my own warnings to Republicans about the dangers of running as the anti-immigration party (here and here).

Although the election results were not good news on free trade and other issues, the new Congress will probably be more open to the kind of real immigration reform the Cato Institute has been advocating.