NoVaPolitics.com

It turns out, I was optimistic yesterday in my prognostication, but only by a little. It looks likely Sen. Allen will lose to Jim Webb, and Sen. Burns of Montana will lose to Tester. Thus the Democrats will also take control of the Senate in addition to the House.

Clearly, the election was not a victory for leftism in the United States. That leaves two explanations for the result, which are not necessarily mutually exclusive. One theory holds that the GOP went too polar to the right and conceded the center (h/t RCP):

“The story line really is that the Democrats are winning the middle,” said Democratic pollster Al Quinlan.

Veteran GOP pollster Bill McInturff said: “Iraq is front and center of this election, and people voted for change. The GOP base held — was motivated and voted — but the margins among independents and moderates [for Democrats] was too much to overcome.”

The other theory is that Republicans were not conservative enough and became like Democrats, a party of establishment power, big government and etc. (h/t RCP):

In assessing last night’s results it is important to note that it was not a defeat for conservatism; it was a defeat for Republicanism, or at least, what Republicanism has come to represent. In the past 12 years, Republicans went from the party that promised “the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public’s money” to the party of the Bridge to Nowhere; it took control of Congress on a pledge to “end its cycle of scandal and disgrace” and went down in defeat as the party of Tom DeLay and Mark Foley.

Having abandoned its core principles, the Republican Party had nothing to run on this year, so its campaign strategy centered on attacking Nancy Pelosi — a questionable tactic given that, according to some polls, more than half of the country had never even heard of her.

Likely both explanations have some merit. In many parts of the country, including “red” areas, even GOP stalwarts like Jon Kyl had a bad scare, showing just how unhappy the conservatives were with Republicanism as opposed to conservatism.

Moreover, the independents did turn sharply against the GOP in places like Montana (almost two-to-one) and Virginia (56 to 44). In fact, in Virginia, the GOP was actually pretty successful in rallying the Republicans. The voter breakdown was: 36% Democrats, 39% Republicans and 26% independents. The GOP actually got 94% of the Republicans to vote Allen while the Democrats fell short at 93% of the Democrats voting for Webb. The crucial difference was the independent vote, which went 56-44 to Webb.

Here goes my mantra again about Northern Virginia: the Democrats were successful in rallying the urban and closer-in suburbs of D.C. while the Republicans were apparently very successful in turning out the base of white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant evangelical (WASPE) voters from the rural areas of Virginia. The key battleground was the exurb, especially the now vote- and money-rich Loudoun County (where I happen to live). Here Webb received just the margin necessary (52-48 the last time I checked*) to carry the day.

People who do not live in Loudoun simply have no idea or feel for the magnitude of change that has occurred in what was once a reliably Republican exurb (touted by David Brooks earlier as the kind of stereotypical Republican exurban stronghold that delivered for President Bush and the GOP). The electorate in Loudoun County is now decidedly less white, less rural and less Christian, let alone evangelical. I live in a typical new middle class housing development that sprang up in the last three years here, and my neighbors are an ethnically mixed — but economically affluent — lot of families of Indian, Vietnamese and Korean descent (just to name a few) intermingled with the WASPEs.

The strategy of catering to the socially close-knit group of WASPEs is no longer enough and can even be counterproductive by making the party appear exclusionary to non-WASPE voters who might otherwise be attracted to the principles of conservatism, especially limited government, free enterprise and strong national security. I elaborated on this topic at some length before in Home Ownership and Minorities. Let me repeat the conclusion of that piece:

None of this means that the GOP has to dilute its conservative agenda in order to attract non-white voters. The conservative message of limited government, free enterprise, strong national defense and traditional values (not to mention school accountability and choice) resonate very well with home owning, upwardly-mobile non-white voters in this area. The issue, rather, is more one of both outreach and tone. The GOP has to join the fray and make its agenda known to them, and make them feel, not just cerebrally realize, that the GOP agenda do represent their interests as home owners, business operators and tax payers.

Indeed, what the GOP needs to recover areas like Loudoun County is, simply put, what I call rainbow conservatism. It means expanding the base by appealing to affluent non-white voters with the agenda that serves their interests — emphasizing, for example, low taxes, school choice and tough law enforcement — over the social and religious ties that currently motivate the WASPE base in the area.

If the GOP here fails to adjust, however, the base strategy of today will provide an ever diminishing return for the Republicans and will likely render the party a permanent minority in the exurbs as is the case in the closer-in suburbs of D.C.

*Update: Loudoun is now 50-49 for Webb with 96% reporting (Fairfax County went 59-40 for Webb; Prince William 51-48 for Webb; Fauquier went 57-42 Allen).