US MIDTERM ELECTION REPUBLICAN WINS THE RACE

BARAK OBAMA’S PATH IS CLEAR TO TURN OFF

The midterm election of 2010, you may recall, was going to usher in a generation of Republican dominance. The election of 2008 presaged an era, if not an eon, of Democratic rule. So pardon us if we don't overinterpret the results of Tuesday's vote. Particularly when unemployment is approaching 10 percent, incumbents are going to take a beating. Nonetheless, there's no doubt that the midterm elections represent a sharp rebuke of President Barak Obama, and that many voters meant them that way. 

All of them have known Barak Obama’s first two years were better than he's getting credit for. Barak Obama’s policies, including the stimulus and intelligent use of TARP authority, helped avert the Great Depression II that threatened when he took office, though the Federal Reserve also played a key role. His financial reform legislation, paired with deft negotiations on international rules, began to fix weaknesses that allowed this financial crisis to develop. On health care, we had reservations about promising a big new entitlement at a time of such fiscal stress. But Mr. Obama included and fought for elements of reform that, if implemented well, could reduce the rate of growth of health-care costs, which is a prerequisite of fiscal health. Meanwhile, he has prosecuted the war against Islamist terrorism vigorously, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 

Another fault of Barak Obama’s for insufficient devotion to the poor democratic administration. The president has been, in domestic policy, a fairly conventional liberal, expanding regulation and social programs where he can (student loans, national service, health care), compromising where he must. There's nothing terrifying about that, but its very familiarity may be a source of his problems: Voters expected something less conventional. They believed, perhaps unrealistically but certainly with Mr. Obama's encouragement, that he could rise above petty partisanship and stale left-right debates. That hasn't happened. The White House blames the opposition for willful noncooperation; Republicans blame the administration of Barak Obama’s is nothing but a empty vessel.