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David Pakman: Hey, welcome to the show. I’m David Pakman, and that’s right, it’s no longer Midweek Politics, it’s now The David Pakman Show. But Louis, that pales in comparison as news to what has happened in the last 24 hours. We have election results. More about the name of the show later. I mean, come on, the name of the show? Did you see what happened last night?

Louis Motamedi: Well, I was watching CNN, yeah.

David: Right. I was flipping all over, and as expected, I think there were some surprises, not that many. The exit polls early in the day confirmed what we already sensed, and the election result eventually confirmed it officially, which is that the Republicans have taken over control of the House, they have not taken over control of the Senate after this midterm election. They have gained a number of different governor seats. We’ve got a lot to go through here, Louis.

Louis: We do indeed.

David: I don’t know where to start. Now, here’s… last week on the show, I predicted that the House, let’s just go through the House first, the House would go to Republicans. I said 235 to 200. And by the way, if you’re chatting with us live on our live Ustream feed, if you’re watching live, feel free to tell us what your prediction was and how you did. Louis had it going to Republicans 240 to 195, so pretty close. Bill Scher who was in-studio with us from LiberalOasis.com said Democrats would hold the House. So his prediction did not fare too well.

The numbers that I have here are, we don’t have fully confirmed numbers on all, we have 11 seats still not projected, but where we’re at right now is 239 for the GOP, 185 for the Democrats, still 11 seats kind of hanging out there, hanging out to dry so to speak. We have to dry them off and see what the results are. Republicans have taken over. They have won more seats in one election than has ever happened since 1948. We don’t know exactly what that number will be.

John Boehner won, he will likely be the next Speaker of the House. You know, Louis, I was thinking, we watched a black president be elected, and by the way, to Natan, I don’t know what it is that’s playing on our live video feed, but we’re seeing graphics from previous shows and all sorts of weird stuff is coming up. But let me go on though, Louis.

Louis: I think I know where you’re going with this.

David: John Boehner…

Louis: We’re going to have the first orange Speaker of the House.

David: That’s exactly right. The country is open to people of different colors, because we have elected a black president, and now realistically, we will have an orange Speaker of the House.

So John Boehner making some news when he cried last night at his victory speech. I’ll play a little bit of that for you. We have video from just all over. Let’s get going with this.

[CLIP]

John Boehner: … chasing the American Dream.

[Applause]

[Crowd chants, "USA! USA!"]

[David chuckles]

Boehner: All right.

David: All right. You tell me all right.

[END CLIP]

David: All right, so John Boehner getting very broken up. And apparently, you know what it must be, Louis, he must be sad about the fact that in 1994 when the Republicans took over basically because of Newt Gingrich’s leadership and vision, and he was really the catalyst for change, people knew that. And I think John Boehner knows that he is not like Newt Gingrich in 1994, he is really a follower. He is not a leader in this thing. And we’ll see what exactly becomes his legacy, assuming he is Speaker of the House, but he is not like Newt Gingrich.

Louis: That doesn’t mean he can’t become that leader.

David: No, but the thing is, Newt Gingrich was the leader of the House takeover.

Louis: Right.

David: Right? And John Boehner, if anything, would be kind of the de facto leader after other forces put him into that position.

Louis: Right.

David: It’s a very different scenario. And John Boehner, I mean, personality-wise, say what you will about Newt Gingrich, John Boehner is not Newt Gingrich.

Louis: I don’t even think we can attach a name to… to this movement.

David: Well, we’ll get to that. I mean, that’s a good thing, is this the Tea Party? I don’t think so. I mean, if you look at… so Steve King, to follow up with the Congress, Steve King in Iowa did win, he is certainly a Tea Party candidate, so to speak. Alan Grayson, one of the real progressives from Florida, he’s already gone. He didn’t even make it very long in the Senate, and he’s out. So we can see, Louis, that the true progressives, the few that there are, many of them did not fare very well here.

And in the Senate, we have, our numbers, last week I said the Democrats would maintain control 52 to 48, Louis said it would go to Republicans, 51 to 49. Well, the way it’s looking right now is 51 to 47 and still with two uncalled seats. And both of those are pretty interesting. I’m actually going to check, maybe there’s been more news since we put this together about those two.

No, we still have those two seats not projected. We don’t yet know what’s going on in Colorado. I really hope that Ken Buck does not win that seat. I mean, Colorado Amendment 62-supporting Ken Buck.You know, last week we talked about Amendment 62, would essentially outlaw all abortions, even in the case of life or health of the mother or child. So what’s pro-life about that?

Louis: Right. Actually, and we did get an interesting email about that that we’ll talk about later.

David: That, we can talk about it right now, Louis. What did it say?

Louis: Should we? Yeah. Well, let’s see, let me go back to that.

David: I’ll just tell you because I know off-hand. It also would prevent a birth control pill, because that also apparently…

Louis: All forms of birth control?

David: I don’t think it’s all forms. Any chemical form, which would include, I guess, shots, patches.

Louis: Right, right.

David: All those things that Louis gets. All those things would essentially be outlawed.

Louis: All those things that keep me from becoming pregnant.

[laughter]

David: So I really hope Ken Buck doesn’t win. And they’re counting votes, it must be by hand up there in Alaska, it looks like, I don’t want to speak too soon, I’m optimistic that Joe Miller is not going to win.

So the Senate, that’s where we are there.

CLIP 2

Now, Christine O’Donnell fortunately lost. Unfortunately in the sense that Louis was going to dye his hair red, but fortunately in the sense that logic and reason must have set in, and people decided, hey, the guy who said he was a bearded Marxist when he was a kid, we prefer him over Christine O’Donnell. Here’s a little bit of Christine O’Donnell’s concession speech, which was… to say bizarre is an understatement.

[CLIP]

Christine O’Donnell: I cannot thank you enough. We worked hard, we had an incredible victory. Be encouraged. We have won. The Delaware political system will never be the same.

[END CLIP]

David: Right. So this is a… by the way, I know, Louis, listening to that, you look perplexed. That is a concession speech, even though the first thing she said is she won. I mean, could you imagine? Christine O’Donnell stated during her concession speech that the Delaware political system and the Republican Party will never be the same as a result of her.

Louis: I have to agree with that.

David: Yeah, we can only hope she’s right, to be frank here, and that neither Delaware voters nor Republicans will ever let another witchcraft-dabbling, Constitution-non-understanding, evolution-denying, anti-masturbation candidate like O’Donnell win a primary again. We can only hope that she’s right.

Louis: Maybe she just said to herself, ‘If I get more than 25% of the vote, I consider that a victory.’

David: You know what it is? This is what… I just realized, Louis, remember when Christine O’Donnell did an interview with, I don’t remember if it was Mark Gaffney or Dan Gaffney, and she said she tied Joe Biden and won a few counties because it was 49 to 49, even though she got less votes. She must just not understand that when you have less votes, you have lost. She must actually…

Louis: Basic mathematics and statistics?

David: She must think she has won, that’s the only explanation I can imagine. And this is unbelievable…

Louis: And she thought that was an acceptance speech, or…

David: No, no. Obviously we’re kidding, but the level of… She also mentioned they were going to have plenty of food and that they had the room all night. This came out a few days before the election, that during an interview where on WDEL, Christine O’Donnell was actually being asked real interview questions, and she didn’t like the way it was going and she motioned to an aide to kind of come over and intimidate the interviewer. This is amazing, take a look at this.

[CLIP]

Rick Jensen: You’re still, you know, $80 to $100 million in the hole…

O’Donnell: OK…

Jensen: … the year isn’t out. What would, what would you cut?

O’Donnell: Rick, I’m running for U.S. Senate.

Jensen: But what would you cut?

O’Donnell: I don’t have the budget in front of me.

Jensen: OK, well, that’s the question.

O’Donnell: And nor should I, because I’m not running for county executive, I’m running for U.S. Senate. Rick, I want to talk…

Jensen: [Simultaneous] But you’re criticizing him on running for county executive.

O’Donnell: I want to talk about what matters to…

[END CLIP]

David: OK, so if you’re not watching this, that snap you just heard, that was Christine O’Donnell motioning for her aide to come over, and basically he comes over and I’ll just kind of talk over this…

[CLIP]

O’Donnell: … to the Delaware voters. I want to talk about how…

David: He’s standing looking at the interviewer, and now he’s saying things off-mic. And then he takes out a pad of paper, and he just starts writing something down, and I don’t even know what it is.

O’Donnell: … And I just said to you.

Jensen: … [Simultaneous] … criticism of Chris Coombs, and it’s an honest challenge. So you don’t…

O’Donnell: I just said to you.

Jensen: OK, so you don’t really have the answer what you would do differently.

O’Donnell: No, I just gave you my answer. I would not have created sweetheart slush funds, I would not have…

David: OK, and then when he continues trying to get an answer, she kind of slaps her aide and says, ‘Do something about this!’

O’Donnell: There’s… there’s…

Jensen: [Simultaneous] How would you make us actually economically feasible in 2014?

David: There she goes.

O’Donnell: I’m not running for county council, Rick.

[END CLIP]

David: OK. So attempting to intimidate the interviewer so that no real questions are asked, threatening legal action, let’s all say thank you that Christine O’Donnell has lost. Although, the obvious question is, when will she be Fox News’s newest Senior Constitutional Analyst? Because you know, Louis, even though she knows nothing about the Constitution, she did study the Constitution in a 10-day course, and she calls herself a constitutional expert. So what better position on Fox News for her than Senior Constitutional Analyst?

Louis: And who wouldn’t love the publicity?

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David: Harry Reid. This was a big deal. This is one of the bright spots for Democrats. He was able to hold off crazy Sharron Angle. If you remember the things Sharron Angle said running up to the campaign, they included that she had confusion… she defended an ad that negatively depicted illegal immigrants by saying some of the illegal immigrants that were depicted in the video, which weren’t actually illegal immigrants, they “looked Asian”. That was her defense. She also said we should never have abortion, even in cases of rape and incest, because you know what, Louis? Rape and incest are part of God’s plan as well.

Louis: Right.

David: So we should never have those. About 10 points she lost to Harry Reid, and this, I was watching that one closely. 50, or actually it looks like the final numbers are only 5 points, 50 to 45, about 40,000 votes separating them. We dodged a bullet on that one.

Louis: Oh, definitely.

David: I mean, O’Donnell, Paladino, and Sharron Angle, really three that I am glad did not make it. Now, early news last night was that Rand Paul did win. Rand Paul successfully defeated Jack Conway in Kentucky and he is going to be the next Senator, considered essentially the biggest Tea Party victory, wouldn’t you say, Louis, from this election?

Louis: Yeah, I think so. He’s the, you know, he was like the head of this whole thing.

David: In a sense, yeah. He was at least the most vocal candidate. So let’s take a listen to a little bit of his acceptance speech and see what he’s thinking of doing next.

[CLIP]

[Applause]

Rand Paul: I have a message!

[Applause]

Paul: A message from the people of Kentucky! A message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: We’ve come to take our government back!”

[END CLIP]

David: OK. So I won’t trouble you with listening to the rest of that bizarre delivery, but there’s a lot to say about this Rand Paul victory. He talked about the Tea Party tidal wave, which has sent a message to Washington. He refers to the debt crisis without mentioning, by the way, Barack Obama’s deficit-reducing health care bill. He talks about being enslaved by debt. Well, Rand Paul will soon have to vote about the debt ceiling for the U.S. which realistically is going to have to go up. How will he vote? He has claimed many times he will not do anything that will increase the debt. What will he do, Louis?

I believe that he is not going to have a choice. My prediction is he is going to go back on that word and we’ll get the explanation from him, ‘Well, listen, that is what I ran on and that is what I believe, but here in the Senate, we have to make decisions based on reality.’ Not in campaigns. Campaigns, reality has nothing on what you say, but once in the Senate, hey, we’ll see. Which would be a big, big flip-flop, would it not?

Louis: We’ll see. It would definitely be, but I don’t know.

David: A little bit later, we’re going to get into just exactly which of Ron Paul’s — Rand Paul’s predictions will be feasible, and my argument to you is going to be that not many of them. And by the way, as we go to break here, the Kentucky stomper, Tim Profitt, has been charged with fourth-degree assault, this is the stomper from the — of the MoveOn.org member at a recent Rand Paul event. 12 months in jail, $500 fine is the maximum penalty. We’ll see what happens with that. We’ll be back on The David Pakman Show.

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Announcer: The David Pakman Show at DavidPakman.com.

David: Hey, welcome back to the show. So Louis, we have to explain what’s going on with the show. I think is now a fair time?

Louis: Definitely.

David: So Midweek Politics is gone as we know it. Today is our last Wednesday show, at least for a while. The show is now The David Pakman Show, the new website is DavidPakman.com, it’s PAKMAN. The old website is there for now, it’s going to go away soon, though. And we’re going to be doing two broadcasts instead of just one. We’re going to be on Mondays and Thursdays 3:00 pm Eastern. Monday, Thursday, 3:00 pm Eastern. We’ll be live on Ustream, podcasts will continue, so on and so forth.

And in conjunction with this, we are launching our Thanksgiving Membershp Drive. From now until our Thanksgiving show, Thursday, Thanksgiving, everybody knows what day Thanksgiving is. Is that on your birthday this year?

Louis: I think it’s the day before.

David: The day before.

Louis: Yeah.

David: We are going to be having some fantastic giveaways. We need to continue expanding our membership base which has allowed us to expand to two days a week, and this is just fantastic. Anybody who’s a member as of Thanksgiving day, Thanksgiving Eve, I believe it’s going to be, you’ll automatically be entered into — this, Louis, this is a hell of a giveaway, is it not? I’ve got all my stuff here. First Prize on this thing is the iPad. This needs no explanation. I mean, everybody knows what this is, do they not?

Louis: I think so, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past six months.

David: So we’ll be giving away an iPad as our First Prize. We will also be giving away as a Second Prize two CDs. And these are great, these have been… this is fantastic stuff. If you’ve heard of Capital Steps, if you’re an NPR listener, which we know is in trouble after the Juan Williams debacle, you are familiar with Capital Steps. You’ll get their latest album, “Liberal Shop of Horrors”, and you will also get Nathan Michael Marcuzzi’s latest album, “These Things”. Fantastic, socially conscious, we could even say organic, music, Louis.

And if you don’t come in first, you don’t get the iPad, you don’t come in second and get both of these, Nathan’s been nice enough to send us a few extra copies of these, so we’ll be giving out if you come in third, fourth, all the way to 10th, you’ll get one of these CDs. So Louis, this is incredible, is it not? 10 chances to win. You are supporting the show. It is the official Thanksgiving Membership Drive. So DavidPakman.com/membership. Louis as soon as he gets his credit situation straightened out is going to sign up for at least two memberships, are you not?

Louis: You know it.

David: OK. DavidPakman.com/membership. Do it. I’m telling you, you’ll feel good about it, everybody will feel good about it, and great things will happen on the show.

CLIP5

More election news. I want to continue in the Senate. We talked to Joe Sestak a few months ago, I really felt good about Joe Sestak’s campaign. And early on last night, it seemed that he was going to win. No such luck. There was a turnaround with the later counties that were tallied, and Pat Toomey won.

I kid you not. This was the former Club for Growth derivatives trader, Pat Toomey, who won. After derivatives were the subject of controversy, and they’re at the center of the collapse of many financial institutions’ scruples and their profits, the guy in charge of derivatives for a conservative group wins. Disappointing, Louis, and certainly an indicator of the pulse of the election.

Also, Marco Rubio won in Florida, let’s take a look at a little bit of his acceptance speech. And this was a three-way race, and you know what, in the end, we were thinking that the three-way component was going to possibly swing the election. Rubio got over 51% of the vote by himself.

[CLIP]

Megyn Kelly: … Marco Rubio is offering his victory speech, let’s take a listen.

Marco Rubio: [Simultaneous] And I’ll never forget that the next morning, my children showed up, and they had collected their allowance, which was largely quarters and single dollar bills, and handed it to me. I didn’t tell them that, they overheard me. And it was in that moment that I was reminded of what this race and election was really all about: It was not about any of our individual ambitions, but it was about the future as represented by them and their generation.

[END CLIP]

David: All right. So Marco Rubio winning there. And bizarre moment with Marco Rubio that I noticed, Wolf Blitzer, after they watched some of his speech, referred to Marco Rubio, the Republican Senate winner in Florida, as “very attractive”, and it was really a little bit awkward, I have to say. It was one of the stranger moments in CNN’s election-night coverage.

Louis: Wolf Blitzer says a lot of weird things, though.

David: He does, he does say a lot of weird things. And OK, so Joe Miller and Ken Buck, we’re still waiting on those. Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, who had the courage to vote against the Patriot Act, against essentially what everybody was doing at the time, lost to Ron Johnson, so that’s not good.

I want to move on to the governors’ races, and then there’s so much to follow up on in terms of what is next here in the United States. A lot of people are not talking about Republican gains in governorships, which as we go to air is about plus nine right now. And that’s a big deal. For whatever reason, it’s not making the same headlines. We did get, fortunately, in California, Meg Whitman did not win and Jerry Brown is back to being the governor of California. But the governor, you know, at a different level, these governors’ races are just as or more important in terms of what goes on in each individual state.

And here in Massachusetts, it was close, Louis. Deval Patrick, the Democrat who was up for reelection, it was not clear even until probably 9:00 pm yesterday that he was going to win reelection against Charlie Baker. Again, just an indicator of just how, how risky the situation was to Democrats.

Louis: Right. But of course, Massachusetts has a long history of Republican governors.

David: That’s right. It wouldn’t have been unprecedented in the sense that even when the entire country wasn’t voting for Republicans, Massachusetts has often voted for Republican governors.

Louis: Yeah.

David: It would’ve just added more and more to the claim, for sure.

Now, I think that this election represents the start of a change in American politics. Not the election itself, but I think it will end up being the catalyst. And I’m very curious, Louis, I mean, we’ve had in the last few years a lot of things go on. We’ve gotten rid of one of the first just bizarre presidents with certainly just questionable basic intelligence. He left. We elected the first black president. We now have, are going to have the first orange Speaker of the House. We had the first real significant plethora of bizarre candidates, like Carl Paladino and Christine O’Donnell. I don’t know exactly what will happen in 2012, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be different and it’s going to be fascinating.

Louis: Different in terms of the candidates we’ll see?

David: The candidates we’ll see, how the elections will be run. I mean, we already saw in this election a little bit that it was acceptable — the level of racism that was acceptable certainly was ratcheted up. That was a change. The amount of crazy personal background that could still get you onto the final ballot certainly was slackened. I mean, we saw big changes this time around.

Louis: Right. Would you call that a dumbing down of politics, though?

David: You know, those aren’t necessarily terms that I like to use, but certainly there’s an infotainment component that is going on in news that we have seen. I mean, who is doing the best in news? The news that is visually the most compelling and most entertaining is what is doing the best.

Louis: And who are the candidates that get the most attention? The candidates that are the most outrageous, usually.

David: The ones that get… Well, you know, I don’t know that I agree with you. They do get attention, but the candidates that actually end up winning aren’t the craziest, most outrageous ones. I mean, Jimmy McMillan…

Louis: That’s true, but I was just talking strictly in terms of media coverage.

David: In terms of quantity of coverage.

Louis: Right.

David: I don’t think I agree with you. I mean, Jimmy McMillan, for the amount of coverage he got compared to, for example, I don’t know, Marco Rubio, you would think Jimmy McMillan, if it was about media attention, would have won; obviously he didn’t, he didn’t even come in second.

Louis: Well, I’m not saying that, you know, their elections depended on the media coverage that they received, I’m just saying, I mean, who did you see more media coverage of more than anybody this entire election? Christine O’Donnell. Right.

David: [Simultaneous] Christine O’Donnell. Right. And it didn’t help her.

Louis: Clearly the most outrageous candidate.

David: Yeah. Yeah, I guess you’re… And we have to figure in, how much of a factor is it that she’s a woman, as well? I mean, is there more interest because she was a crazy female candidate versus a crazy male candidate? Maybe that attracted to the amount of attention.

Louis: I think so. It’s like the Sarah Palin effect.

David: Exactly. So let’s… We’ll talk about what’s next, first though, Louis, winners and losers. Obvious loser in this election, Democratic incumbents. I mean, no question about it. We saw in blue counties, in red counties, we can find Democratic incumbent losers just about anywhere. Winner: Wall Street. Many of the biggest Wall Street recipients won, Wall Street money recipients that is. And we know, Louis, what that will mean for Wall Street, do we not?

Louis: What’s that?

David: We know exactly what more Wall Street money recipients’ winning will mean for Wall Street. More of the same, more favorable legislation, more pats on the back, less regulation.

Louis: Well, Wall Street… I mean, Obama did Wall Street a lot of favors, too.

David: Well, we’re opening a whole other can of worms there, astutely so, Louis, but I don’t want to get bogged down in that discussion.

Louis: OK. Agreed.

David: I want to continue, winners and losers. You know who I was glad to see in the losers list, the self-funders. Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, Linda McMahon, they all spent a ton of their own money, millions, $170 million, I believe, in Meg Whitman’s case. Didn’t win. Now, some women’s groups have been getting some emails. Some women’s groups are not particularly happy with this. But they should be, since none of these women were really going to do anything for women’s rights anyway. I mean, if we talk about reproductive rights, if we talk about income equality, Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, and Linda McMahon, trust me, I believe are not the prominent female politicians that the women’s rights movement should want.

Louis: And not that it’s not important, but I mean, is women’s rights really a priority, you know, in the Senate right now?

David: It’s not, no.

Louis: Yeah.

David: But certainly… And, you know, Whitman was trying to be the governor of California, but you’re right. And certainly, these women winning would not have made it a priority. And other clear losers: progressives. I mean, as Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim reported, this was a clear loss for progressives. Tom Perriello, hard-working freshman whose progressive values are deeply held, worked hard as anyone in Congress, passionately articulated and defended his votes, raised a ton of money, lost to literally an empty-headed country-club Republican who didn’t take a position on anything other than cut taxes, cut spending, cut taxes, cut spending. Who does that sound like?

And Alan Grayson. Again, Joe Sestak. I mean, it was… Progressives certainly the losers, winner, Sarah Palin. Even though her doppleganger, Christine O’Donnell, did lose as did Sharron Angle, the perception is, after doing poorly in the general election, Sarah Palin swept in and delivered victories across the country. And you know that Sarah Palin has power when she can get incompetent people who have no business making political decisions for anybody onto the final ballot. And regardless of what happens, Louis, in the next two years, the 2010 midterms have helped Sarah Palin in her potential run for 2012, as scary as that is. So let’s take a break. Last loser, as we go out here, gladly, the Nazi reenacters, witches, and people who say rape and incest are God’s will. Take a break, we’ll be back.

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Various voices (Stephen Colbert, Cenk Uygur, Jon Stewart, et al): It’s these bailouts that represent the abandonment of capitalism… …Blowing the tops off mountains!… …If you’re out of a job, I guess you’re a bum. They don’t think that maybe it wasn’t their fault. Maybe it was your fault, Orrin Hatch… …In health care, the lie that we should just allow the industry to run in a free-market mode, the invisible hand of the market’s going to take care of itself, nothing is farther from the truth… …This is Obama’s “My Pet Goat” moment… …There’s a Bush [Censored]-up for that!… …Isn’t this the end of democracy as we know it, if 51 Senators can pass something against the will of the majority 49?

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Announcer: You’re listening to The David Pakman Show.

David: Welcome back to The David Pakman Show. If you missed it, Midweek Politics is gone, Louis. Today is the last time Midweek Politics will be on the air. Next week we will be back Mondays and Thursdays, 3:00 pm Eastern, with the David Pakman Show, DavidPakman.com is up. And today on the bonus show, you know what we’re going to be talking about, there’s been an ongoing situation. I actually had a conversation with Louis off the air about whether he was going to vote this election or not, because there’s been an ongoing issue with Louis. Bonus show, we’ll talk about did Louis vote, and if he didn’t, I don’t actually know yet, he hasn’t told me, I’ve told him not to tell me, there is going to be hell to pay, I’m just warning you right now, Louis. And also have we discovered a cure for the common cold, more on the behind-the-scenes not-safe-for-work type of election stuff that’s going on, and much, much more. So make sure to log onto DavidPakman.com/membership, become a member, it’s fantastic. I’m telling you, Louis’s entire family just absolutely loves it.

Now, let’s talk a little bit about what is going to happen in the next year, in the next two years before the 2012 election. First of all, what can we expect narrative-wise post-election? Here’s the things you can expect. You decide whether they’re true or not, a lot of these sound silly to me. Number one: Democrats lost because Obama failed to connect with voters, maybe even because he uses a Teleprompter. Barack Obama lost a lot of races for Democrats because he is an elitist, or is seen as an elitist. He failed to establish a clear rationale for his agenda. He’s too articulate, even though before the election, he was just articulate. He’s too liberal, or he’s not liberal enough and he should’ve shown more resolve. Expect to hear any or all of those things in the leadup to the 2012 election.

Now, some people didn’t fall for that, but some did. And I hate to do it, but again, there were… I don’t want to talk about… let’s have an honest discussion, as we did before the show, let’s have an honest discussion about the, what am I trying to say here? About the awareness of reality of the electorate, of the people who are voting. I mean, we saw people asked, “Why did you vote for Rand Paul?” “Well, I thought it was time for a change.” A change. That is why you vote for someone who says you know what, it actually should be OK to have signs saying “No Blacks Allowed” outside of a business, or we should abolish the Department of Education. It was time for a change. That’s the reason.

So here’s some of the misconceptions that, in talking to voters and looking at exit polls and looking at different polls, certainly played into what’s going on here. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying Democrats lost because people, they’re stupid. I’m not saying that. But in every election, we can look at what people believe and how they vote as a result, and here are some of the things.

For example, many people believe that President Obama tripled the deficit. The reality is that Bush’s last budget had a $1.4 trillion deficit, and Obama’s first budget reduced that to $1.29 trillion. Simply not true, Louis, but many people believe that. And you know that some of the people you talk to say hey, the spending! Spending, Obama’s spending too much.

Louis: Right, well, that’s usually what they say about any Democratic president.

David: President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy. The reality is Obama cut taxes. 40% of the stimulus was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt, which is, it was so much less effective than it could’ve been.

The stimulus didn’t work. The reality is the stimulus did work, it clearly wasn’t enough. Stimulus raised employment by between 1.5 to 3.5 million jobs. People have a hard time with the it-wasn’t-as-bad-as-it-would-have-been logic. I mean, I understand that, Louis. That’s a hard logic to sell as to why you should reward Democrats, is it not?

Louis: Right, well, especially this day and age, considering how polarized everything is.

David: And then the idea that businesses would hire if they only got tax cuts. You know, the reality is businesses hire the right number of employees to meet the demand for whatever product or service they offer. If you have extra cash, you wouldn’t hire. If a business has a demand all of a sudden, they will find the money to hire. Businesses need customers, not tax cuts.

Louis: Right. It’s hard to incentivize a small business to do anything if you’re government.

David: You need demand, essentially.

Louis: Right.

David: You essentially need demand. And of course, health care reform cost a trillion bucks, it actually saved $138 billion. These are not minor points, these matter.

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Now, the Tea Party was successful in a sense, in certainly media coverage, and they got a few candidates in there. Now, the Tea Party, don’t kid yourself, is a cultural movement, it is not just political. And that’s very clear from the rallies, and I’m not saying just look at the racist signs, but it is clearly a cultural movement. The culture, the Tea Party has a very specific culture associated with it. Issues may not be at the center of that, as we know. Smaller government, less spending, OK. But…

Louis: Angry people who want something to change drastically.

David: That’s right. So it is a cultural issue. Now, some GOPers are saying the Tea Party would exist even if McCain had won or if Bush had a third term. And then sometimes they say, well, illegal immigration concerns, that’s a reason why. Immigration has not been in the public discourse involving the Tea Party for months. Maybe at the beginning, but it’s certainly… Am I wrong, Louis? No one in the Tea Party or their candidates have mentioned immigration in any significant way in the leadup to the election.

Louis: No, it just doesn’t seem to… I don’t think it’s really been a huge issue since the presidential election.

David: Well, now what is the question? A friend of the show, comedian Jeff Kreisler, wrote on his blog today, “As the ebb and flow of politics takes us closer to the jagged rocks, should I keep screaming, “We’re going to crash!” or just relax for the ride?” This is representative of the way that some people are thinking about this. Is this getting so absurd and it’s going to clearly go downhill for these Republicans and Tea Party members who have won that we should just sit aside and let things go to hell, or does this mean we need to get involved and organize? What do you think, Louis?

Louis: Well, what can we really do? What kinds of crazy legislation do people think they’re going to pass. Yeah.

David: … Is going to pass. OK. Well, this brings up an interesting issue. Let’s go first to that. Let’s take Rand Paul, for example. Rand Paul is not going to be able to do anything that he has run on. Here’s an example. He wants to eliminate the Department of Education. He constantly touted that during his campaign. There is no chance Rand Paul is going to eliminate the Department of Education. Rand Paul wants the Bush tax cuts made permanent. It’s not going to happen. It’s just not going to happen. He is opposed to abortion, and he wants a human life amendment, and a life at conception act. He also opposes abortion in cases of rape and incest. Sorry, Rand, not going to happen.

Louis: Right, just because one Tea Partier has radical ideas, it doesn’t mean they’ll be implemented at any time.

David: That’s right. So that’s the question. Now, once we get to 2012, will the fact that 95% of what the Tea Party ran on and claimed would be good for the country will not happen, mark my words, it will not happen, who will that go against? Initially…

Louis: I see this going two ways.

David: Right.

Louis: This could further separate the Tea Partiers from the Republicans.

David: OK, I’ll tell you why you’re wrong…

Louis: Hold on. I mean, they could say, “Well, we couldn’t accomplish this due to too much opposition.”

David: From who?

Louis: From other Republicans as well.

David: All right.

Louis: Right?

David: OK, that’s one way it could go. What’s the other way?

Louis: Or it’ll just be recognized as a complete fail, what can you do? They can’t do anything about that.

David: OK. So here’s the situation. Number one, the Tea Party is going to — one of two things will happen. The Tea Party will go away as we know it and the Republicans that… the candidates that have won that will now be in the House and Senate will essentially next time be running as Republicans, no more mention of the Tea Party whatsoever, or, and much more likely to me, is the Tea Party, in the interests of political expediency, building political capital, in the interests of having made promises that are downright absurd and would never, ever pass, will just be kind of wrapped into the mainstream Republican Party, they will change their views, and they will then say, come 2012, well, you know what, we didn’t get things done, we have been welcomed by the Republican Party, and we couldn’t get these things done because you know what? We control the house, but the Democrats control the Senate and the Democrats control the White House, so it is their fault still that we were not able to turn things around.

Louis: That could definitely happen. And I think right off the bat, I think just because Tea Partiers were elected that the Tea Party will definitely pick up steam, pick up some steam, right off the bat.

David: Off the bat, you’re right, but the things they have promised are just not going to happen. And in many cases, there is no position, there are no platforms, in a sense.

Now, here’s what has to happen with the Democrats. Obama has to not only do more, but he has to make sure people know that he is doing more. Democrats need to be united and clear, not starting in 2011 or when the campaigns get going, starting today through the 2012 election, which by the way, we’re only a few months from starting to hear about.

Take credit and place blame. And what I mean by that, let’s take the health care example, the health care situation as an example. In the middle of the conflict with the GOP and opposition from the GOP, the narrative arose about internal conflict about the public option, right? You remember this. Some Democrats want the public option, some don’t.

Louis: Right.

David: This is horrible for the Democratic Party. It opens the door to more criticism, it plays directly into the Republicans’ hands. Now, to follow through the health care example the whole way, even after it passes, the Obama administration does a poor job of taking credit for what they did pass. Barack Obama did a good job of this when he was on Jon Stewart last week, but that’s too late. I know, plenty of speeches did mention health care. They needed a full-court media blitz including, you know, bringing people to the forefront who now have care only because of what they passed, roundtables with business owners who are now able to provide health care to their employees. There was none of that. And if there was, it certainly wasn’t making it into the mainstream media. So Democrats need to get ahead of the curve and say, “You know what? Here’s what we’re doing and here’s why it’s good,” and here’s why the people that you voted in, the Tea Parties, the Tea Partiers, the ones that aren’t going back to bagging now that they’ve lost the election, here’s why you don’t want to vote for them, or any other Republicans, by the way.

Louis: And they have to say, “Here’s what we’ve done.” You have to use numbers and statistics to your advantage. You have to speak in terms of numbers and say, we created this many jobs, we lowered the deficit this much, we did this with health care.

David: Well, and you have to do more than that, though, because just saying we prevented this many extra jobs from being lost didn’t really work this time around. 85% or so voted, a majority…

Louis: I don’t think anything the Democrats could’ve done would’ve worked this time around.

David: You may be right. But I think in 2012 it will depend on the Democrats. This time, it was just damage control, lose as little as possible.

Louis: Right.

David: But next time, the Democrats will have an option. Let’s take a break, when we come back, I will tell you why bipartisanship is over. Go onto DavidPakman.com, vote, “How effective will the Tea Party winners be at passing the change they promised?”

Announcer: The David Pakman Show at DavidPakman.com.

[BREAK BEGINS]

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Announcer: Welcome back to The David Pakman Show.

David: Welcome back to The David Pakman Show. The new website, DavidPakman.com. Bookmark it, that’s the new site. The old website, MidweekPolitics.com, is going away. Today on the bonus show, Louis and I are going to have it out. He hasn’t told me yet whether he’s voted or not. He will reveal that; if he has not voted, it’s not going to be pretty. We’ll talk about have we found a cure for the common cold, and a lot of other stuff. So make sure to get on DavidPakman.com/membership, especially since Thanksgiving day, we’re giving away an iPad, a bunch of different CDs, it’s fantastic.

OK. Here is my last thought on this election. The time for bipartisanship is over. One question that the Democrats have to be asked as they think about their plan for the next two years is how did that bipartisanship work out during the first two years? You know, during the first two years of Obama’s administration, the Democrats really had no need to be bipartisan, I mean, they controlled both houses and the White House, except for the fact that Republicans simply did nothing, they just stood in the way.

The entire 2008 election was talking about bipartisanship and Obama will work with people, and it didn’t help get a single piece of legislation through. In fact, it helped the Republicans, because it was Republicans who were able to rebrand the Democrats as not having done much and it worked, as we know. And it left voters very unclear about what is the argument, what is the case, for reelecting these Democrats or electing new ones? And they didn’t, as we saw, Louis, did we not?

Louis: You’re right.

David: Now, as we now know, bipartisanship does not win elections. The Republicans very cleverly determined this when Barack Obama took office. So my suggestion is, listen, repealing health care is not going to happen because Barack Obama is not going to sign any laws that would repeal any parts of health care, and then two thirds of a vote would be required, and the Republicans are not going to get a two-thirds vote. So forget about that idea. Forget about bizarre ending the Department of Education, none of the mainstream Republican Party is going to want to do a lot of the things that the Tea Partiers have promised.

So what needs to happen? Democrats need to start passing legislation. Forget about being bipartisan. As we saw, it just doesn’t work. There’s no upside, especially now, to being bipartisan, that I see. Louis? Is there any reason to do it?

Louis: Not that I can see either.

David: I mean, is there a media, a media-friendly component to it? It didn’t work if there is.

Louis: If there is, it’s negligible.

David: Yeah, in thinking about the results of the election and the leadup, it actually has now, it has me more behind Barack Obama than I was before. You know I’ve criticized him a lot, Louis, about a lot of the things he hasn’t done.

Louis: Oh, yeah.

David: But the reality is, in thinking about the choices we had for this election, and this may be going on with other progressives as well, the economy is not doing nearly as bad as it was, as it would be had Barack Obama not done what he did. If it were up to the Republicans, we’d be doing much worse. The Dow is at a two-year high. I understand that the jobs are not coming back yet; jobs are always the last thing to come back. Let’s wait.

Health care. A lot of good things happened with that health care bill. Terror. No one is talking about it, but Barack Obama has done a good jobs in terms of the scares that we’ve had. I mean, some criticize him for being slow with the Underwear Bomber response. He took three days to come back to talk about, you know, failed powder in some guy’s briefs versus Bush appearing to be comatose after being told about 9/11. We could have that discussion.

Louis: People love to say that President Bush did such a great job, ‘Oh, we haven’t been attacked since 9/11 thanks to Bush,’ but no one says we haven’t been attacked thanks to Obama.

David: That’s right. That’s absolutely right. So those are the things to keep an eye on.

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Now, a few other things I want to mention. The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central. I watched almost all of this thing. I was pretty excited for it, I was actually going to go down to DC but we were in the middle of some things with the show here, I wasn’t able to make it. I’m kind of glad I didn’t, because really there were just a few highlights from it. How much of this did you see, Louis?

Louis: To be honest, I didn’t see any of it.

David: You haven’t seen any of it. Well, The Roots opened up, and John Legend came out, that was great, they were both great. Then it got someone boring. The Mythbusters guys came out, you know, with the show “Mythbusters”.

Louis: I love that show.

David: They were horrible. I mean, they were literally horrible. They were doing experiments with the crowd, like having them jump all up and down, having a wave go back and forth, the wave took minutes to get from the front to the back and it was complete silence. Completely bogus thing to do on live TV, it just didn’t go well. And then they brought out Cat Stevens, or Yusuf Islam, as he is now known, and Ozzy Osbourne, and The O’Jays. They were all pretty good.

My initial thought was bringing Cat Stevens out is a little bit risky politically in the sense that even though it was an accident, he was put on this no-fly list, and he wasn’t let into the U.S. It doesn’t seem to really be hurting the way the rally is being looked back at in retrospect, but the conservative media outlets did talk about that, right? They were kind of criticizing the inclusion of Cat Stevens in this thing. Yeah. So, and that was written on the wall. We knew that was going to happen.

And then Jon Stewart’s speech at the end was very good. I thought that was probably the highlights. I could’ve done with the first 30 minutes and then the last 15 minutes for Jon Stewart’s speech. Now, the interesting thing, 215,000 people are estimated to have been there compared to about 100,000 for Glenn Beck. Now, I know if you watched Fox News, they estimated only 15 people were there, so that might’ve given you the wrong impression if you didn’t actually see the event. But that was as expected, no?

Louis: Right.

David: So yeah, I guess it was a success. I don’t know. It wasn’t great. I’m glad I didn’t go, let me put it that way, just for that, because number one, I’m sure I could see it much better on my TV, but number two, the highlights were kind of at the beginning and at the end and a little bit in the middle. Is it good for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert? Yes. Their shows are popular, their shows will continue to be popular. Beyond that, what else is there to say?

Louis: Yeah, not much. Good for them. I think it’s hilarious that the turnout was much higher than for Glenn Beck. That’s about it.

David: OK. Well, we’ve heard from Louis, and that’s basically it. The Clint McCance story. I’m not going to go into this whole thing. There’s an incredible story that happened last week. Clint McCance is the former vice president of an Arkansas school district, and he went on Facebook and made incredibly anti-gay comments including I hope that fags and queers die of AIDS, he likes it when fags and queers, as he puts it, die of AIDS. He said a bunch of crazy things, and then he went on the Anderson Cooper show and he did an interview. The entire interview was bizarre, and it was a non-apology. The guy clearly does not regret what he has said, he is just sorry that he got caught. And we have a great commentary, piece-by-piece analysis on our YouTube channel, so log onto YouTube.com/MidweekPolitics, check it out. We literally, Louis, are going through in detail each piece of this apology, and it’s just an incredible story.

New stations I want to say hello… Go ahead, Louis.

Louis: Oh, just the Facebook thing, like who thinks they can put things on Facebook, and just so ignorant as to how, you know, widespread it really is.

David: That’s right. Well, and there are a lot of people who maybe aren’t as computer-savvy who maybe don’t think that that would become public, or I don’t know what people are thinking, but clearly just sorry he got caught. And you know, he explained, and we go into this, some of the things he said were just in response to Facebook comments. That makes perfect sense. Louis and I, everybody who works on the show, anytime somebody puts up a Facebook comment we don’t like, we go into anti-gay tirades. I mean, it’s just a natural reaction to controversial Facebook comments.

Louis: Right.

David: New stations airing The David Pakman Show: Hit 94 FM in Aruba. I hope we’re not wrapped up with that Natalee Holloway stuff now that we’re airing in Aruba, but we’re thrilled to be on.

Last week’s poll: Should Juan Williams have been fired from NPR for his recent Muslim comments? Surprising. No, 57%. 37% say yes, he should’ve been fired. I’m surprised. I thought most people would go in the way of he should’ve been fired, even though, as I said last week, I don’t believe he should have.

And of course, our new poll: How effective will the Tea Party winners be at passing the changes they promised? I believe not very effective. Log onto DavidPakman.com and vote.

Here’s a few emails from last week: Colorado Amendment 62. Randy says, “You missed an important point on Colorado Amendment 62. Not only would it outlaw all abortion in all cases, it would outlaw most forms of birth control. The amendment describes a person as a fertilized egg.” Absolutely right, and we mentioned that earlier. The amendment is insane, and it’s a total disaster.

Juan Williams. “Williams absolutely should’ve been fired by NPR for saying something that is blatantly racist. He should be on Fox if he wants to perpetuate hate and fear of brown people who he decides are Muslims. You replace the word Muslim with Jewish or black, people would be shouting, ‘Racism!’ from every rooftop. We’re conditioned to hate people, but that doesn’t make it morally acceptable when we fail to challenge it.” I completely disagree. The context of what he was saying was actually anti-racist, he should not have been fired for that reason, he should’ve been fired years ago for bringing his fake liberal opinions to Fox News.

Today on the bonus show, we’re going to talk about did Louis vote or not? Louis has never voted in an election prior to today, or prior to this election, if he voted.

Louis: That’s not true.

David: Oh, so you have voted sometimes.

Louis: Yes.

David: But you stopped voting under protest?

Louis: Kind of.

David: OK. And is there a cure for cold, plus plenty more. DavidPakman.com/membership, get the bonus show. We’ll see you next week.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to The David Pakman Show.