Teabaggers Cost GOP Some Senate Seats

I am a liberal. In fact, I'm probably more liberal than most of my Democratic friends. But I am not buying the argument I've heard from some that this election was a repudiation of conservatives. The truth is, whether we on the left want to admit it or not, that conservatives make up a significantly larger portion of the American population than liberals do. That is just a fact. So, what happened on Tuesday if conservatism wasn't repudiated?

We must understand that there are different types of conservatives. The two main groups are the old-style "classical" conservatives and the "social" conservatives (teabaggers/evangelicals). The classical conservatives are mainly concerned about economic issues -- like a desire for smaller government, lower taxes, less regulation of businesses and Wall Street, and more military spending. These conservatives outnumber those of us with liberals views in every poll (and I believe those polls are right). I don't agree with these conservatives, but I recognize they have a lot of support in this country.

It is the other kind of conservative that has caused the GOP train to jump the tracks. The social conservatives (comprised of teabaggers and fundamentalist christians) believe all people should not be equal. They oppose same-sex marriage, abortion in all cases, equal pay for women, free and easy access to contraception, belief in science (such as evolution and global warming), helping the poor and disadvantaged, helping college students, and immigration reform. They talk a lot about freedom, but they only want it for themselves -- and would actually restrict the freedoms and rights of people of a different sex, skin color, ethnicity, race, religion, or sexual preference.

It is this second group that Americans voted against last night -- the purveyors of racism, misogyny, homophobia, and other forms of hate. There were at least four senate seats that the Republicans should have won on Tuesday -- the seats in Missouri, Indiana, Montana, and North Dakota. It can't be said that the Democrats who won those seats rode Obama's coattails, because Obama lost all of those states by a significant percentage. They are red states. The voters in those states voted for the Democratic candidates because they could not stomach the mean-spirited views of the Republicans opposing them.

This election should have taught the Republicans that they can no longer run on programs that basically advocate hate. There may be a lot of racists, misogynists, homophobes, and religious haters in this country, but there aren't enough of them to win nationally (or even in most statewide contests). Of course there are always exceptions to any rule, and Tuesday night that exception was in Texas -- where an avowed teabagger and hater won the senate seat. But Texas is a special case, where you could run the devil (if he existed) on the Republican ticket and he would win (and personally, I think that's exactly what happened).

here are the winners of Senate seats:

DEMOCRATS
Dianne Feinstein (California)
Chris Murphy (Connecticut)
Thomas Carper (Delaware)
Bill Nelson (Florida)
Mazie Hirono (Hawaii)
Joe Donnelly (Indiana)
Ben Cardin (Maryland)
Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts)
Debbie Stabenow (Michigan)
Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota)
Claire McCaskill (Missouri)
Jon Testor (Montana)
Bob Menendez (New Jersey)
Martin Heinrich (New Mexico)
Kirsten Gillibrand (New York)
Heidi Heitkamp (North Dakota)
Sherrod Brown (Ohio)
Bob Casey (Pennsylvania)
Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island)
Tim Kaine (Virginia)
Maria Cantwell (Washington)
Joe Manchin (West Virginia)
Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin)
TOTAL..........23

INDEPENDENTS
Angus King (Maine)
Bernie Sanders (Vermont)
TOTAL..........2

REPUBLICANS
Jeff Flake (Arizona)
Roger Wicker (Mississippi)
Deb Fischer (Nebraska)
Dean Heller (Nevada)
Bob Corker (Tennessee)
Ted Cruz (Texas)
Orrin Hatch (Utah)
John Barrasso (Wyoming)
TOTAL..........8

It was a good night for Democrats, and it turned out that way because people voted against hate. It was also a good night for women. There will now be 20 women in the United States Senate -- a record number.