The Midterm Election's Consequences

By: Katie Getting

          The news coverage that I watched came from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart .  Most of it did not pertain much to the actual election results but proceeded to make fun of the other news stations that covered the election outcomes as well.  The technology used by each station tried to outdo the technology used by the other stations, and it all seemed too complex and confusing.  When we were all together watching the election coverage, the one thing that I noticed from the station we tuned into was the touch screens that the newscasters were scrolling through.  Other stations brought in 3D visual images, and The Daily Show attempted to use a green body suit as a green screen to display information.  Is it that hard to just use a normal diagram on the screen?  Is everything in today’s society about being the most advanced technologically?  I think that news stations should focus more of their attention on the issues, and the information they are providing the public instead of coming up with savvy new ways of displaying election results. 

          One piece of information that was mentioned in the coverage was the fact that John Boehner, the former House minority leader, will most likely become the Speaker of the House when the next Congressional session begins.  This is something that the Republicans have been looking forward to for some time.  It was thought that the Republicans would take over the House at the midterm election, but no one thought that it would be by the landslide numbers that it turned out to be.  Republicans took sixty seats.  That's an astounding number.  Obama will now have to learn how to cooperate with a divided Congressional body.  This will be quite difficult especially since he had both branches of Congress on his side for the past two years to help in the passing of his legislation.

          It was mentioned that historically, midterm elections have meant a switch in power of Congress.  For this very reason, Obama made sure to get all of the initiatives most important on his agenda passed before the elections.  Going along with the historical perspectives of elections, the guest speaker on the show who was a presidential historian said that most Presidents that experienced a change in the power of Congress during their terms were likely to be re-elected come the next Presidential election.  This is definitely something that Obama wants to hear.  Maybe this whole power shift is not as bad as everyone thought it was in the beginning.  It could actually produce some good consequences in the future for the Democratic Party.