America Took Its Midterms. Did We Pass?

Whenever I hear the word “midterm,” I can’t help but associate it with the college exam schedule. You start a course, and then about halfway through it, you get a test. It’s an important test. Not quite as important as the final exam but still important. It counts for a decent percentage and helps you understand where you stand overall, where you are trending. Outside of academia, midterms happen every two years during the election process. They aren’t generally as hyped or perceived to be as significant as the Presidential election, but much like college midterms, they help show politicians where the people are leaning. At some level, you could say the results are the equivalent of the grades given to the two major parties that make up our government.

The midterms were an ingenious creation of the Founding Fathers. The two houses of Congress go through midterms. As the larger House of Representatives was conceived as more the people’s voice, all seats are up for election every two years. The smaller Senate has longer, six-year, terms. Their elections are staggered with 1/3 being up for re-election every two years. Midterms and politics in general are something that we’ve not historically followed closely or covered. As we wrote in September, “If you are reading this at an office, try this out. It works best at offices full of mostly younger people, and it works especially well at places where the core business has little to do with current events. If you work at the New York Times for instance and do this, you will just look like a fool. If you work at a CPA network and your life has been consumed with nutraceuticals, this should work well. What you do is simply ask your co-workers what is taking place on November 2, 2010.” On November 3, it was pretty clear what took place.

This midterm was different for so many reasons. Unlike midterms past, this year, our industry had a stake in the outcome. In the past, party politics had not impacted out business operations. Making matters more confusing, the internet, i.e., those operating in the online space had strong Democratic leanings – more for social reasons than others. They had no reason not to be. That has since changed. As we quoted an executive saying in our prior piece, ““For all affiliates we should be voting Republican this November….no matter what your political views, Republicans are good for the lead gen industry this quarter.” The reasons were simple. Legislation that has passed or is pending has effected or is about to effect the three largest areas of lead generation: for-profit education, healthcare, and debt. The drivers of this legislation were predominantly Democrats, especially in healthcare and education.

This midterm was also different from a historical standpoint. Four years ago, the Democrats gained control of the House and Senate. With the election of Obama, they had it all. Not that 2008 was the greatest time to inherit office – a war and a no economy. The message of change was a Catch-22, great as a means for getting elected, also a catalyst for high expectations. With no less war and no more economy, change was, if not the message, part of the result. The Senate, which had somewhere around 30 seats up for grabs, saw the Republicans pick up a net gain of six seats, which is a decently lopsided victory if we can assume that meant 18 to 12. It was the same in the House of Representatives. Of the 435 seats, prior to the election, the Democrats had 255. As of today, they have 186. They lost 60 seats.

What all this means for the online space isn’t quite clear, and it won’t be until next year. If anything, it’s all depressing. It’s one seesaw to the next, with the same language repackaged regardless of who says it. This is human nature at its best, an inability to remember two, four, or six years ago with the clarity and perspective necessary for making the decisions of today. When I think of politics, I think of acting, or lines that sound good on screen but mean little in reality. Enjoy the below. It’s a fairly accurate translation from one of the leading victors and new figurehead’s acceptance speech. Had you not known anything about who won, you’d never be able to tell not only which party said this but during which election.

“It’s clear who the winners are and that’s the American people. This is not a time for celebration, not when one out of ten of our fellow people are out of a job, not when we’ve buried our children in a mountain of debt. This is a time to roll up our sleeves, a time to look forward with determination and take the first steps towards building a better future for our kids and grand kids. The results of this election were a repudiation of Washington, a repudiation of big government, of politicians not listening to people. This is the people saying they reject the backroom deals, the spending sprees. This is the American people putting Washington on notice. Washington has been doing what’s best for Washington not what’s best for American people. Tonight that begins to change.

The American people are demanding new way forward; our majority will take a new way forward that hasn’t been tried before by either party. We will cut spending not increase it, reduce the size of govt not increase it. We will give the government back to American people. We will be ending the uncertainty around the economy, helping small businesses get back to work.

The people’s priorities will be our priorities; the peoples agenda will be our agenda. This is our pledge to you. The American people have sent an unmistakable message. The rest of government must be willing to make changes that the people are demanding and to the extent that the other party is willing to do so we are. We are willing to work with them. We are willing to have a smaller, less costly, more accountable government.

We are humbled by the trust the American people have placed in us. We recognize that with this trust comes a responsibility to listen and listen we will. We recognize this is not a time to celebrate but to listen. We can celebrate when small businesses are back to work and hiring again. We can celebrate when the spending binge has stopped, and we can celebrate when the government has earned the trust of people it serves…”