Tuesday’s elections were, as widely expected, a solid thrashing for the Republican Party. But the real loser was classical liberalism. And the winner was conservatism. Republicans lost fewer House and Senate seats than was expected earlier in the year, dropping about the average amount lost in a President’s sixth year. They have lost control of the U.S. House of Representatives and very possibly the Senate, as we await likely recounts in races in Virginia and Montana—states that had trended Republican in recent years. Very tellingly, Republicans lost three House seats in Indiana, where blue-collar voters, who normally provide a good harvest for Republicans, were concerned about the state’s necessary economic transformation into a modern knowledge economy. Part of that change involved moving to Daylight Saving Time, which Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels pushed for and which caused huge resentment among conservative voters. In addition, Libertarian candidates took away enough normally Republican votes to turn the tide to the Democrats in the three races where Democrats took Republican seats. These were most certainly votes against the War in Iraq. The point is, in Indiana as elsewhere, conservatism trended toward the Democrats, as voters sought economic security and reacted strongly against the Republicans’

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