Election Wrap-Up

UPDATED

I was going to post some analysis of the electoral results, but discovered that Fr. Martin Fox had already covered the same territory I planned to cover, and did a much better job than I would have done:

There was a lot of bad news last night, but if you're prolife, and/or conservative, and/or for limited government, it's not as bad as you might think.

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Please go read the rest of Fr. Fox's outstanding analysis.

However, I would add that, notwithstanding Fr. Fox's optimism, yesterday was a fairly rough day for Catholics in the public square. For Catholics who take seriously their obligation to faithfully apply Catholic teaching in the exercise of their civic duties, it's hard to see the results of this election as anything short of disastrous.

As examples, we lost a couple of solid Catholic Senators yesterday in the persons of Rick Santorum and Mike DeWine. Look, I have had my differences with these guys, especially the man I refer to as DeRINO, but it is inarguable that they both took seriously their obligations to apply their faith to their work in the Senate. Santorum, especially, a real "compassionate conservative" who has been an outspoken and tireless advocate on behalf of Catholic principles, will be a big loss for Catholics - particularly when it becomes clear that Bob Casey, Jr., is not his father's sort of Democrat.

Another tough Senate loss was that of Mike Steele who was challenging for the vacated Senate seat in Maryland. Another faithful Catholic, Steele's election might very well have made up for the loss of a Santorum; and his loss is particularly tough given the outstanding, overwhelmingly positive, and issues-oriented campaign he ran. The MSM always laments the dearth of such positive campaigns. Nevertheless, I doubt we'll hear any sorrow from the media that such a campaign waged by Steele, which would have gotten him elected in ANY OTHER year, came to naught.

On the ballot measure front, Virginia's passage of the marriage protection amendment was offset by several huge losses on pro-life measures nationwide. The Missouri cloning bill looks to have passed by a narrow margin. Parental notification measures failed in a couple of western states.

But the loss that's going to be the most difficult to recover from is the defeat of the anti-abortion measure in South Dakota. Coming in one of the most pro-life states in the Union, this defeat signals to the rest of the country - including the Justices on the Supreme Court who will today take up the federal partial-birth abortion law - that the people of this nation are not ready to outlaw abortion. Not to be all gloom and doom, but this loss is devastating.

But I have not lost heart. We must, as the Apostle Paul admonished, continue to fight the good fight. To press on toward the goal. We know that the victory has already been won; our job is merely to continue to do the Lord's work in this our exile with joy and perseverence.


Other reactions to the elections:

Paul at Thoughts of a Regular Guy (More from Paul here)

Rich Leonardi at Ten Reasons

Tom at Recta Ratio

Publius at Res Publica et Cetera

Catholic Caveman

Mark Shea at Catholic & Enjoying It

Dale Price at Dyspeptic Mutterings

Julie D. at Happy Catholic

Terry at Abbey Roads

Dr. Jeff Mirus at CatholicCulture.org

Joseph Bottum at First Things

Terry Mattingly at Get Religion

Jeff at The Curt Jester

Holy Fool (also here)

Advocatus Militaris at Fumare (Regular Guy Paul thinks this is the "best post-election blog post" he's seen)