What happened Tuesday? -- Dan Balz column (Wash. Post online)

excerpt of 11/3/10 column at washingtonpost.com/

. . .Obama has great faith in himself, which may serve him well in this time of travail, but also could compound his problems. During the presidential campaign, he was known for taking victories and losses in stride, never too down in the darkest moments, as after the New Hampshire primary [January 2008], or too exuberant when he deserved to bask in victory, as on the night he was elected [Nov. 2008]. Steadiness in the face of adversity will be essential in the months ahead.

At the same time, that sense of self-confidence risks understating what happened Tuesday. It was Obama, after all, who was resistant to advice from some of his team not to go so fast in 2009 and 2010, particularly on health-care reform. If Obama can stay unruffled by the slings of cable chatter, minor setbacks and the slow pace of recovery, the danger is that he still remains too detached from the crowd - and from the people who elected him.
His message this fall was that he and his party had done a lot that people didn't yet know about. That suggested a lack of gratitude on voters' part. He also suggested that in hard times, people are hard-wired not to think rationally. That echoed his description of the economically hard-pressed being "bitter" and "clinging" to guns and religion.
Voters wondered whether Obama really understands them, and he now has two years to show that he does.
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio) and other GOP leaders have sought in the early hours after their victory to assure people that they do not regard the results as a genuine affirmation of the Republican brand. But if history is any guide, hubris could quickly set in, in which case they will have trouble avoiding the conclusion that this election was a broad endorsement of their agenda.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said as much when he suggested that Democrats hadn't gotten the message Tuesday. "We're determined to stop the agenda Americans have rejected and to turn the ship around," he said.
But voters still view the GOP with distrust. The independents who so soundly backed the party's candidates Tuesday are as disdainful of Republicans as they are of Democrats. According to the exit polls, 58 percent of independents said they view Democrats unfavorably, and 57 percent said they view Republicans unfavorably.
Republicans have challenged Obama by arguing that he has governed from the left while the country is center-right. But will Republicans interpret Tuesday's results by lurching too far to the right? They may see in exit polls that 41 percent of voters called themselves conservatives, a high-water mark, and say the country has shifted dramatically.
The party's center of gravity has certainly shifted, but has the entire country? Republicans now have a hard-right base in a country that still prefers its politics closer to the center. Pleasing the base and the newly elected conservatives, while staying focused on the middle, is the leadership's first task.
Republicans may have been ill-served by the primary process. The primaries produced candidates, many with tea party connections, who could not withstand the scrutiny of voters, even in a year in which those voters were more predisposed to back Republicans.
Because of either their eccentric styles - think Delaware's Christine O'Donnell - or their extreme conservatism - think Nevada's Sharron Angle - these tea party favorites were not ready for prime time. That may have cost the GOP Senate seats in Nevada, Delaware and Colorado, where Sen. Michael Bennet (D) defeated Ken Buck. That also may allow Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to sneak back into the Senate in a write-in campaign after losing her primary to Joe Miller, who was backed by the tea party and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.
Republicans cannot count on the same electorate in 2012. The percentage of white voters was 78 percent Tuesday. Two years ago, it was 74 percent. If the electorate of 2008 had shown up Tuesday, Republicans still would have gained seats, but far fewer.
That doesn't diminish the historic nature of what the GOP accomplished in this election, but it is a reminder that this country remains highly polarized and unsettled in the center. That's why misreading Tuesday's election results is dangerous for both sides.