The storyline goes like this: Recent elections find voters in an angry, "anti-incumbent" mood.
Time magazine wrote: "This is how it goes in 2010 at the ballot box: old orders are upended, political lions become roadkill, chosen successors get left behind and the outsider, riding a wave of discontent, becomes the new front runner."
The Associated Press wrote: "It's an anti-Washington, anti-establishment year. And candidates with ties to either better beware. Any doubt about just how toxic the political environment is for congressional incumbents and candidates hand-picked by national Republican and Democratic leaders disappeared late Tuesday."
No. Voters said: "It's not the incumbents, stupid. It's how they voted. It's what they stand for." No incumbent who voted against the Bush/Obama bank bailouts, the "stimulus" package and ObamaCare lost his or her job.
Voters hate the bank bailouts. They hate the government takeover of car companies. They do not believe that the $800 billion stimulus package stimulated anything but bigger government. They reject ObamaCare and think it's costly and likely to worsen health care. Incumbents who voted for these things now face the music.