KMT 'mid-term defeat' analogy mistaken

According to these self-anointed political analysts, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party effectively bounced back from the devastating corruption scandals of former President Chen Shui-bian.

In the meantime, the pundits claimed the KMT bumbled its way through the campaign and blamed growing dissatisfaction with President Ma Ying-jeou for the KMT's losses.

The KMT indeed had its share of setbacks on Saturday.

But using the American “mid-term” concept to analyze the election results, the KMT actually performed quite well.

If the dismal state of Taiwan's economy in the wake of a major global economic slowdown is factored in, the KMT cannot be considered to have performed poorly in this mid-term voting.

While the shouting pundits always make for great TV entertainment, they once again have misconstrued a foreign concept and grafted it on to local politics.

In the United States, the catch-phrase “mid-term election” refers to voting conducted in “off-years” when there is no presidential election.

While mid-term elections encompass voting for governors, state legislatures and special elections, American observers more commonly associate “mid-terms” with congressional contests.

The conventional wisdom associated with U.S. mid-term elections suggests they are referenda on the sitting president.

More often than not, the political party in control of the White House loses around 5 to 6 percent of its seats in the House of Representatives, or about 25 to 30 representatives, along with three or four seats in the 100-member Senate.

In the most recent U.S. mid-term elections, then-U.S. President George W. Bush's Republicans lost 30 seats in the House and six senators.

That was considered about average in terms of mid-term results over the past few decades and actually not bad considering the growing unpopularity of the war in Iraq among American voters.

There have been times in recent decades when the American president's party has suffered major setbacks.

In 1974, after U.S. President Richard Nixon was forced to resign amid the snowballing Watergate scandal, the Republicans lost 48 House seats and four Senate seats to the Democrats.

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