Perhaps it was inevitable that with the re-election of President Obama in 2012, the balance of power elsewhere in congress and across the nation would shift rightward.

Especially after having controlled the Senate for so long [and only by a narrow margin], I’m sure the senate Democrats were fully aware of how dire the situation was. They made what efforts they could, but in the end, Tuesday was a rout for the Democratic Party.

Although Democratic voter turnout is historically shoddy in midterm elections, I’m sure even some Republicans didn’t predict such crushing victories in some places [such as John Kasich’s landslide victory for reelection here in Ohio].

Though there had been high hopes for the nail-bitingly close gubernatorial races in Florida and North Carolina, the Democrats lost them both and as a result the party needs to begin taking a very close look at itself.

I’ve voted straight Democrat for as long as I’ve been eligible to vote [although I’ve followed politics since I was much younger], but I’ve never been so ashamed to say I vote blue.

It’s not the embarrassing defeats in the primaries that have embittered me, it’s not the collective rightward shift that came after the emergence of the Tea Party that’s moved the whole political spectrum, it’s not even the pitiful voter turnout for the midterms that makes me wonder why I bother voting at all.

What bothers me in my heart of hearts is that I must continually choose between a lesser of two evils and the lesser of those two evils is a party that’s only grown more and more spineless as the years have gone by. With the exception of President Obama and a handful of other Democratic senators and representatives, the party is bereft of

strong leadership.

When the Tea Party first became a significant political force, many Democrats had hoped for a schism within the GOP that would separate the traditional Republicans from the Libertarians and other elements of the right wing.

Though this is still a possibility, this revealed [at least to me] that the hope for this schism wasn’t simply born of political opportunism, but simply of the cold hard truth that the Democrats don’t have the strength or the will to even fight a splinter group of the Republican Party, let alone the whole thing.

The Tea Party shifted the American political spectrum right such that there no longer exists an American left worthy of

the name.

Make no mistake; this rightward shift in American political philosophy has happened in large part because the Democrats have allowed it to. There are too few strong voices all being drowned out by the Paul Ryans and Ted Cruzes of the world. Especially in times of economic hardship, people look to strong, outspoken leaders who promise change and speak words of comfort, regardless of their affiliation.

With almost all of these strong leaders residing in one party, it should not surprise anyone that the GOP is winning and winning big.

There are many factors that lead to one party losing an election so badly, but the leadership of the Democratic Party needs to be completely overhauled or we won’t even be able to win California before too long. I am a liberal, but if this pitiful Harry Reid-led, anemic culture persists, I will no longer be a Democrat.

Furthermore, I’m a Cubs fan, so I’m already bound to one hopeless band of losers and the last thing I need is more of the same.