Are we over-emphasizing votes?

In my immediate post-election reaction, I paid a lot of attention to the numbers of votes gained by the KMT and DPP.  However, as I’ve slowly digested the election outcome, I wonder if I’m putting too much weight on that.  The point of an election is to win office, and the KMT won three of them.  All of those DPP votes over the last two years haven’t translated into many public offices.  Even now, if the presidential election were held tomorrow, my gut tells me that Ma would win a second term by a narrow, narrow margin.  Again, all those votes might not translate into any concrete gains in power.  The most important fact of this election is that the KMT won Taipei, Taichung, and Xinbei.  It will hold those seats for the next four years no matter how public opinion evolves.  Moreover, if public public opinion starts to swing back toward the KMT, this DPP wave, which produced lots of votes but not much political power, will have very little to show for it.  The votes give a hint of how public opinion is now and might evolve over the next two years, but they do not guarantee any future results.  Maybe the KMT got the cow and the DPP got the magic beans.  The only problem for the DPP is that magic beans are rarely actually magic.  I’ll take the cow.

Obviously, I need to go to sleep…