A Referendum on the War?

No, not really. Here's why:

It was not a referendum on Iraq. One of the most pro-Iraq lawmakers in Congress, Sen. Joe Lieberman, ran as an independent and trounced anti-Iraq Democratic nominee Ned Lamont. Meanwhile, of the five remaining Republican members of Congress who voted against Iraq's liberation, three lost: Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R.I.), Rep. John Hostettler (Ind.) and Rep. Jim Leach (Iowa). Only two anti-Iraq Republicans will return to the 110th Congress: Reps. Jimmy Duncan (Tenn.) and Ron Paul (Texas).

The Associated Press reports that while "three-fourths of voters said corruption and scandal were important to their votes, . . . Iraq was important for just two-thirds." Both groups tended to favor Democrats. (LINK)

And as Mona Charen points out:

The war in Iraq was cited as an “extremely,” “very,” or “somewhat” important factor in the votes of 89 percent of the electorate according to exit polls. But the war on terror was cited by 92 percent voters as important to their votes. These nearly cancel each other out, as those who cited Iraq as crucial tended to vote Democrat and those who cited terror tended to vote Republican.

Meanwhile, 57 percent of voters said they either “strongly” or “somewhat” disapproved of the job George Bush was doing as president, but more (61 percent) said they disapproved of Congress. Why Congress? Other polling, conducted before Election Day, found that 75 percent of voters were concerned about political corruption.

Really, it had more to do with politicians. (and I can't really blame anyone for that. The republicans stopped being conservatives and were content being politicians)

In Jonah Goldberg's words:

In other words, just as Democrats insisted, the GOP's drubbing had more to do with incompetence and scandal than program and ideology.

Indeed, if the conservative base hadn't been disgusted with Republican management, and if so many Democrats hadn't run as social conservatives, the GOP might have done just fine in this election.

Republicans lost because they behaved like self-indulgent politicians, not purists. Conservatives care a lot about ideas, so that's where we'll try to assign blame. But the ideologues aren't to blame. The Republicans are.