The Policy-Free Campaign of 2014

If you like an election campaign in which the candidates offer detailed policy plans explaining how they propose to address the nation’s basic budget and entitlement challenges—well, this hasn’t been the election year for you.

Instead, the key races this year—the ones that will determine who will control the United States Senate—have been about mood, personalities and anger. The main issue has been how close the Democrat in any key Senate race is or isn’t to President Barack Obama, whose unpopularity in a series of states with pivotal elections has...