Taranto said the dumbest thing this week, but here is a close second:
“That same kind of anger and frustration can happen across the country if the economy doesn’t improve, if the job situation doesn’t improve, if gridlock in Washington continues on major issues,” said Leon E. Panetta, a former U.S. House member representing California and White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration. “If I were an incumbent in any office, I would be a lot more nervous today.”
Gray Davis’s Approval Rating: 27%
George Bush’s Approval Rating: 56%
OK, math majors, take a whack at Leon Panetta.
Just as I think it is stupid to say that the recall election now puts California into play for Bush (it might help, a little), it is exceptionally stupid to say that because a very unpopular DEMOCRAT governor is voted out of office it is a sign that Bush is in trouble. How do these people say these things with a straight face?
At any rate, this race was not anti-incumbent- using the word incumbent in the general sense. This race was anti-incumbent in the sense that people were saying “I can not stand the damned scum-sucking car tax raising, lying incumbent Gray Davis.” Besides, this wasn’t a regular election, and I didn’t really view him as an incumbent, per se. The whole election was to recall the bastard outside the general election, so of course there was an ANTI-INCUMBENT sentiment. Jeebus, people.
*** Update ***
It was mentioned in the comments that the press frequently referred to he 1994 Congressional elections (Contract with America elections) as ‘anti-incumbent,’ even though NOT ONE Republican incumbent lost his/her seat. That is not anti-incumbent, that is anti-Democrat.
Even sillier is the assertion that the only reason the republicans won is because the elections were “anti-Clinton; Gingrich successfully rode a wave of antigay, antitax, and anti-single-payer hysteria into the Speakership.” Yes, they were a referendum on Clinton, but it is widely accepted that there was a dramatic re-alignment in the south, the Democrats were in dis-array, we just had Somalia and the Haiti debacles, and Hillary was trying to nationalize Health Care. Gays in the military was a non-issue, and the main reason taxes were an issue (other than always being a staple of a conservative platform) was the outrage over Clinton promising middle class tax cuts in 1992, then promptly beginning to back away from that promise after he secured the election, and then saying he just couldn’t figure out how to do it once he took office. In other words, he lied- at the very least according to the lax standards that Democrats are now holding Bush.
The commenter fails to mention the Contract because he may have disliked the policies, but many people didn’t, and the GOP did a good job of trying to follow through on their promises, that is why they were not thrown out in 1996. Just because you may dislike history, Democrats, does not mean you can re-write it.
Brandon
If you will recall, the 1994 elections were regularly described as “anti-incumbent” even though not a single Republican incumbent lost.
I guess that some things are just too painful to look at. So you wrap you towel around your head so you won’t see anything that might disturb you. Useful thing, a towel.
Andrew Lazarus
I don’t recall that at all.
Do you have a link?
Kimmitt
The ’94 elections were anti-Clinton; Gingrich successfully rode a wave of antigay, antitax, and anti-single-payer hysteria into the Speakership.
Of course, time has shown that the antigay attacks were bigoted and pointless, the tax increases brought about the first Federal surplus in decades (and did nothing to damp the enormous 90’s boom years), and our current medical system still continues to cost us multiples per capita of any other industrialized country.
In other words, the Republicans manufactured outrage to a series of essentially decent policies, then rode it to power. I’d wonder how they slept at night if I believed that the Republican leadership actually had consciences.
John Cole
The tax increases may not have hampred the boom, but they did not ‘bring them about.’ At any rate, we are still paying for the dot-com boom.
The anti-gay sentiment you are talking about is laughable, too. The only gay issue involved the military, and it was not just hysterical homophobes who were not in favor of those policies.
Other than that, there was the the contract issues, such as term limits, the line-item veto, etc., which many people were in favor of, even if you despised it. However, to state that the elections were based solely on the issues you stated is absurd. If you honestly think that Speaker Foley was voted out of office by a crowd of homophobic tax-haters, you are losing it.
John Cole
BTW- It was not anti-incumbent at all. Republican incumbents did just fine, as no incumbent Republicans lost.
Aakash
But it was agreed upon by many that the Republican Revolution soon ‘fizzled,’ and the promises of the great Contract with America were blown away in the wind. That’s something that many – from all sides of the political spectrum – recognized (in the late 1990s).
Kimmitt
Hey, reparse my post — the increases gave us the surplus and did nothing against the boom in my thesis.
Kimmitt
If you really believe that the Republicans were swept into power on the promise of the line-item veto, we need to talk. But thanks for bringing up term limits — that one, rather than being a reaction to good policy, was simply a flat-out lie; those members of Congress who came into power promising to exit after a certain number of elections who have lasted long enough all broke their promises not to seek reelection.