I think this Ron Brownstein column is exactly right:
In midterm elections, the electorate tends to be whiter and older than in presidential elections. ABC polling director Gary Langer has calculated that since 1992 seniors have cast 19 percent of the vote in midterm elections, compared with just 15 percent in presidential years. That difference contributed to the 1994 landslide that swept the GOP into control of both the House and Senate. Seniors had cast just 13 percent of the vote in Bill Clinton’s 1992 victory, but that figure spiked to nearly 19 percent two years later, with voting by the young people who had bolstered Clinton falling off sharply.
[….]These trends may be especially troublesome for Democrats next year. In 2008, Obama assembled what I’ve called a “coalition of the ascendant” that revolved around minorities and rapidly growing groups, such as the Millennial Generation of young people. Those voting blocs still provide him his strongest approval ratings. But if historical patterns persist, they will turn out at lower rates next year — possibly declining even more than usual because Obama inspired such an elevated turnout among them last year.
[…..]But that dynamic also means that Republicans could do very well in 2010 without solving their fundamental demographic challenges. In the 2012 presidential election, the young and minority voters central to Obama’s coalition are likely to return in large numbers. The risk to the GOP is that a strong 2010 showing based on a conservative appeal to apprehensive older whites will discourage it from reconsidering whether its message is too narrow to attract those rapidly growing groups. “It can’t be the same formula in 2012,” Ayres warns.
I think that 2010 is going to be a rough, rough year for Democrats. Unemployment will still be high and, as Brownstein asserts, a reasonable proportion of the voters will be people who have spent the last four years doing AOL key word searches on “kerning.”
Politico/Drudge will hype the Republican party’s moderate success possibly with the headline “Mac is back!”, for an article about how the great victory was due to John McCain’s talent for picking candidates. Drudge will be in his heaven and all will be well in the kingdom of Beck.
The net effect will be another two years or more of Republicans pissing off young voters, pissing off non-white voters, and taking another step towards Whigdom.
superdestroyer
Who cares what the Republicans are doing? They are irrelevant to politics and governance and they will continue to shrink as a political party until they complete their collapse and fold.
The idea that the more conservative party can appeal to non-whites and the young is laughable. Instead, the U.S. should just adjust itself to being a one party state .
Hunter Gathers
The GOP may have the whitey vote, but do not underestimate the incompetence of Michael Steele. He could fuck up a cup of coffee.
asiangrrlMN
@superdestroyer: I don’t want the US to be a one-party state. I have a hard enough time with it being a two-party nation.
DougJ, if this is true, then that means a ratcheting up of the crazy as well, correct? Great. Just great.
Hunter Gathers, I thought you’d written that Michael Steele could fuck a cup of coffee, which made that sentence infinitely more interesting.
cmorenc
Lots depends on where the tangled saga of health-care legislation winds up. I’m lots more optimistic now about prospects than I was two or three weeks ago – when it appeared that Sen. Baucus and Sen. Conrad were hell-bent on wrecking the legislation on the shoals of serving their insurance co/health care industry backers at the severe expense of the interests and wishes of the vast majority of their own party, and the Obama Administration seemed fixated on getting cover of a nominal GOP fig-leaf of “bipartisanship”, but at the cost of terrible damage to the economic and political effectiveness of the ultimate bill. Let’s see what happens now that the bill is about to leave the grasp of the Sen finance committee and into the control of more friendly handling.
I agree that the economic winds will still be a headwind, but it will make a tremendous difference in scaling back the losses to a fairly modest, run-of-the-mill midterm norm, rather than a large shift (though it’s still a huge stretch for the GOP to actually win majority status in house, and impossible in the Senate). But if the health-care legislation comes to be seen as a success (especially by seniors), that will be a huge change in taking much of the wind out of GOP sails – it will reinforce Obama’s image as an important part of the solution to a disaster from the previous decade that cannot be solved overnight, rather than as a tepid leader heading ineffectively sideways or the wrong way.
DougJ
DougJ, if this is true, then that means a ratcheting up of the crazy as well, correct?
I think so.
One thing I definitely expect is more coup talk.
Davis X. Machina
Energized and committed minorities roll apathetic majorities all the time — it’s the permanent theme of local politics. And mid-terms are local politics writ large.
dmsilev
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, a lot can happen in a year. If a vaguely reasonable health care bill passes, and if there are some signs of a real economic improvement (i.e. unemployment actually dropping), the GOP won’t have much to stand on except for their normal tactic of jumping up and down and screaming at the first shiny object that passes by. In that scenario, Democratic losses might be fairly small.
Also worth noting: There’s a non-trivial correlation between a President’s approval rating and how his party does in a mid-term election. I put this graph together just before the 2006 midterms, and then modified it after the election to include those results. If Obama stays at his current mid-50s approval, we’re looking at a shift of about 20ish seats. Nontrivial, but far from enough to switch control.
-dms
Dr. I. F. Stone
LOL ! It’s Derangement Syndrome all over again.
Ed in NJ
All this hand-wringing about next year here and not one person seems to understand that when it comes time to actually run for election, the Republicans have absolutely nothing to run on.
It’s a non-stop parade of crazy on display. I still feel that when it comes time to actually campaign, we’ll see alot of this obstruction, lying, and insanity highlighted as a way to motivate younger voters to prevent the crazies from coming back into power.
ironranger
Interesting that Lindsay Graham, McCain, Brooks & others are now trying to tone down the lunatics even tho they ignored or embraced them previously. Are they attempting to reinvent the GOP as not so crazy for 2010 or 2012?
JK
Doug,
You sure know to bum a guy out. I saw Ron Brownstein on MSNBC yesterday summarizing his article.
Given the hysterical over reaction of the MSM to the IOC’s decision to award the 2016 Olympic Games to Rio, I shudder to think how these nailbiters, bedwetters, and thumbsuckers will report the results of the mid term elections. Based on yesterday’s reports, I expected to see Barack and Michelle boarding the WH helicopter this morning on their way back to Illinois after the humiliation of losing the Olympic hosting sweepstakes to Brazil.
Surreal American
If the GOP ends up controlling both House and Senate in 2010, it will be interesting to see them implement the only two items they seem to have in their platform:
Impeachment proceedings and non-stop investigations of Obama’s birth certificate.
While the resulting whirlwind they’ll reap 2 years later will be nothing short of awesome, I like to avoid the rush and start marching them towards the status of the Reform Pary now.
Hunter Gathers
@DougJ:
That would not be surprising. Shit, you think things are crazy now, or were crazy last year? Wait until 2012. Palin will say and do anything to get the GOP nom to run against Obama. You. Haven’t. Seen. Crazy. Yet.
asiangrrlMN
@DougJ: Well, shit. Since I’ve had it up to here already with teh crazies, I guess my alternative is to eschew politics from 2010 to 2012.
Davis X. Machina
when it comes time to actually run for election, the Republicans have absolutely nothing to run on.
No one’s run on anything since the last time Pericles ran for stratēgos. You run against …and the GOP are the WalMart of against.
Person of Choler
“In the 2012 presidential election, the young and minority voters central to Obama’s coalition are likely to return in large numbers.”
Indeed they will. The question is how will they vote after 4 years of change for the worse in the economy and little hope of decent employment.
sgwhiteinfla
I disagree, I think Brownstein is exactly WRONG and here is why.
Times have changed now. Because of social media and because of the Iraq War, young people are going to be more engaged not less engaged in the years going forward. President Obama’s GOTV operation last year also can an will serve as a model for Democrats and liberal and progressive orgs going forward. Right now we are sitting here in a bubble right now where people, especially Democrats, are burnt out from two years of a Presidential campaign so you can excuse the left for being a little less enthusiastic now.
But that discounts what is likely to happen between now and the midterms. If we get health care reform, if we get climate change legislation, if GITMO is closed even if it comes in May instead of January, when the troops have a big draw down next year, and while unemployment will still be relatively high the numbers should be obviously moving in the right direction. ALL of these events will build momentum heading into 2010. These are basically events that will be ticked off the calendar as each month passes, and most of them aren’t ifs but whens. And when you really sit down and think of it they are almost set up like a crescendo leading into next November.
So I know its conventional wisdom that we will lose a lot of seats in the House and some in the Senate next year (there are a few in both that I wouldn’t mind losing honestly) the truth is the dominos are actually stacked in our favor. People saying otherwise are looking short term, not long term and are not factoring in the change in our society and the change in our demographics.
I say all this without even touching on how the GOP will look more and more radical leading into next year. Their candidates will HAVE to move to the right to win primaries over hand picked challengers from groups like the Club for Growth. So when you have guys like Charlie Crist who are normally seen as moderates (even if they aren’t) having to out wingnut CFG candidates there will be a backlash from that too.
Here is my proposition, how about people who lean left wait until say March before we buy into this “OMG the mid terms will be teh suck” and see where the chips fall. I can guarantee you that if health care reform gets done it will be a game changer and you can throw all of beltway conventional wisdom and Charlie Cook’s concern trolling out the window.
asiangrrlMN
@Person of Choler: I just gotta say, I love your handle, absolutely love it.
@sgwhiteinfla: I will grant you that if a good healthcare reform is passed, it will be a game changer. I will still be wringing my hands in the meantime, though. I hate the craziness.
valdivia
@sgwhiteinfla:
This exactly.
Betsy
@asiangrrlMN:
Thanks for my first belly-laugh of the morning. ;)
Doug, I’m just piping up to say your title is perfect and hilarious. I can just hear Nina revisiting her masterpiece…
JK
@sgwhiteinfla:
Charlie Cook and Ron Brownstein are the ultimate concern troll twins.
matoko_chan
/sigh
The reason O did healthcare first is to distance it from 2010 and to exploit Horrorshow Bush while the Deciderer was fresh in the electorates mind. 2010 is going to the Year of Immigration reform.
I think the GOP will be trying to court hispanics while the rage-ravers chew them a new asshole.
That will get hispanics to the polls, no doubt.
this old pre-election Nation article gets it right.
Skepticat
Well, then, I guess it’s just up to us to rally the troops and get people to the polls, eh?
Napoleon
The Dems may loose some seats but unless the economy really goes further south they are going to come nowhere close to taking either house. But I hope it drives them further into crazydom since IMO the only way the Dems can work on further improvements in the health care system and global warming is for the Republicans to so drive themselves into a ditch that at some point even the elected Dems figure out they don’t need to keep looking over their shoulder at them and can finally pass decent bills.
aimai
matoko chan,
thanks for posting that. I remember reading it but it bears re-reading. It boils down to “demographic winter” for rural white assholes–except in the Senate. Look to see the Senate get relatively more conservative while the house inevitably swings more urban/minority and possibly liberal though these things aren’t synonymous and we can get stuck with plenty of stinkers no matter what D is after their name. But with the way the values voters/jerk vote is still rabidly refusing to ally with any new voting groups most of them won’t have an R after their names.
aimai
matoko_chan
And…the GOP leadership CANT set policy to appeal to any demographic other than white evangelical protestants. That is all that is left of their base.
Any candidate that gets elected by the GOP base now has to be a creationist, love Jesus, hate gays, support chattel slavery of women and children, support talibangelical shariah law, be anti-intellectual or just look like it……
The GOP leadership is enslaved by their uniformly religious base.
A sort of poetic just, that.
The New Evangelical Christianist Republican Party.
inkadu
a reasonable proportion of the voters will be people who have spent the last four years doing AOL key word searches on “kerning.”
You had me at “AOL.”
@cmorenc: Old people are not going to be happy with healthcare reform. They already have the best health insurance in the country for a very low cost. And this is their gratitude towards the progressive movement who provided it for them.
cmorenc
@sgwhiteinfla
It still comes down to which party’s base + “leaners” will be more motivated to turn out in 2010. Right now, the GOP has a big edge in ‘mo (as in motivation). I agree that it’s way premature more than a year out from the 2010 midterms that the momentary status quo today will be the same twelve months from now. However, the dems are in need of some tangible poltical and economic developments that will put more enthusiastic winds back in their sails, and force the GOP to tack back into that wind rather than have it behind them as it is momentarily. I’d like to think too that the coalition that turned out to elect Obama and sweep so many congressional dems into office in 2008 will hold as a more permanent demographic change in turnout motivation (even if not quite so high in 2010)…but as of the moment, the reaction of progressive-minded folks is: disappointment in the dems and Obama on so many fronts for only tepidly moving past so many Bush policies, and seemingly even maintaining some of the more damaging, ugly ones. The congressional dems (or their leadership in the Senate) have proven so far to be particularly feckless and spineless. It’s going to take Harry Reid growing a spine over health-care reform to begin to turn the tide. Ever hopeful, but not betting the house on it (my house).
Cerberus
@Skepticat:
Yeah, we’ll definitely rely on our community organizing skills in registering and getting people to the polls to vote.
Oh wait, our elected leaders have been sabotaging those groups like ACORN and SEIU in order to try and make nice with republicans.
Yeah, that’ll work out well for them.
matoko_chan
aimai…..it gets worse for them.
Asymptosis
valdivia
@aimai:
btw, your comment in the other thread was great.
matoko_chan
It is my hypothesis that white evangelical christians as a % of GOP base is increasing from 50% last year to 75% or 80% in 2009…because people defecting from the GOP to become independents are not evangelical christians…..a sort of base distllation is resulting.
The GOP is becoming not just an older white party, but a near-pure christian party dominated by white evangelical doctrine.
Chad N Freude
Fixed.
@JK: I disagree with you about Brownstein. I’ve always found his analyses to be clear and cogent.
@sgwhiteinfla: Maybe, but I’m not enough of an optimist to think so.
@matoko_chan: Thanks for the Nation item. That is absolutely on target. I had a conversation with a couple of DFH/liberal colleagues at work yesterday on exactly this point. Fear of change is the overwhelming driver for these people. You can easily imagine them storming the Founding Fathers screaming about how awful it is to break away from the Crown.
Bob In Pacifica
This is the dynamic post-JFK:
A Democratic majority consistently fails to fully address the needs of the majority of the people.
A Republican backlash, based on some reason (Humphrey’s puffiness, McGovern’s “weakness” toward Vietnam and the USSR”, Carter’s “weakness towards Iran”, a blowjob in the White House, a dishonest claim to have invented the internet, a Viet vet is more of a coward than a deserter, Obama’s birth certificate, etc.) is amplified and repeated in the media and pushes the electorate to the right. The Republicans further erode citizens’ rights and concentrates the wealth to the oligarchy.
Democrats take half-steps but fail to fully address the needs of the majority of the people. Fail to undo the erosion of rights and fail to undo the concentration of wealth.
Repeat with gusto.
Repeat.
GregB
Meet the Bitters.
-G
StonyPillow
“and taking another step towards
WhigdomKnow-Nothingdom“. Eventually the party will get the idea it’s lost its head and brain, and lie down decently.asiangrrlMN
@Betsy: Hey, it’s my role in life. Glad to oblige.
And, in general, thanks to everyone arguing the other side. You have made me feel marginally better about the midterm elections. Thanks!
valdivia
I think part of the disappointment from the dems right now is that they want things to happen right away and being engaged in the same short-termism that gets the Republicans winning the 24-news cycle instead of thinking long term. What SGWhite was getting at is that by the middle of next year all the policies that have been chugging along and that Obama has wanted to change will be in line to look like a big big thing has happened.
I also think it is important to point out that ARRA is not a one shot outlay deal. The money is *continuously* coming out and will actually be kicking into gear more aggressively as time passes. For some reason people think that ARRA was heavy outlay at the front and it was, but only on tax cuts on on the job-creating part and those projects it will get going at the end of this year and next year so that too comes into what will be giving momentum to the 2010 cycle.
JGabriel
Ron Brownstein:
Umm … what?
They’ll decline more than usual because Obama was so inspiring? How does that make any fucking sense?
Look, Democratic turn-out might be down next year. I’m willing to concede that’s a possibility. But I think it’s going to decline less than in previous years, exactly because Obama still inspires — as long as gets behind Congressional candidates, supports them, and helps organize the vote.
Minorities. the “Millenial Generation”, etc. may not get the press that Beck’s loony bin does, but they’re still there and I suspect they intend to support Obama and the Democratic party in 2010. They , not the Republicans, are the silent majority now. Look at the polls. They still show roughly 60% approval for both Obama and health insurance reform. They’re no doubt watching the conservative freak show in disgust and planning to protest it with their vote in 2010.
Yes, the Democrats might experience some losses in the House, but they might not, and I really doubt it’s going to be the bloodbath so many pundits are predicting.
.
JGabriel
sgwhiteinfla:
Looks like SGWhite and I are on the same page …
.
valdivia
@JGabriel:
Excellent point–one thing that was largely under the radar all of last cycle was that the Obama grassroots coalition and the people that supported him were alrgely ignored or thought to be irrelevant by the media and the pundits. I really think they have concluded this was a one time fluke and that they still understand the country better than the guy and the people that helped him win the election. All that has happened is that for a few months after the election and inauguration the media tried to get their head around their lack of connection to reality but now they are back to feeling this is a center-right country and giving all their attention to the wingnuts. Have you seen *any* coverage of how hispanics feel about Obama and how they feel about the racist nativist language coming out of the GOP? That has gotten worse, not better since last November and you can bet that block will be reliably Dem for a long long time. And if immigration reform is on the map next year bet that these voters will be coming out. I think it would be very smart to talk a lot about immigration before the election but have the vote slated for just after the midterms. Win win.
cleek
the GOP is behaving as if they are already in the campaign. their statements and activities are are based on showing us how bad the Dems are, in the hyper-partisan, detached-from-reality language usually reserved for campaigns.
the Dems aren’t in campaign mode. but when they are, the smart ones will set up the distinction as : people who want to get things done vs. people who couldn’t get it done when they had the chance and now merely want to complain and obstruct.
Chad N Freude
@JGabriel:
I read Brownstein as saying the 2008 Obama inspiration of the demographics of interest may not be repeated and, in line with historical lapses of those groups back into apathy in off-year elections, may even be reversed.
That strikes me as hopeful supposition based on a significant “if-only”. I’d like to believe this, but I’m not sure how realistic it is. And Obama continues to disappoint his more progressive supporters, I don’t think he will still inspire in 2010.
asiangrrlMN
@JGabriel:
@valdivia:
Really good points. I forgot that running up to the election, all the coverage was about how this or that was good news for McCain (yes, I really should have remembered) and that Obama was in trouble for this or that reason. The meme was so entrenched, the traditional media was taken by surprise (sort of) when Obama won so handily.
Just because the shitheads are getting ninety percent of the coverage, it doesn’t mean they are anywhere near a majority or even equal to the sane people.
Still, I agree with Skepticat, that we’ll have to work our asses off during the midterm to ensure that the conversation isn’t dominated by the nutters.
r€nato
@dmsilev: this. Exactly what I was thinking.
What is it that Fidelity et al always notes in their advertisements? Oh, yes: “Past performance is not a guarantee of future results”.
I could project the growth in housing values from 1998 to 2008 and confidently predict that we will all be millionaires within 3 years.
valdivia
@cleek:
thank you for the BOB filter. You have made my reading life a pie-filled delight.
JK
@JGabriel:
It doesn’t. From now until the day of the midterm elections, Ron Brownstein and the MSM will be a broken fucking record: “The party of the president in power always loses seats in midterm elections”. This is the only history they know.
r€nato
@asiangrrlMN:
we do have a two party system. It just so happens that both parties call themselves “Democrats” by and large these days.
Then you have the Republicans, who are working really hard on approaching the popularity and success of the Libertarian party.
Chad N Freude
@cleek:
Which is why they are at risk. The Republicans are always in campaign mode, and the Democrats should be too.
Brick Oven Bill
DougJ brings up race and voting patterns, so I judge this to be an appropriate comment. If it is judged by the moderators to be inappropriate, please feel free to delete.
James Madison discusses Faction in Federalist 10. He seems to argue that political faction is founded in Natural Law:
“The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties. The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society.”
The electorate that Factioned in Madison’s time was white males, those actively engaged in the economy. It is estimated that one in four adult males were granted voting rights, based on property ownership, among other things.
The Democratic Party’s electoral strategy is to dumb down the population and widen the electorate, this is to increase the Faction of people with little natural ability to acquire property. There are two factions within this movement. The Biological element exists to propagate its own genetic code. The State Control element wishes to turn the US into Central America, where the political, moneyed, and bloodline classes are not accountable to the electorate.
This is a highly irresponsible electoral strategy, as it is economically unsustainable, creates more layers of Faction, and will end poorly for everybody. While people from 3rd World societies will be reliable Democratic voters, they will contribute little to the tax base, and draw much from government services. This is not because they are bad people, it is because of the diversity in the faculties of men, something they have no control over.
The most likely end game is the failure of the dollar, the collapse of the social safety net, and Faction-based violence. You pick the Factions. Observe the California prisons.
History will judge this to be mostly the fault of the Democratic Party, although both parties will share blame. The common denominator will be seen as Greed, one of the seven.
valdivia
@asiangrrlMN:
yes, work, lots of work will be needed. I have been thinking of taking a couple of days to canvass in NJ for Corzine in the next few weeks since I am in nyc and see that other guys ads and they piss me off.
matoko_chan
I think the GOP is devolving to a purely theocratic party.
The core meme of evangelical protestantism is absolute certainty they ARE RIGHT, and indeed, it is their right, nay, their DUTY to impse their rightness on everyone else.
Chad N Freude
@JK: See my comment at @Chad N FreudeDo you disagree with my understanding of what Brownstein is saying?
superdestroyer
The Democratic Party leadership knows that every demographic trend in the U.S. is trending Democratic.
The next question in politics is how will one party politics work once the Democrats no longer have the Republicans to blame for things.
The second question is how high will taxes go to pay off all of the core groups of the Democratic Party. When there is no more Repubican Party will there be no restraint on raising taxes or will enough groups inside the Democratic Party will push for cutting back on pork barrel spending. Juding by places like Chicago or California, my guess is that spending and taxes with both go much higher.
r€nato
@Brick Oven Bill:
shorter BOB: only white males who own property should be granted the franchise.
While we’re turning back the clock to the 18th century, maybe we should reinstitute that “blacks count as 3/5 of a person” rule. Everyone knows all our troubles started with the 14th Amendment. Give those negroes civil rights and before you know it they are demanding welfare for life and reparations for slavery.
Chad N Freude
@Brick Oven Bill:
That’s why we really need a monarchy, Bill. If only the Founding Fathers hadn’t been so damned . . . democratic.
And I really like your division of people into those with a lot of “natural ability to acquire property” and those with little. Good argument for slavery.
JGabriel
asiangrrlMN:
That’s going to happen no matter what. The Republicans are caught in a Purity Death Spiral, and I don’t think anything can halt it at this point.
.
JK
@Chad N Freude:
Maybe I was a little too harsh regarding Brownstein. I’ll take your comments under advisement. He is a lot smarter than most of the jackasses that go on the cable news shows.
matoko_chan
Brick Oven Bill, are you an evangelical protestant?
JK
Jules Crittenden is seeing starbursts following the IOC’s decision:
http://www.julescrittenden.com/2009/10/03/going-for-the-gold
Chad N Freude
@r€nato:
Dude, when they were slaves they had welfare for life. Clearly, they didn’t know how good they had it, probably because they had little natural ability to acquire property.
Chad N Freude
@JK: Thanks for the ack. Is advisement the same as moderation? [Insert smiley]
JK
Young, Gifted, and Black – Nina Simone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBU80TF3oMQ
JGabriel
Brick Oven Bill:
BOB, according to Forbes, the third richest man in the world is a Mexican, Carlos Slim Helu. Kind of puts a dent into that “furriners are all leeches” logic of yours.
.
slag
@sgwhiteinfla: I want to believe. I really do. But the whole premise depends upon the Democrats in Congress being somewhat less useless than they are now. I’m not overly hopeful on that score. And to be honest, their dismal performance at this juncture makes me think the Dems deserve to lose. Not to the Republicans, sure, but to somebody. Maybe Mickey Mouse will finally, after all these years, pull off an upset. Who’s his write-in campaign manager now? Perhaps I’ll donate.
joe from Lowell
The health care debate, which featured Republicans whipping up generational warfare and siding with the old people, certainly isn’t going to help them get out of this dead-end.
And BOB’s comment is racist twaddleknockery, and warrants the ban hammer.
Chad N Freude
@JK: Wow! Crittenden is so stupid it causes physical pain. I didn’t think it was possible to have an IQ of less than 1. I guess I was wrong.
r€nato
if Brownstein really wanted to perform an insightful analysis of the 2010 elections, he should have taken the time to examine which Senate seats are being contested and which House seats are going to be contested. What he’s done in this column is just projecting past trends into the future. That might be accurate 75% of the time, but 25% of the time it’s going to be amazingly wrong. Any halfway intelligent person with internet access and a calculator can do that calculation.
Here’s a more insightful analysis: 2004 was the last year that Republicans ‘won’ the elections. So in the Senate you still have some GOP senators who will be coming up for re-election for the first time since the electorate turned on Bush/Cheney and the GOP. It seems to me that there are still GOP senate seats to be picked off before we hit diminishing returns, getting to the point where the 30some remaining GOP senators are pretty much in safe, strongly GOP states. If you like having 60 senators in the Senate Democratic caucus, you’re going to love having 63 or 64 or more.
The entire House on the other hand comes up every 2 years, so I leave it to brighter folks like Nate Silver to analyze those races and figure out how many seats are vulnerable for each party. But really, the Dems already have taken the low-hanging fruit in the House and have a pretty substantial majority which should survive any inroads the GOP might manage to make in 2010 with whatever bullshit gimmicks they conjure up to motivate the rubes to vote for them.
Long story short, so long as the Dems don’t completely fuck things up, 2010 is not going to be the year the GOP is rehabilitated by the electorate. Sure, if they gain a handful of seats in the House they will spin it as a major defeat of Obama, but that’s par for the course with them.
JGabriel
Brick Oven Bill:
You mean like what happened under Bush? You’re still pining for his return, aren’tcha?
.
Chad N Freude
@JGabriel: Ah, but he is not a US Democratic voter. You have to parse Bill’s comments as closely as he parses the Federalist.
JK
@Chad N Freude:
Approximately. As bad as things will get in Wingnutland, I suppose the one consolation to fall back on is what John Maynard Keynes once observed, “In the Long Run, We’re All Dead”
Cool screen name by the way.
matoko_chan
Chad N Freude
South Carolina fought with the brits against the American revolutionaries.
Napoleon
@r€nato:
In the Senate at worse the Dems tread water for the very reason you cite.
Chad N Freude
@r€nato:
Is that a big “IF” in your pocket, or are you just glad to see a statistical analysis?
Davis X. Machina
Crittenden’s fallen — again — for one of the evergreen siren songs of political journalism, the discovery of the present small event X, invisible to the naked civilian eye, that betokens the future big event Y.
The problem is that that assignment, x > y, cannot be assigned unless post facto, and there’s an inexhaustible supply of small event x’s.
It’s an easy template to bang out a column using, but it’s bogus ex ante, and the people who rely on it know that, but rely on it anyways. It’s lazy and wrong.
JK
@Brick Oven Bill:
You’re like that parrot in Monty Python’s Dead Parrot Sketch.
You’re pining for the fjords dude.
You can forget about that tip. You’re three weeks late with my order of 3 large pizzas, garlic knots, buffalo chiocken wings, and a calzone.
Chad N Freude
@matoko_chan: Yes. I’m not sure what you’re responding to here.
matoko_chan
I disagree with Brownstein.
Negative-sum game.
Brick Oven Bill
According to this Journal of Blacks in Higher Education link ,
the media black family income is 60% of the median white family income. Third article down on the right. This is a stunning number, when you think about it.
The diversity in the faculties of man paragraph is James Madison’s not mine. But it does track very well with my life experiences and observations. I think Madison was right.
If I were in charge, I would tie voting eligibility to tax receipts minus some set of defined public services. Anybody who could prove that they paid in more to the system that they took out of the system would be eligible to vote. This way handicapped midget black females with a lisp and herpes could vote, so long as they were an active part of the economy.
…
JGabriel, the reason Carlos Slim Helu is so rich is because wealth becomes concentrated in Central American sham democracies. Yours is an example of Artificial Law, and is the opposite of the Natural Law advocated by James Madison.
Bush = Kennedy = Artificial Law
Clinton = Natural Law
JGabriel
@Chad N Freude:
Which would rely on Obama and the Democrates not repeating their inspirational 2008 performances in 2010, and frankly that strikes me as even more of a supposition than speculating that they’ll fail to do so. They want to win; they’ll make the effort. And the polls show that support for them is still higher than for the Republicans.
.
r€nato
@Brick Oven Bill:
If I were in charge, I would tie you to your brick oven and heave you into the Mariana Trench.
I don’t know what your motive is for posting here – spoof, trolling, whatever – but if you genuinely believe the garbage that you spew here, then you really are a loathsome individual and that goes far, far beyond mere political differences.
Chad N Freude
@Davis X. Machina: Cool. Math and logic. Crittenden would wither if either of those carried any weight in his segment of the blogosphere.
JK
@Chad N Freude:
The pathetic thing about Jules Crittenden is that he genuinely believes he’s the smartest, coolest guy in the room.
matoko_chan
Chad…..
SC did just that….fought on the brit side in the revolutionary war.
r€nato
@Brick Oven Bill:
if you were in charge, your criterion for voting eligibility would pretty much disqualify many of the voters in red states. It’s a fact that the red states generally take in more federal tax money than they contribute. Alaska, home of the Wasilla Wingnut, the Quitter on Twitter, takes in nearly $2 of federal money for every $1 it contributes.
So… is that your final answer?
Chad N Freude
@JGabriel: Probably. I did say “may”. Twice. Not a prediction but a statement of possible risk.
JGabriel
r€nato: Good analytical summary. That’s what I’m expecting as well — gains or equlibrium for the Democrats in the Senate, and equilibrium or a few losses in the House.
.
matoko_chan
BOB, are you an evangelical protestant by any chance?
It is kinda obvious that you are a white older republican.
;)
JK
@Brick Oven Bill:
Salud BOB. Now go home and get your fucking shinebox.
Chad N Freude
@matoko_chan: OK. I over-generalized. Sincere regrets. (Certainly glad nobody else around here does that.) I still like the image.
Chad N Freude
@matoko_chan: Should that be “white halfwit older republican existentialist”?
(If that seems obscure, acronomize it.)
Patrick
Using national polling numbers and then building from there using historical data from 1990-2008 misses two big points:
1. National polls don’t show that Repubs only poll well in the South. Obama/Dem numbers outside the South are 58-70 to 18-22. Are there any Dem seats to pick up in the South? Could be, some blue dogs go down. But how many can be left?
2. Which is the other problem with these analyses. When LBJ and Nixon were President, there was really four factions in Congress. Now there are two. Rockefeller Republicans in the Northeast are gone. Same with Southern Conservative Dems. This shift occurred from 1990-2008 and is just about done. But using that time period to extrapolate forward assumes that the process is still in full swing.
JK
Forecasting the Midterm Elections
h/t http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/article.php?id=AIA2009090301
Assessing the GOP brand
h/t http://www.pollster.com/blogs/assessing_the_gop_brand.php
Brick Oven Bill
In my opinion, the two Federalist Papers most applicable to modern politics are Federalist 10 and Federalist 46. If you go on and compare and contrast these with Plato’s Republic Books 6 and 8, you will see that the Constitution has been Founded by the Greeks, and enabled by the Enlightenment. Thus ‘The 3000-year Leap’.
If you were to go on further and compare and contrast these important documents with the crap spewing out of the mouths of both political parties, you will likely come to the conclusion that the Republic is in muy big trouble, and the best answer is to advocate a return to the original Greek Principles.
These would be four good documents to read this weekend. I do not align myself with any organized religion, although the Bible is another good book to read to help understand the Nature of man. I’d start with Zechariah.
Chad N Freude
@Brick Oven Bill:
Does this include adult men having sex with teen-age boys?
Davis X. Machina
I actually expect proportionately bigger losses in the Senate than in the house.
CT, CO, AR, DE, PA and NV are all trouble — three or more of them are going to flip. If Byrd cannot run, WV is gone. The GOP holding all the presently GOP-held open seats is certainly possible as well.
53-2-45?
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
valdivia:
They have consistently under-guesstimated where unemployment would be now(both with and with out the stimulus). So one wonders if they truly grasp the problem. Also, Obama needlessly compromised necessary parts of the stimulus(aid to states and local governments) for Republican votes(of which he received none in the House and one in the Senate).
ironranger
@r€nato:
Assuming Billy Bob is not a spoof, maybe he comes here out of a desperate need for attention even if it is ridicule.
inkadu
@matoko_chan: I remember a moment from my high school history class on the French Revolution when the teacher explained there was an enormous tension between the city and the country… so far things have turned out better here.
But it’s kind of depressing in a way, to think that all the rhetoric and argument is just the soundtrack to the movie whose main actors are demographics.
JK
@Chad N Freude:
Game, Set, Match.
Skepticat
@Cerberus: That’s an interesting take. Structured community organizing per se hadn’t entered my mind (as many things don’t); I was thinking of small efforts of personal initiative–nagging friends and dragging neighbors to the polls. Too many times we wait for “them” to do things like that for us.
That said, I’m unhappily in agreement with your point.
inkadu
@sgwhiteinfla: Did you know that you are only 45% “white”?
By 2020, your handle will have even more letters, making it even less white.
valdivia
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
I don’t disagree with the fact that specifically cutting the state help was a big mistake. But I find the constant melding of what Obama does in the WH with what the Senate leadership does a bit troubling. Obama is not the chief legislator, I know a lot of people here and in the blogs want Obama to write the legislation and do both his work and that of congress but that is just not how this system works. Yglesias and Klein have both had excellent posts on this.
Anyway whatever the failures of ARRA my point still stands that as it was built the chronology is for more money to be invested and used for 24 months, so we are only 8 months in with more to come and that will help, even if not perfectly, as 2010 advances.
Brick Oven Bill
State sexual libertarianism is the way to go Chad.
For all I care, you can hang out with John’s pets, so long as you get John’s permission (Secure Property Rights, 5th Amendment), and do not impose your inclinations on men and women who are perfectly happy having sex with each other, raising traditional families, and desire that they be able to advocate that their children follow a similar physical outlet in the absence of deviant propaganda (Secure in Their Own Homes, 4th Amendment).
This is consistent with the Constitution. But inconsistent with the Bible, which is not mandated to be followed by the Constitution. So we are perhaps in agreement.
tc125231
@superdestroyer: I think you miss the point. The question is how much damage they can do before their inevitable, well-earned extinction.
tc125231
@asiangrrlMN: It will never be a one party state. Other parties have died. But the Republicans need to die before a meaningful second party can emerge, They are irrevocably twisted.
Chad N Freude
@Brick Oven Bill: Not a bad riposte, especially from you of all people, but
is somewhat puzzling. Ambiguous syntax aside, what exactly is “deviant propaganda”?
tc125231
@sgwhiteinfla: I hope you are right. I have told my sons they need to pay attention –it’s time to kick the Baby Boomers in the ass, and quit ignoring bullshit that is ruining THEIR future.
Dave_Violence
If you’re “old” now… Let’s put that at 67 years old. twenty years ago you were 47, thirty you were 37, forty you were 27. So… in 1969, you were 27. You’re Paul McCartney’s age. In five years, you’ll be 72 and your younger peers – who comprised most of the hippy kids during the 1960s will be in their mid-60s and thus comprise the “older voters.” It will be interesting how they vote – and how they will feel about the youngsters below them who suddenly “hate” seniors.
tc125231
@Skepticat:
Yeah, but s Krugman has noted, Obama and the Democrats are doing a pretty good job of pissing off the front line troops.
I don’t know how this will play out.
Brick Oven Bill
Deviant Propaganda = Advocacy of tolerance of positions that run counter of the traditional parent’s desire for their children to have sex only with members of the opposite sex bounded by wedlock upon becoming adults, if this is what they define as normal. If you deviate from normal behavior, this is ‘deviant behavior’. Advocacy of tolerance for deviant behavior is deviant propaganda.
Very few people have the money to send their kids to private school, or home school, so I disagree with any kind of sex education at public schools. The Bible and Qur’an are intolerant of homosexuals. If a parent wants to teach their child the Christian or Islamic value of homosexual intolerance, this is their right, in my opinion.
These children are constrained from actually going out and stoning homosexuals by civil law. But their thoughts should be their own, and they should be allowed to express them, and pass them on, if they so choose.
Brachiator
@Chad N Freude:
Actually, the Democrats should be in governing mode, which they are not.
One of the dumbest ass bits of conventional wisdom, pushed by campaign strategists, is that the Democrats should look toward 2010 and look at what they need to do to retain seats.
But what is lost on these cynical fools is the idea that success at governance just might get you re-elected, especially when voters have clearly put their faith in you. Instead, these people are encouraged to view voters as chumps who are exploited to get you into positions of power.
And so, Democrats are squandering one of the biggest opportunities that they have had in decades.
superdestroyer — Who cares what the Republicans are doing? They are irrelevant to politics and governance and they will continue to shrink as a political party until they complete their collapse and fold.
That’s funny. The “irrelevant” Republicans are doing a great job acting as a spoiler, and are gaining ground by persistently exploiting the wingnut fringe who fear Obama.
asiangrrlMN — I don’t want the US to be a one-party state. I have a hard enough time with it being a two-party nation.
Hell, between the Blue Dogs and the sell-outs to corporate interests and the frankly incompetents, the Democrats are a multiple party all by themselves.
tc125231
@Brick Oven Bill: Do you actually READ history? Or just cherry pick? If you actually read it, name me five societal structural changes, having nothing to do with politics, that have exerted serious pressure towards the changes that have occurred in the founders vision (hint: they are outgrowths of the activity of the market).
Let me paraphrase Moynihan for you: You are entitled to your opinions but not your own facts. Your penchant for editing inconvenient facts from history simply identified you as intellectually second rate.
pcbedamned
As a Canadian watching your country and its constant campaigning and ‘everything is political’, is like watching one of those really bad reality shows that you just can’t seem to turn off even tho you know it is all fixed in the end. (and I HATE reality tv – but find US politics utterly amusing and bewildering). It such the opposite of what we face here Canada. See, we don’t pay attention to or reward the crazies. Right now we have a Conservative minority because the Liberals are still being punished for the whole Ad Scam thing. (Personally, I would like to see a Conservative Majority, but our Cons are not like your Cons). Every time the Liberal Party tries a ‘little crazy’ like their failed ‘coup by coalition’, or ‘we are going for a vote of non-confidence to bring down parliament and force Canadians to another election’, they lose support in a big way and back down. I guess after having to put up with Trudeau and Chretien for so many years, we have learned not suffer fools gladly…
JGabriel
Brick Oven Bill:
I so wanna go to BOB’s coming out party.
In particular, I look forward to interviewing all the disappointed female Glenn Beck fans.
.
tc125231
@r€nato: You should look at 538 (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com). They do far more empirical analysis than Brownstein will ever do–mainly because it requires statistical knowledge and serious work.
Unfortunately, I would not call their prognosis optimistic for Democrats in 2010 right now.
tc125231
@Brick Oven Bill: I am reduced, as is usually the case with you, to thinking “Tose words don’t mean what you think they mean,”
Where, except in your twisted little brain, do you see reference to ” deviant propaganda” in the Fourth Amendment?
The text is as follows:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
CalD
I actually wouldn’t be too surprised if Democrats picked up a few seats in the midterms. In any case I haven’t seen anything so far that would lead me to expect Republicans to retake the majority in either house. The US congress is really the last bastion of job security in America. It normally takes quite a lot to dislodge one of those critters once they’re seated. But other than on the most lunatic fringes of the radical right wing — whose antics have even some pretty loyal Republicans asking WTF at this point — I’m just not seeing the kind of anger in the country right now that it would take to chew all the way through the current Democratic majorities.
Brick Oven Bill
Tc125231; Five societal structural changes leading to the Constitution:
1. The re-emergence of the 7 Liberal Arts during the Enlightenment.
2. An appreciation of our 5 Senses.
3. The Printing Press.
4. Gunpowder.
5. Metal.
#s 4 and 5 acted to remove bodily strength from the top spot in the Natural Aristocracy of Man in societies graced with their presence, replacing physical strength with talent and virtue, hallmarks of the Constitution. Jefferson explains it here.
Societies evolving in the absence of gunpowder and metal put a premium on bodily strength, which is why these societies inevitably have patriarchal, or monarchial government structures.
Chad N Freude
@Brachiator: We are living in an era where “getting out the message”(tm) is important. Yes, the Dems should be in governing mode (which means what, trying to line up enough congressional votes to get something passed? engaging in diplomatic relations with unfriendly countries? working at improving a terrible economy? I think they’re doing that), but if they are not constantly making their case via the [choke] media, nothing they do by way of governing is going to register with a significant part of the electorate. If your opposition is campaiging and you’re not, you are at a disadvantage.
Brachiator
@valdivia:
This is true, but the system works however the people in power decide how it shall work.
The Bush Administration set the agenda, authored legislation, and did whatever was necessary to maintain an imperial presidency in which its goals were always pushed. Look at how Bush re-appointed people who were voted down by Congress, or found new positions for them elsewhere, and used recess appointments, signing statements and deliberately ignoring Congressional intent when directing the efforts of executive departments.
And all of this was done with the co-operation of the Republicans in Congress, and the passive acceptance of the Democrats.
In some ways, Obama has done much better than the conventional wisdom and the constant drone of negative media spin might suggest.
However, Obama’s tendency to set broad goals and to depend on Congress to flesh out the details of legislation simply does not work with a largely corrupt or incompetent Democratic congressional leadership.
Despite it being a key goal for decades, health care reform has been a shambolic mess, unnecessarily confusing to the public, and with little clear aim or purpose. Financial regulatory reform legislation has already been riddled with so many special interest concessions that it will achieve nothing substantive.
Today, right now, neither Obama nor the Democrats know how to transform their goals into effective policy. The Republicans, on the other hand, were masters at this.
The Republicans like to claim that government can’t get things done. The Democrats seem intent on proving them right.
kay
@Brachiator:
Great post. I agree completely. They have to govern properly, not campaign constantly or respond to every stupid 24 hour theme pushed by media and conservative strategists.
The “quick! respond to every Republican/media theme!” strategy is fear-based, and people operating from fear make poor decisions.
It’s the media and the GOP’s job to drum up the nonsense. I get that. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s the majority Party’s job to actually govern.
If the work is solid it should hold up. It’s backwards to concentrate on campaigning at the expense of governing.
Chad N Freude
@Brick Oven Bill:
And everybody agrees on what is normal, hence everybody agrees on what is deviant. QED.
Any advocacy of tolerance for any social concept — race, religion, opinions different from one’s own — is propaganda. Although propaganda is technically a neutral word, it frequently has a negative connotation. How do you mean it here?
William Ockham
Brownstein is wrong on the facts and the analysis. According to exit poll data hosted on, ahem, the National Journal’s website, Clinton did much better among older (aged 60+) voters (whom he carried 50-38) than he did among younger voters (whom he carried but much more narrowly, 43-34) in 1992 (Perot got about 22% of younger voters, but only 12% of older voters). 1992 was one of the worst years ever for Republicans among older voters. The dominance of older voters in 1994 can’t possibly be the explanation for the Dem’s losses.
That’s not good news for Obama and the Dems because, well, there’s no delicate way to put this, if you were over 60 in 1992, you’re probably dead now. The good news for Obama is that voters born since 1978 have participated in both presidential and midterm elections at a significantly higher rate than earlier generations when they were the same age. Brownstein might want to take note of the fact that Congressional Dems did better than Obama in 2008. In fact, they even did slightly better in 2006 than Obama did in 2008 in terms of their margin over the Republicans. Match that with the advantage that comes with incumbency in Congressional elections and you have a hard time coming up with scenarios for the Republicans to retake the House. At best, they knock off some Blue Dogs.
Comrade Luke
I kind of agree with…Dan Savage, believe it or not:
Comrade Luke
The bottom part should be in the box.
Blockquote FAIL. And I even proofread it.
JK
@Comrade Luke:
The Democratic Party is as impotent and ineffectual as Fredo Corleone.
Chad N Freude
@Comrade Luke: Not sure why the Believe-it-or-not for Dan Savage. Are you confusing him with Michael Savage?
kay
@Comrade Luke:
I do think there’s a disconnect between the liberal wing and the actual Democratic Party, though, and I see it all the time where I live.
Liberal Democrats sometimes refuse to admit that “Democrat” is a big word. It is a very diverse coalition. It just is.
“Democratic voters” run from conservative to liberal. Long-time conservative-leaning Democrats consider themselves the base, and they bitch about the younger liberals.
They complain, sometimes rightly, that they turned out and voted a straight Party line through twenty years of conservative dominance. They believe (again, rightly) that they elected Clinton twice. It’s their big success.
“Base” means different things to different people. It’s plain hard work to hold it together. It’s great for liberals to pull policy left. What they can’t do is pretend the center and right in the Democratic Party don’t exist. They do, they consider themselves charter members, and they have to be included.
Comrade Luke
@Chad N Freude:
Nah, it’s just that Dan Savage can go over the top sometimes.
Not MICHAEL Savage over the top (is he ever under the top?), but still…
Brachiator
@Chad N Freude:
In the world I live in, people are losing their jobs and their homes at alarming rates, or are under-employed with decreasing prospects of regaining their previous levels of income or earning power. Everyday they see their standard of living decline.
People got the goddamn message. This is why they voted for Obama and the Democrats.
Nobody is sitting around waiting for more message.
Balloon Juicers, pundits, and the Village care far more about the media than most human beings. But even here, we continually see that much of the media is little more than a GOP propaganda machine, or worse, political kabuki in which people pretend at journalism while engaging in meaningless ritualistic performances meant to dazzle each other.
And then there is Sarah Palin, the ultimate media darling, full of sound and you betcha, signifying nothing, making the case for “also, too.” And, ironically enough, many in the wingnut fringe eat this up, even though there is absolutely nothing there except fear and loathing, and the sickness unto death panels.
Football coach: “We made a statement today out there on the field. We really made a case for our program.”
Fan: Uh, but coach, you lost the game.
Comrade Luke
@kay:
If I’m reading you right…well, there’s not much hope. Seems like governing based on the groups you mention above leads to triangulation, and we see where that’s gotten us?
Why is holding it together important for any reason other than getting re-elected? And to take it another step: how about the left of the left getting a bone once in a while? For all the talk about “holding it together”, it sure looks like all that means is appeasing the conservative wing and taking the left of the left for granted.
And to be fair, while I agree with Savage what he says seems like a pipe dream at this point.
Both his comments and yours leave out what all three of us know in our hearts: right now, none of these theories, or breakdowns of who is part of the party and who isn’t, matters.
Money matters.
JGabriel
kay:
Liberal is the center.The left is the left. Or if you prefer different labels, the left is communists and sociaIists. Maybe progressives.
As someone who’s known actual, party organizing, Communists and SociaIists — had a former SO in the Brecht Forum — they do not like the left being confused liberals or liberalism. That’s way too pro-capital for them.
Got to see Stephen Jay Gould reading the Communist Manifesto at their celebration of its 150th anniversary, though. That was: cool.
.
Brachiator
@Comrade Luke:
You see this in a nutshell here in California, where the Democrats and Republicans conspire to maintain a permanent political class.
They continued to do this even as the state budget imploded under the weight of increasing deficits.
Why? Who cares? How does this get anyone a job or health care or a home tomorrow, or prevent them from losing a job today?
Actually, power matters. And its exercise.
kay
@JGabriel:
Right. That’s a bigger view. I’m talking about the Democratic Party. Here’s an anecdotal example. I was, for a time, the head of a local Democratic women’s group. I had these parties, because, really, that’s all I know about organizing: “have parties”. Okay! I can do that!
They’d have these battles, the liberals and the conservatives. I’d leave the room and come back and they’d be yelling at each other. Remember when HRC (as a Senator) introduced that horrible pandering flag-burning ban? I had a Christmas event around that time, and it came up in conversation.
Older Democrats loved it. The liberals went nuts. A fight ensued. The older ladies loved it for complex and emotional reasons: they felt they had been portrayed as unpatriotic by Republicans, and this was “proof” that they weren’t unpatriotic. The liberals hated it because it’s a violation of the First Amendment.
The Clintons completely “get” this older portion of the base. I don’t know (yet) if Obama does.
Martin
I disagree. 2010 won’t be a cake walk, but I think it’ll shape up better than people think. By the election the health care stuff will be behind us, and the post-signing coverage of bills is almost exclusively positive. While the economy is likely to still be a heap of suck, I also expect that the discussion will be centered around the new industries developing due to the environmental bills.
Voters don’t need to see plans fully realized, they’re usually pretty happy just with a plan underway.
And once the old white people see that their health care didn’t get gutted, a lot of them will calm down. Manufactured outrage is hard to sustain for 18 months. Even Clinton left office with high approval ratings.
Events may scuttle all of that, but I don’t think much of what we see now will factor into elections a year from now.
Brachiator
@Martin:
Any Democratic politician who seriously believes this is guaranteeing Republican victory in the upcoming elections.
kay
@Comrade Luke:
They’re essentially conservatives, so they’re more comfortable with small changes toward a larger goal, and at the end of the day, they’re not all that interested in larger goals, if the larger goals don’t produce immediate practical results.
They don’t understand the liberal complaints about Clinton, for example. They see Clinton’s success as self-evident, for one simple reason: more people like them did a little better, economically.
They got comfortable with Obama not because of the “change” theme but because of his calm demeanor, and it took a little while. In the end, though, they backed him, judging by the election results here. I’m grateful to them for that. It was a process, and they eventually made a leap of faith. That’s difficult to do.
So, that’s the needle to thread. Small gains toward better policy or big sweeping successes. I think that division can be reconciled.
aimai
This from Brachiator is just perfect as a description of the way both Parties think about public political action vs. the way the base does. It explains everything we get in the mail from both parties:
aimai
matoko_chan
This is the most hilarious “secular” right comment thread evahevah!!!!
Even their smart people are retards.
matoko_chan
Epiphany!!!
That is what is wrong with the GOP!
Selection for stupid.
Chad N Freude
@matoko_chan: Antisocial Darwinism?
Brachiator
@matoko_chan:
But you don’t have to be smart when the Democrats continue to stumble all over themselves. Jon Stewart still has the best most recent rant on the Democrats’ total inability to capitalize on their electoral victory with any significant legislative success.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/01/stewart-destroys-dems-for_n_305948.html
matoko_chan
lol yeah.
Thank gawd Obama isn’t a democrat…he is a machiavellian pragmatist.
;)
Martin
When was the last time a politician ever benefitted from a plan fully realized? Even FDR who was in office longer than anyone barely was able to show a depression recovery before WWII showed up, and he was re-elected with that going in a positive direction, but far from won.
Any real plan takes longer than 4 years to realize these days, and you’re lucky to get 3 years to get it done between entering office and the election.
If Obama gets health care reform passed, it’ll barely have started actually hitting the books by the time he’s up for re-election, but it’ll be signed and on the books and credit will be given.
California isn’t a terribly good role model lately. What was the last thing that the state did as a genuinely positive step in the last decade? We’ve had some nice environmental movement, but that’s all I can think of. By and large, the best news out of the state is that they aren’t delivering worse news. I think Obama and Congress are out of that mode now. Health care reform is a genuinely positive move given that the problem long predates him (and Bush, and Clinton…)
Comrade Luke
@Brachiator:
When I refer to being thrown a bone, meaningful health care reform is exactly what I’m talking about.
Comrade Luke
@kay:
So older Democrats loved a flag-burning ban that was a violation of the First Amendment for emotional reasons, and liberals hated it because…it was a violation of the First Amendment.
And you praise the Clintons because “The Clintons completely “get” this older portion of the base”.
So you’re ok with a violation of the First Amendment in order to make older Democrats feel better about themselves?
Because that’s how it reads.
bob h
One wonders, though, how much appeal a Party that wants to respond to the economic crisis with cuts to the stimulus, cuts to unemployment insurance and COBRA, and tax cuts for the rich, etc. is going to have. How far is neo-Hooverism going to get them?