In the comments on the last post about Nevada Republican Sharron Angle, there was some concern that I was overconfident about Harry Reid’s chances in that race. If you don’t believe that being unable to talk to local media isn’t enough to doom Angle’s campaign, this post is for you.
Let’s take a quick trip to the FEC website and follow the money in Nevada. Reid has a mere $9 million in cash as of his last FEC filing. Angle has a whopping $138K in cash, and $170K in debt.
Compare those totals to the last race where a Democratic Senate Majority Leader was knocked off, the Daschle/Thune steel cage death match of 2004. By the same time in that race, Thune had $2.5 million cash on hand. Together, both candidates had spent more than $30 million after all the dust settled. Thune had already been a three-term Member of Congress, South Dakota is more Republican than Nevada (R+9 vs D+2), third parties were not a factor in the South Dakota race (as they may be in Nevada), and, unlike Nevada, SD doesn’t have a “none of the above” choice.
Knocking off a sitting Majority Leader isn’t a wish your heart makes. It takes a few million bucks. There’s no evidence that Angle is on track to raise anything like that kind of money. Put that together with her media savvy, and you have one really shitty candidate.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
If you haven’t already, You gotta watch this video clip of a local teevee reporter trying question Angle about some of her crazy ass blatherings on issues. Harry Reid must have guardian angels looking out after him to draw this wingnut of the 10 power.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Obtuse Angle’s* poor finances show she’s just like the ReaLAMEricans who are suffering from the effects of the horrible decisions made during the Obama/Clinton administration (2001-2009). Harry “Elitist Doodyhead” Reid’s refusal to donate all of his campaign funds to a worthy cause (such as Angle’s campaign) shows he’s a big old hypocrite who really doesn’t care about the little guy. Or gal. Also2.
*h/t Someone, can’t remember the name.
shortstop
We’ve been suffering from blog blindness on this one as well — overestimating how visible she is. Angle’s being discussed all over the ‘sphere, but the vast majority of Nevada voters aren’t tuned into that. And yeah, she’s making certain that she’s not being discussed in the places where they are tuned in.
Gus
She is raising money quickly, though.
Kryptik
Don’t worry, Limbaugh-likes and the Tea Party will be hard at work raising money and polluting the media pool to slime Reid until he’s toxic, so as to give Angle a fighting chance.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@shortstop: The good news is Reid will destroy her in the stretch run. The bad news is she is likely to win anyway. Given all the negative currents running against dems right now. Nevada will surely inherit the dunce cap for putting this fruit loop in the US Senate.
kay
I was one of the people who said you were wrong, but I think I was probably wrong, so I’m switching sides.
I remembered the 2004 Bush race. One of the things that the Bush Team did that was incredibly smart is they planted personal stories in local media.
Here’s what they did. They would invite a sort of high-profile local person to a Bush event in the closest city. Here, they used the high school football coach. They invited him and his pretty wife and adorable children to the city where Bush was lighting down for 20 minutes, and invited them back, and took a picture with the Prez. The coach and his family then returned home, and submitted it to the local paper, which ran it on the front page, along with a glowing interview on why the high school football coach loved President Bush (“so warm!”).
Bush Team did that all over Ohio.
Obama did it too, but better. His campaign identified local people who were high profile (small pond big fish) and had them submit positive stuff to the local paper. They were writing whole editorials. Team Obama were especially excited when they snared a local Republican who was ready to go public, because this county is 60-40 GOP.
So, I think you’re right and I was wrong. Local media is really important.
Bootlegger
Will Angle be first on the ballot? If so, and the Nevada voters are as retarded as South Carolina Dems, then Reid is in real trouble.
Bootlegger
@kay: Bush did this in the Tex gubernatorial race against Ann Richards as well. They also used local media to start the lesbian rumors about her.
me
Apparently she supported an CoS backed prisoner rehab program and defended it by saying “Those two protocols were developed by [the late Church of Scientology founder] L. Ron Hubbard, and they had to give him credit. But it is not Scientology, but rather natural homeopathic medicine.”. Scientology and homeopathy, how much more crackpottery can be crammed into one story?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Guess I should have clicked thru MM, you already posted that video. And I will say, you have a good argument for Reid winning, at least in a normal world. I sincerely hope you are right, as senate seats are precious, despite Reid’s past performance as Maj. Leader. Though I will say he has done better the last 8 or 10 months. at least imo.
Betty Cracker
From your lips to god’s ears.
kay
@Bootlegger:
That’s too bad, that they used it for rumor-mongering. I thought it was a clever way to spread him around.
Bush didn’t come here, there’s not enough people to bother, but it was like he was everywhere, because he would touch down in some population center and these photos would appear in all these tiny surrounding burgs. It’s the next best thing, right? “There’s President Bush with our football coach!” I imagine there were voters who didn’t read the article who thought Bush was at the local high school.
Kerry did none of that, despite my constant, incessant bitching and throwing things, and storming out of rooms :)
I’m a little calmer now.
Colonel Danite
So in the immortal words of Lloyd Christmas: “So, you’re saying there’s a chance!”
Anya
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: She looks completely insane in that interview. She is trying to pull the whole, lame-stream media is trying to get me with ther cotcha questions, but she does not evoke same starburst reaction as the dingbat from Wasilla.
mb
You gotta figure there’s going to be some nat’l party $$ coming her way. I hope they dump a bunch of cash on her cause my sense is that Sharron Angle may have already peaked regardless of money. I don’t think they will give her a lot of money but surely they’re going to give dethroning Harry the old college try. The wackos are going to demand an all out effort and they are hard to resist this year. I expect there will be a lot of pressure to nationalize that race.
Alex S.
The mormon God is with Harry!
I would have been afraid for him if his opponent had been Danny Tarkanian. Sue Lowden and Sharron Angle don’t have a chance.
beltane
Knocking off Tim Daschle was also a top priority for the Rove machine. Angle doesn’t have this kind of institutional backing, and I get the distinct sense that Cornyn and McConnell would prefer not to have to deal with her. They already have their hands full with Rand Paul and the defense of the Kentucky seat. Chicken Lady Lowden was far more malleable for their purposes.
Harry Reid also has something of a political machine behind him in Nevada, which will help him out a lot.
beltane
@Anya: Sharron Angle is one ugly, un-photogenic, nasty looking woman. If you want to get away with spewing the crazy, you’d better look good in a mini-skirt and hooker boots. Plus, Angle is actually more extreme than Palin, who is primarily concerned with her bank account, not policy.
Woodrowfan
Even so, I’ll feel better is Reid runs as if he’s facing the best possible opponent.
Woodrowfan
@me:
Just add Chemtrails and/or 9/11 Twooferism and you’ve got the perfect woo candidate..
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Anya:
I hereby Christen her Supernova Sharron.
edit –is a stellar explosion that is more energetic than a nova. Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation …
Anya
@beltane: Angle might be more extreme but Palin is more dangerous. She gets more media exposure and they report her every idiotic utterance uncritically. She also has more followers and a bigger platform.
demo woman
Scott Brown won in MA. He had funding when he needed it. There is no shame in the GOP. My concern is that Paul and Angle both win and the overton window keeps moving to the right. Fox TV will give both free advertising.
wmsheppa
@Bootlegger: Everyone in Nevada knows who Reid is, and they all either hate him or love him. Even the most politically disengaged folks out there know him because he is everywhere in the news (demonized in the Review Journal, lionized in the Sun). The Nevada democratic machine (built by Reid) is also a tank.
Uloborus
Yes, that’s a performance that will satisfy the Tea Partiers and nobody else. She held up moderately well on the SS issue, assuming that the listener doesn’t remember any of the ‘Thank God we didn’t let Bush privatize Social Security’ moments we’ve had over the last few years. But she sounded defensive and incoherent otherwise.
Defensive and incoherent is what these people want, but it’s a notoriously hard sell for moderates and undecideds.
I wish Reid luck, and may this be a scene repeated across the country as the Republicans’ out of control party base nominates ‘woop woop woop nyuk nyuk nyuk’ candidates.
kay
@demo woman:
I really think there’s something to the physical attractiveness-tea bagger connection.
Brown and Palin got a lot of attention because they’re good looking. Brown didn’t run from that at all. His photos look like a magazine advertising spread. He’s good at that. Palin even manages to transcend her horrible, grating speaking voice (which to me trumps any physical attractiveness she has: she opens her mouth, she’s ugly) by refusing to speak to the press, and communicating through Twitter, but a picture is a picture.
RalfW
I dunno, I saw on the intertubes (so, y’know…) that she’s raising $100K per day. If that keeps up, she’ll have $3 mil in a month. It may not hold, but that’s quite a stream.
I noticed on the NYT comment thread (Gail Collins, I think) that some random (liberal?) schlub in Oregon got an RNC fundraising letter begging for money for Nevada (with an unnamed candidate at that point).
The GOP really, really, really wants to knock Reid off. Even if they can’t win the Senate they know it will both look bad for Dems to loose this race, and create a good bit of chaos if the Dems have a razor thin majority and a new Sen majority leader come January.
Uloborus
@demo woman:
Brown isn’t indicative of anything, though. His opponent was a worse candidate than Angle. Stuff like insulting the local baseball team and one tenth the standard public appearances?
NY-23 is a much better example, although still not perfect. The Tea Party candidate pisses off enough moderate Republicans that a Dem can take one of the most reliable Republican districts in America. I’m really hoping for more of that.
KCinDC
I hope you’re right. Angle’s strategy seems to be to be as invisible as possible to people outside the closed community of wingnuts who will react positively to her. Then for swing voters (and any remaining near-sane Republicans) she’ll effectively be a generic Republican, and a generic Republican should do a lot better than the specific Republican she is.
wmsheppa
@RalfW: Reid has the financial support of every casino and mining company in the state. They haven’t given to anyone else in a year, and are the only major corporate contributors. When MGM Mirage and Harrah’s start taking advantage of that new law allowing them to run campaign commercials, this race is over.
KCinDC
Hmm, wonder what supposedly spam-indicating word I used to get into moderation. Maybe “g*neric”?
demo woman
NY-23 might be a better example and Murtha’s seat staying democratic was positive news. MSM reports on the democratic party are so dire that I tend to believe it.
The idea that fiscal libertarians and social in my bedroom candidates are viable scares me.
Brachiator
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
The video clip is a great example of how good reporters and editors do their job. Pay attention to how the news station framed their report.
The anchors began by noting that they were attempting to get Angle to answer questions that their viewers wanted to ask. This anticipated and countered any accusations by conservatives that the on-scene reporter was engaging in “Gotcha” journalism.
Then, whenever Angle tried to paint the reporter as being from the pro-Reid biased liberal media, he would point out that he was trying to get her to explain what was on her own web site (and the news editor would emphasize this with a visual clip of her site).
The clip of her appearing on a conservative talk radio station speaking effusively contrasted well with her evasions and obfuscations. Just brilliant.
Still she may win, despite her Sarah Palin style “avoid the media” strategy.
Conservatives have found their campaign sweet spot and are exploiting it well. They are wrapping their old issues (anti-UN, anti-Social Security, anti-regulation) in new packaging based on fear and racism, the notion that Real Americans must take the country back from an illegitimate black soshulist usurper.
You cannot easily gauge the impact of fear and tribalism on the electorate. And too many liberals want to fall back on snark, mockery and intellectual condescension, or naively assume that voters will come to the senses, instead of finding effective means of countering this rising tide of anti-rationality.
And I also would not underestimate GOP fund raising efforts, especially in an effort to oust a senior Democratic Party congressman.
Jager
Speaking of political cash…Meg Whitman is at $91,000,000 so far in her race for Governor…the week before the primary, she bought EVERY available spot on local TV in LA, I’m guessing she will be close to 150 million when the polls close in November. Queen Meg’s spots running on the Spanish stations right now are 180 degrees from what she was saying in English during the primary…how can you be governor if you don’t realize that most Hispanics are bilingual? Meg must think Hispanics are really, really dumb, then again she’s a republican!
You Don't Say
I live in Nevada and it’s going to be a close race. Harry Reid is widely despised here. But if he can’t take out Angle he doesn’t deserve to win. She was a horrible state legislator, voted no on virtually every bill. I live in the north and can’t speak to politics in the south, which has a bigger impact, but major Republican names — Bill Raggio, long-time state senator, and Bob Cashell, mayor of Reno — have come out in support of Reid.
Sentient Puddle
@KCinDC: Remember that this is also how they handled Palin. Democrats were all freaking the fuck out early September because they were about to lose because of a Bush in drag…until they got the rest of the country to realize how dumb she was. At that point, no media appearances were a liability because she couldn’t even try to defend her dumb shit.
I think our side has the better part of the strategy, personally.
Lowkey
Make no mistake: the levels of soft money and ratfuckery in this race are going to be utterly epic. They’ll be breathtaking in every race this cycle, but Reid’s re-up bid is going to be one of the nexi. Rove’s sitting on a castle of new PACs with over $100M in the bank (as of two months ago; can’t remember source, but HuffPo touches on American Crossroads, his mothership, here. Breitbart and his crew of merry monkey-wrenchers are gearing up for more hi-jinks during campaign season, bet on it. Angle’s million dollar moneybomb is the beginning, not the end. Thanks to Citizen’s United, BP, Massey Energy, Goldman Sach’s, and every other corporate bad actor that’s fallen under public scrutiny is going to be pumping cash into every 527 that promises to put out. I don’t think they’ll be able to deliver the Senate, or 60 seats in the House, but if the Donks manage to hold on to the House majority, it’ll be nothing short of a spectacular victory for the DNC.
Uloborus
@Brachiator:
I agree that the GOP is doing an amazing job of flogging tribalism for all that it’s worth. But look at the House races since Obama took office. What is it, 12 out of 13 Democrat? The GOP repeatedly pushes a national anti-Obama message based on that tribalism, and it gets crushed by people voting for local issues.
I sincerely believe Sarah Palin is the perfect example of the current GOP strategy. The Right fringe froths with love for her. But she dragged an already losing McCain straight into the gutter. You absolutely do not piss off moderates to please the extremes. That’s a losing strategy. Heck, Bush only got elected because he pretended to be moderate.
MikeJ
@You Don’t Say:
I don’t doubt you, but I wonder why. Somehow I don’t think that’s it’s because he’s not forcefully pressing for a progressive agenda. SO what is it that people don’t like about him?
Lowkey
@Lowkey: Found the link to the Rolling Stone article.
r€nato
I would love to see some enterprising investigative reporter do some research into where BP is spreading their money this fall, and especially if they are up to any shenanigans w/r/t campaign finance law.
It’s really, really, really important to them – and perhaps their survival as a going concern – to have a more friendly Congress as they deal with the aftermath of the GoM oil spill (that is, let’s pray to FSM that we’re dealing with the aftermath by then, not still trying to plug that fucker).
r€nato
@Uloborus: Maybe I am living in a state of denial, but I still believe that the teabagger movement is a small and very noisy minority. They are being credited with influence out of all proportion to their actual voting numbers.
Once people get a good look at actual teabagger-approved candidates, they’re not going to look so appealing to people who are otherwise unhappy with the current administration.
Lowkey
@r€nato: Amen to that. May FSM reach out his noodly appendage, and plug the leak with it.
But yeah, I’d love Taibbi or some other hard-nosed asshole to yank BP’s contributions out of the shadow. I see two reasons that may explain why BP handed over the $20B so easily. First, it’s the first good ink they’ve gotten since their rig blew up. Second, they’ve got to be betting there’s at least a good chance that they’ll be getting it back.
El Cid
Angle doesn’t need any money, because Jesus and the ghost of the movie character William Wallace will touch the hearts of Real American Patriot Conservatives throughout Nevada.
Uloborus
@r€nato:
I entirely agree. The Media Narrative is making it very hard to honestly evaluate this election. I don’t know if they’re pushing Anti-Incumbent Fever because it’s pro-conservative, or if they’re pushing pro-conservatism because it justifies their beloved narrative.
But they’re willing to play up the most ridiculously tiny things, ignore any fact, no matter how large, and distort any figure to make it match. Exhibit A is treating the Teabaggers like they’re a legitimate viable national movement, rather than a bunch of quarreling elderly lunatics whose only accomplishment so far is to drag votes away from the GOP.
Remember, these are the exact same people who believed in the Permanent Republican Majority, and from what I can tell, still do. Rove’s Math said so. They think McCain is a principled maverick who’s a key player in Washington. They’re utterly unaware that Palin polls somewhere below Jeffery Dahmer in popularity. They sincerely, honestly believe that the impeachment destroyed Clinton and crippled the Democratic Party.
We might take a drubbing in November, but it’s hard to tell because the actual issues are being ignored in favor of meaningless gibberish.
Laertes
How bad would it be if Reid lost? We really need to build more nuclear, and the fact that the Majority Leader is a senator from Nevada makes it impossible to dump nuclear waste in, or transport it through, Nevada. If we get Senator Angle, Nevada will have zero clout and we can start moving the waste the following day.
Further, I gather Reid was a big supporter of the online gambling bans, looking out for his home state’s cash cow. With a majority leader from an important state–say, Illinois for example–we could probably get rid of that.
Nevadans: Go ahead and dump Reid. The nation as a whole would be better off if you were to give that tasty tasty majority leader slot to some other more deserving state.
I remember when then-Speaker Tom Foley was running the race he eventually lost. Polls showed that a shocking number of people in his district thought that his opponent would become speaker if he unseated Foley. I wonder how many Nevadans think that Angle is running for Senate Majority Leader.
REN
As we all know media conglomeration has left most of the MSM in this country in the hands of the likes of Rupert Murdoch. Why is anyone still in doubt as to why we keep hearing this conservative drumbeat incessantly? So called journalists are doing their “job” based on what their corporate masters and their stooge editors want done. The truth is irrelevant, and when it can’t be sidestepped it is ignored.
You Don't Say
@MikeJ: I didn’t mean among liberals, although even some Dems don’t particularly like him. There are many reasons. Among farmers in the north, for example, he is disliked for his work on water issues. But mostly it’s a general distrust here of long-serving politicians.
I’m not saying Reid won’t win. But don’t underestimate how disliked he is here. He’s lucky that Angle is such a loon and is as disliked among Republicans as Reid is among the general population. (I was shocked she won the primary, but that’s all thanks to Lowden’s pathetic campaign.) And that reasonable Republicans like Raggio and Cashell are more than willing to support him.
There is a long history of anti-government sentiment here and Reid = government. Nevada was Tea Party long before there was a tea party. (Battle Born!) That’s true of even recent history. I covered the state legislature as a business reporter in 2005 and that’s when Angle served as well as equally loony proto-Tea Partiers like Bob Beers and Sandra Tiffany, both from Dem-dominated southern Nevada. Thankfully, they’re both gone so people here, for the most part, are not blind ideologues.
Mark S.
The only poll I’ve seen so far in this race was Rasmussen, which of course had Angle leading 98-2.
Joel
@demo woman: Scott Brown, however, is (relatively speaking) to the left of Olympia Snowe. Different candidates. And Martha Coakley was awful.
EriktheRed
Tom Daschle wasnt’ the majority leader at the time he lost election.
Lowkey
@Mark S.: LOL, and the 2% were polling for Lowden.
handy
The 2 being the margin of error of course.
Brachiator
@Uloborus:
I think you are missing the forest because of some mighty big trees.
Arizona perverted some reasonable concerns about illegal immigration into an obnoxiously intrusive law, and then doubled down by another law which “rescued” supposedly victimized white from attacks by … Latino studies programs. And now they are upping the ante on neo-seccession by pitching a bill which would deny birth certificates to the children born of illegal immigrants. Meanwhile a Nebraska town is considering draconian laws which would make it illegal to hire or rent to illegal immigrants.
These are “local” issues with national ramifications.
And as background to this, we have elected officials (not just insane tea baggers running for office) insisting that President Obama cares more about black people than he does white people, uh, I mean, Real Americans(TM), and the right wing British Daily Mail has a featured article claiming that Obama hates the British because his Kenya grandfather was imprisoned by the Brits, and of course this explains why Obama is being so hard on BP.
Palin served a useful purpose in accidentally jump-starting the tea bagger movement. There were tribalist fears long smoldering during Obama’s run for the presidency, and the fears have not gone away, but have been nurtured by Palin, Limbaugh and the GOP, who foolishly believe that they can contain them.
For example, libertarians tend to believe in open borders and the Wall Street conservatives fantasize being able to import immigrant labor without rights or access to health care or social services, who can keep wages low and be kicked out when no longer needed. But the shrill nativists are going beyond anything that the oligarchs would like.
The neo-cons still believe that they can exploit the anti-intellectual base to which Palin appeals. But the fundamentalists were pleased to see Palin kick McCain to the curb because they never trusted him in the first place. And tea baggers have no problem with the idea of purifiying the GOP by expelling moderates.
This may be a total disaster in the long term, but if these people can elect enough people to continue to put obstacles in front of Obama and the Democrats, then they still will have succeeded.
Didn’t Bush easily win re-election? He wasn’t fooling anybody the second time around.
thejoz
I think Rachel Maddow pointed out the best Angle clip to date, and it really does sum up the entire race right now.
Asked of a local reporter who cares about the issues and is asking Angle tough questions about Social Security:
“Where are you getting these questions from?”
Which is absolutely code for:
“Why aren’t you softballing me questions that will feed red meat to the rabid insane teatard base that will make me look like a goddess? Why are you asking me real questions that normal people want real answers to, which, if I answer honestly, will only make me wholly unelectable and unpalatable to anyone who has more than an ounce of sanity in them?”
Yeah.
Sharron Angle is out of her fucking mind, and if Harry Reid doesn’t cruise to re-election I will be utterly shocked.
And really, I have to think that while publicly, McConnell et. al. will say they want Angle, Rand Paul, and any other teabagging whackjob to win…privately I don’t think they do.
That’s not saying they want a Democrat (especially Harry Reid or the on fire Jack Conway) to win, but if they did, that would actually probably be easier to deal with than with having completely unhinged wingnuts in their coven.
We’ll see.
Uloborus
Brachiator:
9/11. Period. Before the attack, he was less popular than Nixon. Typical of the GOP they exploited it ruthlessly for short-term gain, and it started biting them in the butt by 2006. Now that very strategy hasn’t brought the Tea Party in as fanatic loyalists, it’s allowed the lunatic fringe to push candidates who look like they’ll lose previously gauranteed seats.
I completely agree that in the meantime it’s taken the loonies off the leash anywhere they can get power. Long term, it discredits conservatism. Short term, people will suffer. I’d rather this not have happened, but I think it’s bleeding the GOP rather than revitalizing it.
Oh, and no, Bush squeaked in reelection. One of the maddening things about it was his treating this as a ‘mandate’.
maus
@Alex S.:
Ah, but L Ron Hubbard is with Angle!
Lowkey
@Brachiator:
The only exception I take to your read is your perception that they are being foolish. I honestly think they aren’t intersted in containing any of the more aggresive rightie vectors. It’s not that Wall Street and glibertarians will find themselves at tension with nativists or each other. They can resolve that gripe easily. Libertarians firmly believe that Libertarian Freedom is only for right-thinking Americans. Sure, other people have natural freedoms, but only Americans are afforded the protections of the Constructionalist Constitution. Everyone else should be smart and determined enough to establish their own fucking country that doesn’t suck so bad. A program whereby immigrants were radio-tagged at the border, and allowed in to work for $4 an hour, while anyone with a U.S. Passport could stroll across, would suit all parties just fine. Nativists, libertarians, and big corporate intersts, boom, hand in hand in hand.
A conversation with a libertarian friend of mine is very telling here. The subject was ACORN’s clearing of wrongdoing. “There, see,” says I, “I told you they weren’t corrupt, they were just trying to do too much with too little. Dumb stuff happens when you accept help from wherever you can get it.” “Whatever, they were a corrupt organization,” says he, “and I’m glad they got what they deserved.” “Waitaminnit,” I object, “this isn’t entirely even about their at the time alleged voter registration fraud. They helped tens of thousands of poor people find homes, get homes, and not get screwed by slumlords, too. That’s all over now. Those people are fucked.” And with an unperturbed gaze, he told me, “I don’t care. ACORN had to go.”
I don’t see it as foolish. It’s not that the powers that be think that they’ll eventually have to rein these furious freaks in at some point. It’s that the people that the nativists, anti-gubmint frothers, Fundies, fetus-fetishists, and free-market fellationists all want to hurt are people that the powers that be don’t care about, or are actually pleased to see hurt.
Brachiator
@Uloborus:
This is not quite true and misses a couple of points. Bush (and Cheney) wielded power effectively and rolled the Democrats despite the fluctuations in his popularity polling.
Politics ain’t a popularity contest. Democrats in general and progressives in particular forget this, especially those who are dreamy about supposed progressive agendas who are clueless about crafting and executing effective legislation.
Bush was a genial goofball conservative who almost never lost the support of fundamentalists (I recall a fundie saying that Bush would be unable to make a mistake as president because he believed in Jesus) or the business wing of the GOP.
Bush was undone by Katrina and the catastrophic failure of the financial markets. Only then did people seriously doubt his competence.
It’s no longer about conservatism vs liberalism or progressive politics. Some voters are clearly willing to vote against their own best interests because they have been told that the scary black man in the White House is going to make them second class citizens in their own country.
People who think that what is happening is merely about political ideology are extremely short-sighted. Tea baggers are clinging more tightly than ever to guns, religion and now fantasies of ethnic entitlement because their fears are being exploited by Palin and her masters.
Populist sentiment, which the Democrats used to own, has been blunted by the tea baggers, who are also turing on the Republicans.
The tea baggers, the Rand Paulites, and others would happily replace the GOP with a new Party of Purity. This does not in any way insure future Democratic Party victories.
Consider by analogy the recent British elections. The governing Labour Party firmly believed that the Liberal Democrats would never form a coalition with the Conservatives.
They were wrong.
In the 2004 presidential election, Bush won 286 electoral votes and carried 31 states. In the 2008 presidential election, Obama won 365 electoral votes, but only carried 28 states. We can view election results from a number of angles to magnify or diminish results.
But no matter how you look at it, mandates are meaningful only to pundits. You win, you rule.
Elie
@Anya:
I totally agree. She was trying to cop the Killa from Wasilla’s way with words and personality and it did not work.. she came off way more angry and defensive and just crazy… yes, Killa from Wasilla is crazy but she seems to be happier in her craziness where Sharon was just mean and crazy. We’ll see, but I don’t thing this one is going to work this time…
arguingwithsignposts
@Brachiator:
Democrats have never “owned” populist sentiment. They were able to corral a certain brand of populism. But there have been right-wing populists since this nation’s founding. Teabaggery, as much as we may dislike its conclusions, feeds off a strong populist strain. Think Father Coughlin.
steve
too many negatives. What you mean is, “If you believe that being unable to talk to local media isn’t enough to doom Angle’s campaign…”
r€nato
Bush wasn’t running for office when the markets tanked.
Bush was undone by Katrina, Iraq, and an increasing weariness with his ever-more-obvious incompetence and the ever-more-obvious assholery of his administration. I’d also thrown in there that while Bush may have won the 2004 election, voters may have gladly tossed him out if the alternative hadn’t been that stiff Kerry. First the voters rejected Kerry, then Bush. IIRC, Bush’s approval ratings began to decline in spring 2005, not long after his re-inaugural.
But by then, it was irrelevant since Bush had already succeeded in re-occupying the White House.
allium
@maus: But mighty Xenu shall SMITE HER DOWN with a FTL-capable DC-8 full of glycol-addled thetans.
r€nato
@Brachiator: Gotta disagree again. Mandates are most certainly meaningful.
Ruling is one thing; how effectively you get to rule, is quite another. Bush cynically declared a mandate in 2004; it sure didn’t help him succeed piratization Social Security (yet another narrowly-avoided GOP disaster, the others being if McCain/Palin had won; and if the aftermath of the Iraq war had been carried out competently, which would most certainly have led to war with Iran).
mistermix
@EriktheRed: Yes, thanks.
jimBOB
@efgoldman:
Quite right. No need for Reid to push anything other than the three things you mentioned. Angle is dead meat.
Of course, if local reporters want to badger her with the second amendment stuff, more power to them. But the other stuff is enough to decide the election.