Posted on 07/23/2014 6:45:22 AM PDT by cotton1706
When writing about politics, it's all too frequent to use terminology that often obscures more than elucidates. That's especially true when it comes to the word "wave"—shorthand for a landslide victory for the winning party. I've argued before that the likelihood of 2014 being a wave election has been rising, given the president's consistently low approval ratings and the fact that Republicans are running evenly on the generic ballot (which usually translates into a clear GOP edge) and that the right-track/wrong-track numbers are near historic lows. All these big-picture signs are ominous for the party in power.
But this week, The New York Times' Nate Cohn argued that the threat of a Republican wave is subsiding, thanks to red-state Senate Democrats remaining resilient and the declining risk of blue-state seats—such as those in Oregon and Virginia—flipping in a landslide. This, despite the various political forecasters and Senate models (including the NYT's own Upshot) showing the likelihood of a Republican takeover increasing over time, with more states emerging in play.
What gives?
To be fair, a lot of the disagreement stems from semantics—the definition of the word "wave." Cohn argues that if Republicans merely sweep red-state Democratic seats and perhaps pick off a stray swing seat, it's not a wave election—even if Republicans net seven seats on their way to the majority. To accomplish that feat, Republicans would need to oust four sitting Democratic senators. Over the last decade, Republicans have defeated only three sitting senators (Tom Daschle in South Dakota, Russ Feingold in Wisconsin, and Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas).
(Excerpt) Read more at nationaljournal.com ...
People may be angry but our options right now at this point are limited.
I don’t know what you are planning on doing this November.
But I will tell you what I will NOT be doing:
1) I will NOT be sitting at home on election day.
2) I will NOT be voting for Democrats.
3) I will NOT be wasting my vote on third parties which only serve to help Democrats.
Will it be a RINO wave or a real Republican wave?
The place to focus on conservatives is in the primaries, but once those are over, I think it’s important to vote for whoever is the GOP candidate. Mississippi was appalling, but it would be even more appalling to lose a GOP seat to a Dem, not because the GOPer in this case is any better than the Dem, but because legislative politics is a numbers game.
If the GOP doesn’t have the numbers, there’s nothing even the good people in the House or Senate can do; if it has the numbers, then it is up to the conservatives to push their less conservative brethren to more conservative positions. However, this is going to be slow simply because many of the conservatives are still juniors and do not have enough seniority to be on important committees or be committee chairs.
That will change with time, of course, if we can just patiently keep working in the primaries and convincing the electorate that they should abandon drooling, senile incumbents (Cochran) or good ol’ boys.
And we have to get it together, too. One of the reasons Cochran got to do what he did is that the conservative electorate itself was divided between other candidates. That shouldn’t happen again.
Don't you want to hear the lamentation of the Democrats? Don't you want to hear Candy Crowley and Wolf Blitzer being forced to say "Majority Leader McConnell"? Tell me this isn't worth it.
There are other races the base is winning and there are more to be fought.
I couldn’t care less about what Candy Crowley or Wolf Blitzer think.
When you vote for Big Government candidates, you waste your vote, even if that candidate is a Republican and wins. Don’t waste your vote. Vote for principled, constitutional conservatives.
It will be a long march. Excising Uniparty legislators from their positions of power will take decades.
Got it! Amen.
Wasting your vote is not casting it.
Unfortunately few political candidates are 100% perfect.
So often you need to vote for the candidate who will follow the US Constitution more often than his opponent would.
Every Republican in Congress voted against Obamacare and Dodd-Frank.
Is the Party perfect? Of course not. No political party is.
But you should be realistic in your expectations.
I appreciate your last paragraph, livius. Conservatives are certainly on a learning curve, actually learning while in hand to hand combat with their own Party Establishment as well as Democrat opponents, and other divided primary opponents.
But the rest is sentiment, livius, and old school wing-and-a-prayer stuff that has actually brought us down.
What patience does really, is it bought time for Republicans to increasingly and incrementally be converted to liberals while we dilly dallied and played small ball.
Establishment can not be toyed with. They have to be damaged and defeated, in enough numbers to stop the bleed out of our country. Yes, there is high risk and cost. Yes, it could mean trouble, but we are in desperate times, which call for desperate measures.
100%?!?!?!?! RIght now even 70% would look good.
Yes, I will take a candidate who votes my way 70% of the time any day of the week over a candidate who votes my way 0% of the time.
Especially, when the GOP-e is openly despising, attacking and dissing their base. This is their brilliant strategy for electoral success: lose, then blame the Tea Party. Genius.
I’ll believe it when I wake up that morning and the news is of a Republican sweep...up until then, I’m not buying it. Rove and Morris had us convinced Obama would be beaten. I’m not falling for the Republican “Hope and change” message again. Show me then I’ll get excited.
Voting for what we used to call “Rockefeller Republicans”, of which there are many, does no good. They’re liberals. You’ll get liberal policies and liberal votes out of them.
Do you honestly think the GOPe will lift a finger to repeal Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, or any other bad legislation? I hope you’re not holding your breath. Like abortion, they’d rather have the issue than solve the problem.
A GOP controlled Congress could not repeal Obamacare or Dodd-Frank on its own. BHO would simply veto any such effort.
Any chance of repealing these horrible laws is to elect a GOP president committed to repealing them along with significant majorities in both houses of Congress, especially in the Senate where the minority party is able to filibuster.
Nothing. However the democrats are screwing up everything they touch and the GOPE is the only alternative being offered even though they are as I said doing nothing worthy of getting elected.
I am sure the GOP is thinking up ways to lose this election.
They really know that it means nothing, all they are doing is being upset their team is not in direct control briefly. However they know indirectly the GOPE trash will still do their bidding.
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