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Posted on 10/15/2006 10:17:28 PM PDT by RWR8189
What would a Democratic victory -- likely now but not certain in the House races, possible if all the close ones go their way in the Senate races -- mean? Would it mean that we are heading into a political realignment, to a time when Republican positions can no longer rally a majority?
Not really, I think. Right now, it doesn't look like Democrats will end up with the kind of popular vote percentage in House elections won by their party in 1974 (up from 46 percent to 58 percent in two years) or Republicans in 1994 (up from 46 percent to 52 percent).
They're more likely to prevail, if they do, by something like the narrow margins by which Republicans have prevailed in the five House elections from 1996 to 2004. By historical standards, there's been strikingly little variation in those five elections. A Democratic victory of this magnitude would represent the kind of small oscillation that was commonplace in eras when one party or the other was dominant. The difference is that, with the electorate so evenly divided, a small shift can produce changes in party control.
Political realignments occur because of events that have deep demographic impact and when one party stands for new ideas that command majority support. The Iraq war (2,500 deaths) and our current economy (4.6 percent unemployment) are not events of the magnitude of the Civil War (600,000 dead) or the Great Depression (25 percent unemployment).
Moreover, voters' complaints about George W. Bush and the Republican Congress are more about competence than ideology. Why is Bush's second-term job approval so much lower than Bill Clinton's even though the economy has been in similarly good shape during both periods? Iraq. Katrina.
Voters wonder why our involvement has gone on so long in Iraq, with continuing casualties. They wonder why more aid did not get to New Orleans faster. You may argue, as I do, that those perceptions are unfair, that Clinton benefited because we were on holiday from history and Bush suffers because of the threats Sept. 11 revealed. But they are what they are.
And what are the new ideas that Democrats are campaigning on? They've had a hard time coming up with a list. At the top, usually, is raising the minimum wage. That's a law that Congress first passed in 1938. Liberal think tankers will tell you that if you want progressive redistribution of income, the minimum wage is a far weaker tool than the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Bill Clinton and the Democratic Congress did expand the EITC in the 1990s, with a small but perceptible redistributive effect -- one of their policy successes. Democrats today could campaign on expanding it further. But the minimum wage tests better in polls.
As for the macroeconomy, the Democrats offer few policies except to refuse to extend the Bush tax cuts, which in important cases don't expire till 2010. On foreign policy, their stands tend to be incoherent: We should be more multilateral in Iraq and less multilateral on North Korea. "Redeployment" of troops from Iraq to Okinawa (John Murtha) or Kuwait (Hillary Rodham Clinton).
The Democratic plea is that the Republicans should be punished for incompetence. But even with majorities in both houses of Congress, Democrats will be poorly positioned to offer competence itself. You can make a good case that the Republicans have run out of ideas -- they've implemented most of Bush's 2000 platform (tax cuts, education accountability, Medicare changes, more defense spending) and have conclusively failed to implement others (Social Security individual accounts). But Democrats don't have much in the way of ideas to advance in their place.
If a Democratic victory presages realignment, we should see some evidence of that in the polling for 2008. But we don't. Which party has candidates that can poll above their party's 1996-2004 ceilings -- 49 percent for Democrats (Clinton 1996), 51 percent for Republicans (Bush 2004)?
Republicans pretty clearly have two, Rudolph Giuliani and John McCain. Democrats can hope that Hillary Rodham Clinton, with her carefully calibrated stands on Iraq and foreign policy, and her bipartisan work on some domestic issues, could be another. So, if he decides to run, could Barack Obama. Another might have been Mark Warner, but he's not running.
The polling showing Giuliani and McCain well ahead of Clinton and other Democrats suggests that national security -- who can best protect the nation against those who are seeking to destroy us? -- can still work for Republicans and that domestic issues don't necessarily work for Democrats. Competence may defeat Republicans in 2006, but that doesn't mean that ideology can win for Democrats in 2008.
The Civil War was not much of a realignment event. The nation had already realigned prior to the Civil War during the decade preceding the war. The most dramatic realignment in U.S. history was actually in the 1894 midterm election, when the Democrats were demolished for a loss of 116 seats.
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There. Fixed it.
Others have said that if the Dems take control of Congress this year, their majority will be short-lived, much like the GOP congressional victories in 1952.
Hear, hear.
Plus the fact that along with the lying reports from the drive-by media .. the dem pollsters were using 11-14% over-weighting of dems in order to get the numbers they wanted - Bush at 39%. However, something amazing has happened lately .. the dems are now using 16% more dems than repubs - so what does that tell you ..?? It tells you that our numbers have gone up to the point that the dems have had to use even more dems in order to get the skewed polls that they want.
Remember too .. Bush's personal rating is 61% - that's pretty high for a 39% job disapproval. That's why I don't believe their stinking polls.
They are dinosaurs based in the past; and demographically ALL of their strongholds are under attack.
Northeast Liberals: people are leaving and all the population growth is in red-state South and West. This will cause a shift in 2012 and later elections. Also some eyes have been opened in NYC and NJ due to 9/11 .
Blacks and Latinos (that are here legally) are entering the middle class (becoming Republican) and are concerned about moral values (becoming Republican).
The hippies and Me-generation of yesteryear aborted their kids or never had any t o begin with - while the more conservative and Republican folks got pregnant and were far less likely to have abortions. In case no-one told Nancy Pelosi: gays and lesbians can only recruit, not reproduce/
In a dangerous world, with NK exploding nukes, the nation will turn to those who are more responsible with national security. This means Republicans.
My prediction: the Republicans hold onto majorities.
Do you believe that?
PING
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Palelogus
Bush can and should veto any nonsense passed by congress, should the dems get a majority.
And the dems would have nothing approaching veto override numbers.
Gridlock; which often is a good thing, since so much of what comes before congress winds up costing taxpayers money.
Exactly! Not only they overweight national average, but they apply the same overweight in local / regional races where polls wouldn't even be close if they used local / regional Dems/Repubs ratios and "likely" voters...
So what if in San Francisco or New York or Los Angeles or New Jersey Dems have 40% advantage - they are already in Dems hands, so why should it affect other less dense local / state races where Dems have a deficit, yet they still overweight those polls with national averages.
Even Rasmussen uses about 5% overweighting, and I don't think he adjusts the numbers by localities.
Much more depends on turnout, and that's why I believe that "polls" are just one part in the overall strategy to suppress GOP turnout, along with steady stream of negative "news" and books and interviews. Another dishonest use of "polls" is so "journalists" instead of reporting and focusing on facts or ideas can make statements or ask questions like:
"... but the polls show..."
"... but American people say..."
"... but the opinion of majority of Americans is..."
As an aside: how can we revert the party colors back to normal as they were pre-2000 election? This cruel joke of GOP=red, Dems=blue still gives me a cognitive dissonance. Can we start with asking Fox and some other reasonable organisations to go back to traditional colors?
Rush has been complaining for years that the drive-by uses polls to create a story .. instead of reporting the news.
I don't care about the colors .. except that "true Blue" is better than "dead Red". Is that the problem ..??
CA - in their state map for 2000 (I think) did use the reverse colors and gave Bush-Blue. It was a shock at first until I realized they had reversed the colors.
When Barone says it's "likely" that Dems will take the House, that makes me worry for the first time. I think he is the smartest, best-informed political analyst on the scene.
Translation: This election will be all about turnout.
I think we win in a civil war with the left, unless they can marshal the gangbangers because that is the only faction among their ranks who have any firepower.
We got the guns..........and the ammo.
Yep. But if I had to pick, I'd rather have the senate for the long haul. I want the judges.
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