Posted on 11/01/2006 2:10:33 PM PST by RWR8189
Just yesterday, Charlie Cook updated his race rankings. I have to say, I think he might have jumped the shark.
Reading Cook has felt to me like watching one of my favorite sitcoms. Maybe a bit like Seinfeld: his trajectory this electoral season has seemed like that show. I was with him in the Spring. Good points, well argued. I liked it. Read him every week. Disagreed often (very often!), but the disagreements always got me a-thinkin', which is something I truly enjoy. I checked his site every day. But, slowly but surely, I started to move away from him. He just wasn't "clicking" for me. His recent mentions of Terri Schaivo (Terri Schaivo?!) felt a lot like a few of the Seinfeld episodes in Season 7 -- e.g. "The Calzone" or "The Bottle Deposit" -- that just had weak premises. And now - I think he has finally jumped the shark. Call it his "Bizarro Jerry" moment.
Don't get me wrong. I see where he is going with his race rankings. His latest generic ballot has the Democrats up a quarter century among the most likely voters. And he thinks that this voter disaffection is just going to overrun the Republican Party. He sees this as 1994 in reverse. But an examination of the races he views as competitive just does not square with 1994. It squares more with something like 1860, 1896 or 1932 - the last three "realignment" years.
Exactly what do I mean by this? The following. In 1994, the Republicans won a gross of 56 seats. Most of these seats were districts where George H.W. Bush did better than his national average of 37%. Some of them were districts where he did worse. 6 of the 56 seats the GOP won were districts
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Add Robert Novak to the "Jump the Shark" club.
Cost is always great. But even he isn't (yet) focusing on the DEM seats that they will lose---two in GA, one in IN, one in IL, now one shaky in OR, perhaps still an open seat in NY and Mullohan in W VA.
Kos LOVES Cook.
Cook is in a CYA moment...Move most to Toss up so no matter who wins he can say HEY I SAW IT.Zogby taught him well
I'm not convinced the GOP is gonna pick up Julia Carson's seat in Indiana.
Her district has enough liberals and minorities that it will provide her with a solid base to win.
But I wouldn't mind being proven wrong on this one. In fact, I hope I am.
I think you folks are a bit too optimistic, and you had better prepare yourselves for a very rough election night. NE 03 is indeed in play, and Cost doesn't give very good reasons for doubting it.
And if that district is in play, and ID 01 is in play, we're on the verge of a potential disaster...
I think Dickerson is the best shot in IN-07 the Republicans have had since Carson took office, but I agree it's way too early to celebrate. Carson is a left-winger and corrupt as hell, but she also has a formidable political machine behind her and turns her base out like few can. This one is going to go down to the wire.
So what does that tell you? That the polls, all of 'em, are bad, bad off. Why? Is there precedence?
Yes. In 1994, no one picked up the GOP tsunami. In 1996, EVERY major poll was off, and off in Clinton's direction, by as much as 8%. That's serious error.
Why would they all---ALL---every few years, be off?
Dunno, nor is it my job to know. It's like worrying about why the idiots on ESPN all said Minnesota would win vs. NE the other night. Utter lunacy. But there they were. There is a herd mentality with poll design and when some start designing bad polls, others seem to follow.
The LS rule, in case you forgot, is add 5% to the GOP candidate, subtract %5 from the Dem, and you're close. Just go through the NRO polls and do that, and you'll get a rough idea of where election night will end up.
I don't think it is going to be disaster but I realize chances are we are going to lose the House. The key will be to stop at all cost potential House Repub retirements because as we know its much more fun being in the majority than the minority.
Some of these open seats that were Republican are causing grief and giving us a hell of a time to defend.
Whole new dynamic in 2008 with unknowns of who the each parties Pres ontender will be. So hopefully they will hold on. I have concerns about these Indiana seats.
It should be noted that Cost got it right mostly in 2004. The only thing I think he overestimated was Bush's strength in Iowa
But Republicans do not. The huge turn out for Reagan in 1984 was not duplicated until 2004. The Republican turn out fell in 1988, 1992, and stayed low in 1996. But jumped to 50 million in 2000 and 62 million in 2004.
Why have the last two presidential elections been so good? It is largely due to the political machine built by Karl Rove. It is a machine that gets out the votes. This year with the computerized data base identifying likely Republican voters and the issues that motivate them, the Republican turn out is apt to be very good. Much better than the Democratic turn out efforts.
I expect the turn out efforts to dwarf earlier turn outs.
I would remind you that President Bush and Karl Rove said in 2000 that they were building a Republican party that was designed to rule the American political world for the next 30 years.
I think there is a reason for the Bush and Rove optimism. Even the media has begun to tell us the outcome of the election will depend on the Republican base turn out. Republicans are wining the independents by a slight margin. If the base comes out as it has in the last 3 elections the Republicans will hold the house and the senate.
The most important thing of this years race is the media is making no attempt to be neutral or unbiased. They are not attributing things to Democrats or "observers" or even "political experts". They are presenting the Democrat talking points as if they were facts.
If the media loses this election no politician on the left or the right can believe that the media can elect or defeat anyone. The media is full bore for Democrats. If the Democrats lose both the Democrats and Republicans will at long last understand that pleasing the media can result in defeat.
Pleasing the voters will be the new style and both parties will have to move to the right to please voters.
Republicans who want to stay home to teach Republicans a lesson will teach them it is not wise to get on the bad side of the media. Both parties will turn left and lefter.
Common, why do you think the Dem base is "predictable" given that it has consistently lost voters via population movements out of state over the last 10 years? This was the whole point of Jay Cost's analysis in 2004.
It is so good to have you back. Brilliant as always.
*Bumping* your comments
Isn't it interesting how the primary variable in American politics is the Republican turnout? Liberals like to think of conservatives as a kind of unthinking borg but it's really the opposite. Sometimes conservatives stay home, sometimes they crawl over broken glass for the Republicans, sometimes they do things like vote for Ross Perot. It's the Democrat zombie army that trudges to the polls year after year like clockwork.
What is your evidence for concluding, "Republicans are winning the independents by a slight margin"?
Seems like that's a serious slam against the Republicans.
Great article...great discussion.
Just a bump.
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