Instead, they had a generalized dissatisfaction with the GOP, but a disgust with the Dems. They tuned out the election and the endless polls, and refused to answer polls, or if they did, gave the pollsters phony information, just because polls are so damn annoying.
Dems started saying this was going to be their year, and hoped they could create it out of whole cloth, by demoralizing the GOP base, and by a drumbeat of "woe is us" stories about the economy(which is great) and the war (which is keeping us safe and would have succeeded by now had it not been for Democrats).
But there is something that pollsters pretend not to know, and most people don't think about, and it is this: elections turn on demographics, not current events. Married people with two incomes will vote GOP at about 65 percent or higher. Single women will not. Minorities will vote Dem at high rates. Turnout will be lower at the midterms. Turnout will be lower among certain groups--the young, for example.
It is a relatively small pool of votes that is fluid, and subject to switching from voting for Denny Hastert as speaker to voting for Nancy Pelosi just because the NYT harps on Guantanamo for weeks at a time. Change happens slowly--as the nation's demographics change, trends reach a tipping point, and then the dam bursts, as in 1994. There has been no trend to justify a dam bursting the other way in 2006, and there has been no earth-shattering event that would shake up the existing order, either. 9/11 and the war helped add a few liberals to the conservative side, and some of them may have gone the other way recently, but that effect will be seen more in places like NY and CT than in Tennessee and Virginia. So Allen and Corker were never, ever in trouble, except in bizarro world.
External events that can have an impact on voting are things like corruption and scandal, and so Burns was in trouble in MT the same way Toricelli was in trouble in heavily Dem NJ, and Menendez is now. Burns may still pull it out, because his problems are not that bad, but it has an impact that is outside the normal demographic analysis.
The long and short of it is that I said a year ago that the GOP would hold both houses, I said 6 months ago that they would, and I say today that they will. The polling that has been done all this time has been an exercise in grab-assing that is utterly meaningless, and should be shunned among thinking people. It is like reading tea-leaves.
Great post.
I too, concur we retain both houses. I think we're being played royally by the media and pollsters to sway things, since they don't actually have a legitimate platform to stand on.
I hate it though, watching Chris Wallace for instance, when the 'staunchest' republicans keep saying we're in trouble, things aren't good, etc., like Bill Krystol and Brit Hume. Ugh.
I do have some little nagging concerns though. An example would be Catherine Harris.
There seems to be an inordinate amount of genuine animosity toward her right here in FR... If our partisanship is questionable to any degree at all, why not across the country?
BUMP!
IMHO, polsters are rarely right.
Their salespeople must be real wizards to convince folks to hire them since they are wrong most of the time.
The long and short of it is that I said a year ago that the GOP would hold both houses, I said 6 months ago that they would, and I say today that they will. The polling that has been done all this time has been an exercise in grab-assing that is utterly meaningless, and should be shunned among thinking people. It is like reading tea-leaves.
GOOD CALL! And on Wednesday, look for the wailing and gnashing of teeth! I can't wait!
I do pray you're right, Defiant. God bless.
Anger is one thing.. voting for a dem is something else entirely. I vote any anger issues in the primary and support the GOP in the general election.