Ian wrote:Coito ergo sum wrote:Ian wrote:Coito ergo sum wrote:
Ian wrote:
We can discuss the House in a few months. But I'm confident enough about the Dems holding onto the Senate to make a bet over it. C'mon, challenge me. :twisted:
I'll take that bet. I predict a change of Senate control.
Oh goody! I love taking bets when I know I have a high likelihood of winning.
What shall our bet be? How about for one month, the loser changes his signature to "Ian/Coito understands politics better than I do."
Sounds good. I'll take that. It's a tougher bet than the House. I'm almost positive the House will change. But, all we need is some other economic woe to befall us, and there will be pitchforks and torches.....
If you're almost positive of
anything related to the House, then you should step back and ignore the news and polls for a few months. Get back in touch with it after football season starts. Campaigns don't seriously get underway for a while, and voter mood and issues in July doesn't translate very well into what'll be happening in mid-autumn.
I would normally agree with you, except I am fairly confident that the economy will continue to be shit, and the longer it is shit, and the shittier it gets, the worse it is for the Democrats. Most people know that what they're doing is hurting the economy.
Ian wrote:
Anyway, if you're wondering why I'm fairly optimistic about the House, it comes down to this: voter "outrage" is a complicated thing, and it's a double-edged sword. The far right would be screaming about Obama no matter what he's done, but he has in fact been rather effective at pushing some key items through.
But, those items have left a bad taste in the majority's mouth. The majority of people don't like what he's done. Latest Rasmussen report shows 53% disapproving of Obama's performance with an alarming 43% picking "strongly" disapprove.
Ian wrote:
However flawed the details might be, health care reform, wall street regulations, drawdowns in Iraq and surges in Afghanistan, nuclear security efforts, etc. - these campaign promises have all gone through and the Dems will be able to at least claim they've been effective legislators, unlike during the missteps of the early Clinton years.
If they want to run on those things, more power to them. Afghanistan is presently viewed as being handled worse than under Bush. Drawdowns in Iraq haven't started, and no matter how hard they try, Obama is not going to be able to claim that victory. Health care reform feels to 1/2 the country like pipe that has been gently shoved up one's rectum, and nobody knows that what the deal is with wall street regulations and nuclear security reforms. What 1/2 the country does know about is waste, higher taxes, and out of control spending.
Ian wrote:
Unemployment is stubborn as it often is in a recession, but there's plenty of things the Dems can point to to indicate that we're still in the process of climbing out of the hole.
Nothing that makes sense. We aren't climbing out of the hole. And, we haven't hardly begun to hear about the largest tax hike in American history looming - January 1, 2010.
Ian wrote:
But all that means that moderate liberals (and quite a few of your all-important independents) won't necessarily switch and vote for the GOP.
Independents are leaning heavily to the GOP. Those are the ones with buyer's remorse, because independents tend to be those who just want to vote for whoever is going to make things better. They didn't hear and didn't want Obama to "fundamentally transform America," which is why they will respond to that message.
Ian wrote:
What ensures that they'll still turn out and vote for the Dems (a very different subject) is the very spectre that the Tea Party types project.
You need to let this sink in: middle America likes the Tea Party and they do not view it as a threat, or evil, or racist or a "specter." The average person sees the Tea Party as fiscally conservative, seeking lower taxes and responsible spending. That's what people support, and they don't see the picture painted by some of a rabid, violent, gun-toting, racist rabble. The average person identifies with the people they see at town hall meetings, and at tea party rallies.
It's like I have to remind my atheist friends. We are in the minority. Most people don't agree with us, and in the case of atheists, 98% of the US doesn't agree with us. 10--20% are cool with us, because they are Agnostic or merely spiritual. However, about 80% of the US define themselves as Christian.
The point is, that sometimes we have to realize that just because we are correct doesn't mean we are necessarily in the majority, silent or otherwise. Sometimes those of us in the right are in the vast minority.
Ian wrote:
Obama's opposition has some high-profile faces that the Dems will be able to point to and say "there's your alternative if we lose". I for one have a visceral hatred for everything both Ron Paul and Sarah Palin stand for,
I hate Sarah Palin, and Ron Paul is too Libertarian for my tastes.
Ian wrote:
and I'll turn out not to vindicate Obama but to try and make sure that neither of their agendas gain much sway in the new Congress. (Not that my little vote will matter much - I live in Steny Hoyer's district.
) And lots of other people, who have had no reason to be very angry and loud and thus come across pollsters' radars, feel the same way about them. Fear will help prompt them to the polls.
We shall see. I have heard too many people say "Holy cow, what have we done?" to ignore it. I've not heard that before. During Clinton's first term, I did not hear Clinton voters vocally voicing such a sentiment. The pro Clintons were still the pro-Clintons, and what happened in the 1994 mid-terms is more pro-Republicans came out to the polls. Now, I'm sensing a climate of deep regret.
I am fairly sure that if George W. Bush didn't sound like such a dipshit, and if he hadn't made a few simple blunders (like the "Mission Accomplished" sign), that there would not have been the "anybody but a Republican" sentiment in 2008. I mean, even with how sucky Bush was, and how low his approvals were, McCain STILL made it a race. Now, a lot of those folks who said, "I'm voting for Obama because 'anybody but Bush 2'" are reconsidering....
