Reply With Quote
Is this really how you spend your day at work?
I'm glad we have progressive intellectuals out there who really know their stuff.
April Madness: Can GOP Win Back the House in 2010?
By Stuart Rothenberg
April 24, 2009
Cheerleading has its place, including on a high school or college basketball court. But not when it comes to political analysis.
Over the past couple of weeks, at least three Republicans - House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.), former Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and campaign consultant Tony Marsh - have raised the possibility of the GOP winning back the House of Representatives next year.
That idea is lunacy and ought to be put to rest immediately.
None of the three actually predicted that Republicans would gain the 40 seats that they need for a majority, but all three held out hope that that's possible. It isn't.
"I don't remove the prospect that we could take the majority back in 2010," Cantor said at a breakfast with reporters early this month.
Gingrich recently told Roll Call contributing writer Nathan Gonzales that Democratic support for the budget and the stimulus bill could help the GOP "beat enough Democrats to get Republicans back into the majority."
Tony Marsh, a consultant to Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, went further in a Townhall.com piece. He argued that Republicans can win back the House next year by expanding the playing field, running smarter campaigns and offering a "contrasting and visionary message to America."
Yes, Republicans have plenty of opportunities in good districts following their loss of 53 House seats over the past two cycles. And yes, there are signs that the Republican hemorrhage has stopped and even possibly that the party's fortunes have begun to reverse course.
But there are no signs of a dramatic rebound for the party, and the chance of Republicans winning control of either chamber in the 2010 midterm elections is zero. Not "close to zero." Not "slight" or "small." Zero.
Big changes in the House require a political wave. You can cherry-pick your way to a five- or eight-seat gain, but to win dozens of seats, a party needs a wave.
Recruiting better candidates and running better campaigns won't produce anything like what took place in 1980, 1994, 2006 and 2008, when waves resulted in huge gains for one party. The current political environment actually minimizes the chance of a near-term wave developing.
The problem for Republicans is that they aren't yet in the position - and won't be in one by November of next year - to run on a pure message of change, or on pent-up demand for change.
Waves are built on dissatisfaction and frustration, and there is little in national survey data that suggest most voters are upset with President Barack Obama's performance or the performance of his party.
Obama's job approval generally falls between 55 percent and 63 percent, and his personal favorable numbers are as strong or slightly better. The trend line on the right direction/wrong track question shows a growing optimism, as do at udes about the direction of the economy.
A recent Pew Research Center poll found two out of three Americans saying that they were optimistic "that Barack Obama's policies will improve economic conditions in the country."
All of these numbers show a public that is more upbeat than it was before the last election, and optimism produces status quo elections, not an electorate demanding change.
The uptick in mood, combined with the public's still-vivid memory of the disappointing Bush years, makes it almost impossible for Republicans to deliver a change argument successfully. GOP candidates and strategists will have to wait for at least another election cycle before they can hope that a change message will resonate with voters.
Of course, there are millions of Americans who are unhappy with Obama's agenda and with the direction of the country. But those people have never liked Obama, and more importantly, they don't come close to cons uting a majority of Americans.
Most Americans - even many of those who are still worried and pessimistic - are willing to give Obama more time and to give him the benefit of the doubt.
The benefit of the doubt is exactly what voters gave President Franklin Roosevelt and his party in the 1934 midterms, when Democrats gained seats after two disastrous elections for the GOP during which the party lost a total of 150 seats in the House. Democrats gained seats for a third successive election in 1934 (nine seats) and for a fourth cycle in a row in 1936 (11 seats).
It's not yet clear which party will gain seats in next year's midterms or how large the swing will be. The GOP could well gain back some ground, given how far its House numbers have fallen.
But a small gain is not the standard of success that Marsh and company have set. They've talked about the country making a 180-degree turn after two years and following a Democratic wave for change with a Republican wave for change.
Since there is no sign of that happening, we are left with the obvious conclusion: Cantor, Gingrich and Marsh are merely cheerleading, trying to make their supporters more energetic about next year's elections.
But cheerleading to keep enthusiasm high has a downside. It creates unreasonable expectations. Managing expectations, not creating impossible ones, is also part of the game.
Given their unbridled early cheerleading, Marsh, Cantor and Gingrich better have the legs for short skirts.
Is this really how you spend your day at work?
That's more of a "don't count your chickens before they're hatched" thing. Not many people would have given the Republicans any real chance of getting a House majority back in early 2009. This guy was just dumb for pushing zero.
He correctly stated you don't get waves without discontent, he just didn't see that requisite popping up so suddenly.
He was wrong.
Not so much that it popped up suddenly, as that it has failed to subside and continues to grow.
Progressives scorn and dismissal of the "teabaggers" came back to bite them on the ass. They just never got that the Tea Party was just the froth on top of a boiling centrist discontent.
Actually you can clearly see the approval/disapproval polls (for both Obama and Congress) changing pretty decently starting about 2 months after this article was written.
That also happens to be about the time that health care reform starting being a prominent thing. A few months later the misery index shot up, etc. Aka, things turned sour in a hurry Summer of 2009. At least for the Dems.
Discontent over what?
The economy.
If unemployment was lower, there would not have been as many Democratic losses.
When the Dems won control of the House and Senate, who was that win attributed to? Why do you have to attribute to the Tea Party when none of the Tea Party candidates have any gameplan that fits into the actual Tea Party ideals? It's nonsense to suggest anything other than people being scared voting for the GOP based on empty promises and no vision.
The size, scope, mission and agenda of the Federal Government is what is fueling the discontent.
Probably, but not dramatically, IMO.If unemployment was lower, there would not have been as many Democratic losses.
I believe the "tea party" has energized, for lack of a better definition, Soccer Moms and Housewives politically. Several I know are now active, angry and voting conservative (which is usually the Republican candidate). They didn't care before. It was TARP that got them angry; the Stimulus, GM, the Fed et al. that has fueled it.
Nah, they're fine with just about anything government does it if it has an (R) by its name.
And probably a lot of that is because of the fact that over the past couple years (dating back to the last year of Bush), the government has insinuated it more and more into the economy, etc, but we've seen very little benefit from it while the debt has risen.
If there was more of an effect from TARP/stimulus/bailouts, etc, then there'd probably be a lot less people discontent with the size, scope, mission, and agenda of the Federal Government.
if you don't understand the gm move.....i don't know what to tell you.
Prove your first statement.
Anecdotal. What do exit polls show was the main motivator?
Chump, you are wrong there. There was anger for some in bent and RINO Republicans too...thats how the republicans ended up with some less than stellar candidates like O'Donnell...
this. what a brilliant alternative.
I agree with that. It was just a bad time to be an in bent more than it was a bad time to be part of any particular party because of the discontent. One reason the Democrats lost so many more seats was because they had so many more to begin with. Its obvious why the party in power with more in bents will lose more seats when there is anti in bency.
Guys, I'm not defending that. I'm just saying the discontent was dramatically underestimated. I'm far from a tea party lock step advocate.
All that tells me is a motivated minority can hijack primaries. If there was such a fiscally conservative groundswell, those ty candidates would have been elected easily.
I guess "discontent" is acceptable, but that doesn't mean discontent has to be the same for everyone or even ratonal.
Even the most dedicated conservatives eventually had to take a step back and go..."Holy ! That is ED UP!"
I have some time tonight and I'm actually very interested in what the motivations were so I'm going to take a look at some exit polls and do an analysis with what I believe to be they show compared to the 2008 exit polls.
I looked at Bexar County results yesterday...one thing that really jumped out at me was that even though Republicans swept virtually every other election, Bill White "won" in Bexar County...clearly a lot of Republicans voted against Rick Perry.
This isn't true at all. That's why "establishment" republicans are scared less of the Tea Party movement.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
