I’m not optimistic about the midterms, but I do think there’s a good chance that they will be less catastrophic than we fear. I have two basic reasons for feeling a bit of optimism. The first is that I believe that Democrats will show more and more interest in voting as election day approaches. It’s only natural for the minority to be more fired up and outraged, but election day is when people really focus on politics. Most of the polling data is premised on a huge disparity in voter turnout. I suspect that disparity will be less than expected. The second reason is that I can go down the list of Senate races and not find a single instance where I think the Republicans have the stronger candidate or the stronger campaigner. We have some real mismatches, too.
Obviously, Chris Coons completely outclasses Christine O’Donnell. But O’Donnell isn’t the only candidate who is hiding from the media. Rand Paul, Sharron Angle, and Carly Fiorina are hiding, too. I think Roy Blunt, and the whole Blunt family, are exactly the opposite of what the Tea Party wants, and I don’t see him getting out the vote. Rob Miller, Ron Johnson, and Ken Buck are basically nuts. I think Kelly Ayotte is totally out of her league. Mark Kirk is a serial liar. Linda McMahon is a freak-show. Mario Rubio has legal and ethical problems. Dan Coats is a retread. David Vitter likes to pay women to dress him in a diaper. We’re definitely going to lose the seats in North Dakota and Arkansas, but after that, nothing is certain.
I think Pat Toomey and Rob Portman are formidable candidates. But they both have ties to the economic collapse. Portman was practically the architect of the collapse.
And the Democrats running against this band of crooks, cranks, and kooks are pretty solid individuals. Their biggest liability is probably the ‘D’s after their name. But they’re not going to lose debates. They won’t run from the press.
Maybe things will be dicier in the House, but I feel kind of good about the Senate. What has me worried is that the Republican candidates are so incredibly bad that they’ll fuck this country up royally if any of them are elected.
I agree in some cases, but not all. Fiorina is definitely weak, as are Rossi, Angle and O’Donnell. In Illinois, Kirk is a weak candidate, but so is Giannoulias…that state is so corrupt that you can’t rely on democrats supporting democrats. Blunt is an awful candidate but Missouri is really red these days…I expect him to win. I also expect Rand Paul, Dan Coats, and Rob Portman to keep their leads.
The one place where I continue to think we will get a big surprise is Pennsylvania. I just don’t see how Toomey wins in the end. He is a total creature of Wall Street…meanwhile Sestak is a good candidate. I think this will be a dem upset, despite the current polls. As a fellow Pennsylvanian, I would be curious to hear your opinion about this.
It all hinges on turnout in Pennsultucky v. turnout in the Philly suburbs, I figure, and not necessarily how many turn out, but who.
I think if we knew precisely how old the average voter in November was, we could call this race, and several others, today.
I think we need Onarato to start narrowing his deficit. That’s on the top of the ticket and I don’t think Sestak can survive a blowout in the governor’s race. But I think the same thing holds true in reverse in New Hampshire.
Sestak is going to compete hard and he’ll win if he isn’t dragged down by Onorato.
Boo Man — I feel the same way. I don’t understand this whole mid-term event being catastrophic for the party in power. It’s crazy to me that anyone other than their wives and husbands and blood relatives could vote for these lying money hungry self righteous bastards in the Republican Party. It’s damn scary we have so many dumb people in this country who would vote for them. I’m sorry but it’s nothing but stupidity and to say it’s anything else is just b.s.
You’re where I am on this, as usual, but I must say I’m honestly worried about Feingold. That’s the only race I’ve underestimated, I think.
I really hope Wisconsin voters come out. Also, did you see this from Tom Jensen?
Unhappy Democrats Are More Likely to Vote
This is, needless to say, the exact opposite of blogospheric conventional wisdom.
I’ve got a cynical theory explaining Obama’s state-by-state drop-off in places like WV, to wit: some non-trivial amount of 2008 Obama support came from civic-duty voters who voted for him to show that we could elect a black man, that we’re a big country, not just a rich or powerful one, to show the kids we’re not hopelessly out of touch with the future, etc, etc. (It’s tokenism, of course but au fond it actually is rather encouraging.) But no sense of investment went with those votes.
So, duty having been done, ticket having been punched, point having been made, it’s back to varying degrees of “OMG — Black dude in White House!” for some non-trivial segment of the electorate, and as a result there’s a larger backlash against the sitting president’s party than usual.
Needless to say, I’m not Tom Jensen. I’m not even BooMan. So it could all be nonsense. Just like Ann Elk, on the brontosaurus, it’s a theory. Which is my own.
Lol, that’s more cynical than me. However, this PPP polling only reaffirms my original thoughts, and Tarheel’s activism: GOTV IS THE ELECTION. We need to get the people out who support Obama. It’s more or less what BooMan has been saying (and to a degree, Robert Gibbs), even if people don’t like it.
I say supported Obama in 2008. We have canvassing records to identify them. Whether they support Obama now, they still can be supportive of the Democratic candidate for Congress and the Senate, and all the down-ticket races.
This might be a year in which canvassing records are more important to internal tracking than polls.
It’s not a bad theory. In 2008, Sean Quinn had quite a few of the following type of anecdotes.
Needless to say, their support was less than skin-deep.
I don’t think Obama is as big a factor in this election as Republicans want — or Democrats either, for different reasons.
Folks know who a lot of the candidates on the ballot are and can separate them from both Obama (and Pelosi). That is not as true for challengers, but with good local messaging can be dealt with.
While your analysis of 2008 is correct, I think the civic voters are going to be looking very carefully at the legislative history this year. How they vote depends very much on whether they focus on what has been done or what has not been done. Obama’s message recently has been to those civic voters as much as to the Democratic base.
That doesn’t make sense to me at all. Happy Dems think everything will still be OK if the GOP takes over? If they like what’s been happening so far, why wouldn’t they act to make sure it continues? If there’s any truth to this theory, though, it should work for our side — the reality of GOP majorities wrecking everything still hasn’t sunk in. The fear vote may favor us more than the Reps, if only the Dems can manage to get the message out.
As long as I can remember, momentum in the last few weeks could swing a number of results in favor of the trend.
And it appears that the trend may be our friend:
http://images2.dailykos.com/images/user/3/Generic_Ballot_9_21.gif
I’m hopeful, but taking nothing for granted.
The Senate is not in as much jeopardy because of the math. This is the last Senate class from the majority Republican era. Their upside is 52 seats come January (if O’Donnell wins, otherwise 51). The Democratic upside is 67 seats. Nate Silver’s model, which has a lot of uncertainty at the moment, shows Dems holding 52 seats.
The House is less optimistic primarily because most of the Blue Dogs are in trouble as well as several progressive freshmen who are at the top of the Republican target list (Grayson and Perriello among them). Republican upside is 235-200. Democrats are currently close to their upside, which is in the neighborhood of 260-175.
The great uncertainty is no one can figure out the demographics of the likely voter. And no one knows how great the supposed enthusiasm gap actually is. And no one knows in how many precincts Republican vote caging and voter suppression will be successful. And no one knows the effects of the post-Citizens-United media shitstorm that is coming.
The latter is a big unknown because modern campaign advertising, especially on the Republican side, is designed to increase fear, uncertainty, and doubt and not necessarily push an issue. It aims at getting the lizard brain to cause the rational brain to hesitate at the moment that the voter is marking the ballot and to cause the voter to choose differently in the voting booth than he or she had originally intended based on a rational assessment of the issues. That is why in Republican ads character dominates policy; they lose on policy. So the question is how many voters switch in the voting booth because of the psychological impact of the media shitstorm. The dangerous thing for democracy is that voters do not know what is going on, believing themselves immune to the influence of the ads.
There is the uncertainty of events between now and November 2. What happens with the economy. Wall Street bubbly again. Will it fall off a cliff in October as it usually does after third quarter predictions are not realized? How will the continued failure to deal with the foreclosure crisis affect voter sentiment? Will people begin to feel the economic effects of the health care law in sufficient numbers to decide about it? Will that decision tilt toward Democrats who voted for the law or Republicans and Blue Dogs who didn’t?
What happens in the war and non-war wars? What will the situation be on the ground in Afghanistan? Will there be 2, 5, 6, or 7 countries in the Muslim world that have significant numbers of American groups on the ground and active CIA operations? Will there be a stunning attack that either encourages voters or depresses them?
What happens in foreign affairs? Will there be agreement by 30 September on settlements between Israel and Palestine (see Stewarts interview with King Abdullah) or will the crazies be at war in what Israel and the press are likely to label the Third Intifadah? Another Gaza convoy is on the way? How will Israel deal with this?
And there is the comparative success of on-the-ground efforts to mobilize voters to vote and see that they actually get to the polls. How many new registrations? What is the party split? How many 2008 first-time voters can each of the parties get to vote this time? How unified will African-Americans and Hispanics be in their vote?
Finally, what will be the effects, if any, of the 10-2-2010 march on Washington and the Truthiness March on October 30? Will enough people show up to catch the media’s attention and will enough show up to belie the Tea Party assertion that they are the majority sentiment? It is primarily folks on the Eastern Seaboard who will determine this narrative, and because of the economy transportation costs will be a big factor.
This is a more pivotal election than the election in 2008. This is when we see whether people actually vote their hopes or their fears. Unfortunately the Democratic message is still in fear mode: “We aren’t any great shakes but you should be afraid of the other guys–very afraid.” Or is that a winning message?
It seems to me that the momentum has to be on our side. The GOP has pretty much said all it has to say. It’s unlikely to get many more voters to the polls in November than the likely-voter screens are showing now. OTOH, the Dem candidates still have a lot of attack ads to go, which should give “moderate” Dems enough pause to propel them to the polls after all.
I think the biggest question mark is whether the Dems manage to make the connection between individual candidates and the crazy Republican/teabagger party. This could be key to winning in IL, where Kirk still holds onto an image as a “moderate”. The Dems will get out the vote if they convince suburbanites that ANY Republican is a danger to stability and economic recovery because GOP majorities guarantee chaos.
I’m getting more than a little tired of being pidgeon holed that I will be staying home for the midterms because I’m disappointed, stressed, ashamed, faithless, unpatriotic and can’t find my gun.
Time for a rerun of the 60’s movie, The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming.
And I still say, the energy level would burst at the seams if someone would promise that when we vote the msm pundits will all go back to their dark caves not to be heard from for, well, at least a week!