The Republican Party is really unpopular. But I wonder what it going to happen to their brand over the course of this year. Considering that the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce have agreed on an immigration reform deal, what will happen if Marco Rubio simply walks away from a deal? Or, what if the Senate passes a bill and the House can’t follow suit? Or, what if Boehner feels compelled to pass a bill that the majority of his caucus opposes?
What if the Senate agrees on a universal background check on guns and the House won’t go along with it? Or, what if the Senate Republicans won’t give the president the vote he insisted on in the State of the Union? What if the House Republicans refuse to allow a vote? What if Boehner feels compelled to pass a bill that the majority of his caucus opposes?
We can ask these same questions about fixing the sequester. If the Republicans continue to refuse to offer any revenues through tax reform and insist on cutting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security (a position opposed by 77% of the people and supported by only 17%) how much blame will they get for that?
These are not even the most dangerous issues for the Republicans. Fooling around with the debt ceiling again or causing a government shutdown are both still real possibilities this year.
We keep seeing analysis written through the prism of the red/blue divide, where Republicans have more to fear from primary challengers than from Democrats. But their positions on guns and immigration and the budget are not polling well at all. Obviously, their position on gay rights is also polling poorly. In fact, their positions are weak enough with independents and moderates that Republican lawmakers should not assume that they will get the same percentage of those votes in 2014 that they got in 2012.
They are in trouble on individual issues, taking positions in some cases that are supported by less than one in ten voters. Overall, on the issues likely to be at the forefront of political discussion this year, they are fairly consistently taking positions that are supported by no more than a third of the voters. But they also have to worry about the meta-narrative they are creating. The new Quinnipiac poll shows the GOP’s favorability at 28%-52% and their congressional approval rating at 19%-71%. That’s a pretty bad place to start if you are planning another year of total obstruction and dysfunction. They don’t have any good will to work with. Their arguments are unpopular on the merits, so it’s not possible to improve things by getting their message out.
The leaders are probably looking at how much of a boost New Jersey Governor Chris Christie got out of cooperating with the president on Sandy relief and wondering whether they’d get the same kind of bounce if they worked out some deals with the administration. But their rank and file doesn’t look like they are in any mood to permit that.
It really is a hell of a mess. They have so gerrymandered so many districts that taking a sane position is political poison for them. My hope is that this will really hurt them in 2014, along with a major Dem push to highlight their isolation from the public at large. But if the public in their districts is aligned with their crazy, then nothing Dems can do will wedge them out of office.
I think the key here are the moderates and independents, even in the gerrymandered districts. They may have gone along with the wierdness in 2010 out of hate for Obama. They may even have gone along in 2012 on the Congressional level figuring that some of the GOP were just panderign and didn’t really mean what they were saying. And obviously, based upon Dem candidastes winning the popular vote nationally and seats being lost, some of the charm from 2010 was fading.
In 2014, if the current House members keep going the way they are, they will lose even more of those moderates and independents.
The key will be what kind of Dem candidates are running against them. On a lot of the districts, a real ultra progressive will still lose. But a blue dog may be able to. And I would rather have a blue dog Dem in Congress than any Republican.
ANd sometimes a blue dog Dem can move a district that was once solidly GOP into a Dem district with a progressive representative. Melissa Bean, when she won in Illinois was a classic blue dog Dem. Sure she lost to Joe Walsh in 2010 (though barely) but now the new Dem is Duckworth who is a real progressive.
If Bean hadn’t made it palatable to vote for a Dem in that district not sure what it woudl be like now.
And sometimes a blue dog Dem can move a district that was once solidly GOP into a Dem district with a progressive representative. Melissa Bean, when she won in Illinois was a classic blue dog Dem.
How do you know a Progressive can win unless you run one? When Bean finally won, a Senator Obama also won Bean’s district. The district wasn’t stupid enough to pick Alan Keyes, which should tell you something. And what are most Blue Dogs and New Dems but GOPers in sheep’s clothing?
How often do “too liberal” or “too progressive” people lose winnable districts? On most issues, your average American lines up around the Congressional Progressive Caucus. I was going to say the only big issue where popular opinion is substantially to the right of Democratic positions is abortion, but I looked it up and found a slight majority favor at least the standard Dem position of “usually legal”. Quite seriously, in how of Boo’s possible target districts would espousing Progressive Caucus positions be a disadvantage with the electorate? Not many, I’d wager, and that list has some quite regressive districts due to gerrymandering.
It’s why Republicans and Democrats still fail to see how Sherrod Brown defeated a not too old, not too crazy, two-term incumbent and won a second term against a five-to-one GOP advertising ($60 million) blitz.
Yeah. It is highly unfortunate that NATIONAL numbers (ie: numbers from MA, NY, ME, CA, …) don’t resonate in MS, AL, TN, AZ, ID …
Just like in the Prez races, national numbers don’t mean shit. We KNOW there is huge majority’s for background checks. Unfortunately, it would appear that only in the blue regions are people willing to vote out the troglodytes that are opposed. In areas where the popularity of the President can be accurately estimated by the percentage of non-white people ……… well its a different story.
I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t see any particular change coming in 2014, unless its bad (for us, that is).
As a resident of another red state whose governing apparatus is entirely in the hands of the GOP, whose hegemony at the state level is allowing it in the recently completed legislative session to seriously chip away what little power the Democrats had in mostly urban areas. Like forcing non-partisan local elections here, to enable more GOP’ers to get elected from a majority AA population. Like taking the most populous county in the state and splitting off its Northern end to gut the power of the Democrats. For the party that screams about Big Government, it’s obviously only bad when it applies to the Federal government, specifically when there’s a Democrat at the helm.
While they are busy gerrymandering and legislating Democrats out of power at the state level they are also expanding/forcing guns on people who don’t want them and further restricting abortion access, and refusing to expand Medicaid.
I wish I had faith that this situation could turn around anytime soon. I know we are not supposed to emulate their tactics, but, by golly, we gotta do something to get back control of enough state legislatures and governors to turn the tide at the bottom, where it most counts.
Given that the average Republican favors background checks and higher taxes on the ultra-wealthy I think nonpartisan elections could backfire badly on the Republicans. “Jungle Primaries” seem to have benefitted us here in California, albeit not by much.
The trouble with mid-terms is they don’t turn out Democratic voters. It’s hard to imagine the House flipping before 2016, but stranger things have happened. As Boo rightly points out, Republicans, already challenging botulism in terms of unpopularity, are threatening to double down on some really unpopular positions. Politics is an inherently unstable business. We’ll see.
From your mouth to God’s ear. I hope you’re right.
The problem isn’t a calendar. It may be that rank-and-file Democrats are lazy, stupid, and/or uninterested. Or perhaps the problem is with what the Democratic Party offers.
Voters tend to prefer and show up to vote FOR something. For the past fifty years, Republicans have offered the same grab-bag and while it has become stale, it’s still something. What have Democrats offered?
The Democratic party is “liberal” only on social issues. Unfortunately, the middle class and below is concerned about economic issues. And the Democrats are doing very little for them. It’s why they aren’t completely wiping the floor with the GOP.
Can’t we get some economic liberals in the Democratic party? Economic issues affect everyone. Social issues affect only a minority of people.
Right now the Democrats are offering true conservatism on economic issues- maintaining the status quo as much as possible, and only adopting minimal reforms necessary to keep the status quo from blowing up (e.g. Dodd-Frank and Obamacare and both of those might be too mild). This is combined with mild reformism on social issues. It’s actually an appealing set of positions if they can ever get the message out.
Austerity for the people and mega-wealth for the banksters is appealing for Democratic voters?
I don’t get those to be Democratic platform items. The Dem party has been opposing the austerity measure and proposing (very mild) stimulatory ones. Yes, Dems mostly supported the TARP bailout but the policy positions (e.g. Dodd-Frank) have been for avoiding such things in the future. You could say the “sequester lite” proposals are austerity, although I’d call them (very mistaken) tactical moves.
You can argue that many elected Dems privately welcome austerity and bailouts and are happy the political compromises are coming out that way but I don’t think you can say it’s something the party is working for.
Ordinary voters don’t look at party platforms — and few candidates bother with them either.
What ordinary voters did notice is that Obama preserved all of the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy for two years and only slightly whittled them and then extended then preserved forever.
Ordinary voters have noticed that “chained-CPI” for Social Security is a benefits cut and that Obama advocates for it.
Ordinary voters have noticed that job creation and not deficit reduction has been and continues to be the primary economic issue — and Obama just isn’t into job creation but is all in with Simpson-Bowles (Pete Peterson) deficit reduction. Jobs was the number one issue among the public in the summer of 2009 — Obama did nothing on that front and therefore, shouldn’t have been surprised at the 2010 election results.
“Jobs” for the people and “fairness” to the “job creators” appeals to Dem and indie voters. The propaganda would easily be shown up as the fraud that it is if the Dem pols actually tried to communicate some facts and some values. But that would be too risky and beyond the intellectual capacities of most pols, ours included. And even more below the capacities of the “political pros” to think beyond scurrying in the dark trying to play the demographic/turnout game. As long as politics is just a horse race, the content approaches irrelevance.
Try to look at this website: Free Games – Games Planet
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We are in a situation now in which the Democrats need not offer a compromise. The public is clear on who is obstructionist.
So if Democrats wimp out on any of these issues right now, they lose. Time for Democrats in Congress and especially the President to just shut up and let the consequences bite the GOP in the ass.
I totally agree, Tarheel Dem.