Last week I posted the first of what I hope is many topics of discussion.
This week, let’s discuss the midterm elections. How bad are things going to be for Democrats, or are predictions of doom and gloom for Democrats greatly overblown?
10 thoughts on “Topic of the week: midterm elections”
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Drudge gave this article the top of a column below the banner. GOP insiders skeptical of landslide predictions:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/GOP-insiders-skeptical-of-landslide-predictions-799576-102570684.html
I’m not sure what to make of it.
That’s interesting, because Nate Silver of 538 has Republican chances of taking control of the House at 67%.
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/g-o-p-has-2-in-3-chance-of-taking-house-model-forecasts/
To be honest, I think Republicans may come really really close to taking control of the house, but I think they’ll come up just a little short in this cycle.
I even doubt it wll be that close, yes Dems may lose a few seats but they won’t be slaughtered America isn’t that dumb in putting the Republicans back in office and destroying everything we worked gard for.
I even doubt it wll be that close, yes Dems may lose a few seats but they won’t be slaughtered. America isn’t that dumb in putting the Republicans back in office and destroying everything we worked hard for.
I’ll go on record and predict Democrats will lose 33 seats.
Conventional wisdom says that people will vote for the opposite party when unsatisfied with the current one. I think this will not be true this time. I would look for increased votes for third party candidates. This will result in contests which will be decided by the hardcore Repub and/or hardcore Dem majorities in each voting district because third party candidates will not have sufficient numbers to actually be elected. I would look to the core majorities to determine results.
This is kind of related to your point about third parties, but I think the role of Tea Party candidates who are running as third party/libertarian/independent candidates could have the unintended effect of helping Democrats by splitting the conservative vote.
Predictions of Republican resurgence are totally overblown. These polls are based on landlines and automated callers, and used on a conventional wisdom that certain people won’t vote. And the media will cling to that as long as they can until they lose.
Ultimately you would have to assume that people will vote for the GOP, and lots of people won’t go there (especially as they find out what they stand for, which has to come out during a campaign). And lots of us on the left may not be thrilled with things, but there’s no way we’re sitting out to allow THOSE PEOPLE to win. It’ll be fun to see the media backpedal on this in October.
In fact, if the GOP voters are foolish enough to vote in Walker on Tuesday, I think the Dems not only win the governorship by a higher-than-expected margin, I think they might well hold both houses of the Legislature, and they gain at most 1 House seat, instead of the 3 they want.
Frank Rich kind of addresses this in his weekly column.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/opinion/12rich.html?_r=1&ref=frankrich
For a guy facing a tidal wave, the president was so ebullient, you had to wonder if he knew something we didn’t. Maybe he simply read the unabridged poll numbers rather than the CliffsNotes summaries of cable news. Those numbers are hardly as monochromatic as advertised. Obama’s approval rating, for months a consistent (not imploding) 45-ish percent, still makes him arguably America’s most popular national politician. The polls also continue to show that, while both political parties are despised, Democrats are slightly less despised than Republicans. In The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, for instance, 36 percent of those surveyed rate the Democrats positively, compared with the G.O.P.’s 30 percent. It’s only when the November horse-race matchup is limited to “likely voters” that the tidal wave rolls in, giving the Republicans a roughly 10-point lead.
So he needs to do something to fire up his base again. Yet we saw the ridiculous Racine Tea party drew about 3000 people while Fighting Bob Fest drew probably 10000 more people than that. Yet Bobfest isnt in the news and the “tea” party is all over it…..
Proud Progressive- I had the same reaction on Racine’s coverage vs. Fighting Bob Fest. It’s extra noteworthy because talk radio gives major free advertising to any Teabag rally, but Fighting Bob Fest gets very little coverage on the WIBAs of the world, and draws a lot more. Which is really more “grassroots”?