One of the frustrating things about politics is there is a lot of conventional wisdom associated with it. This is frustrating in two ways, one it tends to tell folks who want to buck the system that they are going to lose in their efforts. The other is the fact the problem with all conventional wisdom, namely for a predictable outcome all the extraneous factors have to be similar to previous elections
"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"
The conventional wisdom is says that the party which holds the White House loses seats in the House and the Senate during the mid-term elections. This has been true most of the time, with most recent notable exception of 2002, when the Republicans rode a wave of fear from the 9/11 attacks to a larger majority.
The question becomes is the 2010 election cycle similar enough to previous cycles for the CW from folks like Charlie Cook of the Cook Report to be accurate or is this an outlier year where there are so many factors in play that the CW is not really an accurate model to predict the outcome.
A big factor which looks as though it is being either downplayed or overlooked is the disarray of the Republican Party. The election of Michael Steele as their chairman and his antics are only one factor in this over all story. The split that he has created in the Republican Party is significant. There are now many donors who are saying they will donate directly to candidate or to the RNCC or RNSC. Worse there is even a competing committee in the Senate lead by Sen. Jim DeMint called the Senate Conservatives Fund.
This means there will be plenty of money, but it will lack one thing that has made Republican political campaigns successful, good coordination. With the RNC in such disrepute and disarray it will make things harder for it to be a credible point of coordination in the support of Republican candidates.
This can be seen in the division that is forming up between those who want to run on the unachievable goal of repealing the HCR law and those who understand that promising their very volatile and angry base something that can not be delivered is a recipe for long term disaster.
This brings us to the Tea Party base of the Republican Party. The new CNN poll shows that 87% of the Tea Party members would vote Republican. This both a boost and a problem for the Republicans. On the one hand they are a motivated base to turn out for elections; on the other they have very high and not very moderate friendly standards that the Republican candidates will have to meet if they are going to actually get their votes.
This where the repeal trap is the some Republicans are trying to avoid is being set. If they placate their motivated base this myth they can (or really want to) repeal HCR then they not only open themselves up to betraying their base, they leave the Democrats with a slow hanging ball to hammer over the fence.
Another problem for the Republican’s is the lack of a positive message. They have been the obstructionist party for the last 18 months and it looks like very little will change in that regard between now and Election Day. While this is good for rallying angry voters, the problem is that Americans are generally on optimistic and hopeful people. You can have a great message for why you they should fire the current Rep or Senator, but if you don’t have a compelling reason for why they should hire you, that advantage is greatly diminished.
The Republican platform has not changed, except to grow even more draconian, since the McCain campaign. With its massive tax cuts for the wealthy, the proposed privatization of Medicare and Social Security the economic message from the Republicans is not one that the people of this nation have not ever liked nor are really ready to embrace.
While two years into his presidency it has to be said that the economy is President Obama’s, the people have not forgotten how we got to these dire straights nor who was responsible. While they may be angry and wanting to blame the party in control, don’t assume they will be willing to run back to the same people who drove the nation into a ditch.
Die hard Republicans and Tea Baggers will support this kind of nonsense but they are not large enough groups for the Republicans to have the large electoral victories that CW tells us to expect. The Republican Party has to sway Independent voters in order to win. The problem is while Independents might be unhappy (who is really happy in the United States today?) when they get a look at the Republican policies and what it would mean for the nation and themselves they are likely to reject them just as they have the last two election cycles.
Finally there is the issue of Republican scandals. Generally there are more corruption issues with the party in power. However there are still scandals that can break for the Republicans which will further damage their brand and give credence to the idea that they are in disarray. The biggest one of these is Sen. John Ensign. There is a Federal investigation that is likely to result in indictments later this spring. It is very clear that he engaged in activities structured to avoid Federal laws in regards to his affair with a staffer and the fall out from it. This is a crime in and of itself.
There is also the issue of the C Street House run by the secretive Christian group called the Family. The Rachel Maddow Show has been doing yeoman’s work in keeping this story going. The filing by the Ohio Pastors with the IRS to investigate if members of Congress living there were given subsidized rent and then failed to report it is going to break sooner or later as well. While there will be some Democrats involved in this, the vast majority of the people living there have been Republican lawmakers. This will tarnish their image as a credible and uncorrupt alternative to the Democrats.
There are structural advantages for the Republicans. There can be no debate about this fact; however, structural advantages alone are not enough. To win and win convincingly the Republicans will have to be effective. They will have to have a message that is positive and is one that resonates with the general population. They will have to be coordinated and consistent. They will have to whether any scandals that break between now and then.
All of this makes the conventional wisdom of a big win come into doubt. It is hard to win when you are not ready as an organization. It is hard to win when the you do not have a positive message and it is very hard to win when the people think your party is corrupt. These are the counter factors that will balance out the structural advantage the Republicans enjoy this cycle.
Will it be enough? That depends on the Democrats. Just like the Republicans if they want to win they will have to run good campaigns. No one gets elected just because they are there. Still the Democratic Party is more united, has a positive message and is more likely to take action when its members are even suspected of corruption. There is also the issue that the nation is finally starting (but by no means completed) swinging back to a more liberal point of view. These are their advantages, but they will still have to use them.
At the risk of making a prediction this far out I think that the Democrats will lose between 10 and 18 seats in the House and 3 in the Senate. I know that is a more rosy view than many right now, but that is where the cards fall to me, right this minute. Things can and will change in the coming months.
The floor is yours.