So conservatives are usually wrong in their thinking... I think most of us can agree on that. I think like most of you do... I think like a progressive. Then there are those who don't consider themselves progressive or conservative. Who are they?
They are swing voters, they are persuadables, they are often the difference makers in elections... but not this year. I think, for the most part, they'll stay home. They'll stay home because they care for the Republicans even less than the Democrats. They don't like what's happening in the country (they seldom ever do) and they blame the President... but this isn't a presidential election.
So, Democrats are trying to persuade these individuals to vote for progressives over the nut-job conservatives. The flaw in the Democrats' plan is that these people won't be voting. The Republicans' plan is simple: "Get our people to show up." So why can't the Democrats use that plan? Well, because every opportunity they've had to do the correct, progressive thing, they decided to pander to the middle. You know, the folks who won't be showing up to vote.
So, the only option Democrats have remaining is to persuade independents to vote progressive AND get them to show up. How would they do that? Well, let's think about what gets independents to show up. If there is one thing that will drive voter turn out more than anything else, it's corruption. Oops, Democrats are not helping themselves much in this regard. However, I think there is still opportunity here.
I ask that you contemplate how Americans would respond to this poll question: "If you knew nobody would ever find out, would you be comfortable knowing your preferred congressional candidate defeated their extremist opponent through fraudulent means?" Because I think like a progressive, I know how most of you would answer. The question is, how would self-identified conservatives answer? Persuadable voters are clearly not being driven to the polls to keep nut-jobs out of Congress. If the hypothetical poll results showed that conservatives have less integrity than progressives, would that get them out of the house on election day? I think it might.