With one of four houses underwater and bankruptcy skyrocketing we may not get the chance to turn the economy around again while it's possible to get back to recent levls of prosperity in... our ...lifetimes. That may not be an optimistic assesment of the future - but Angle and Paul do not inspire me to optimism. Remember when the Republicans refused to pass a budget in the mid 1990's? Bad as they were those republicans seemed much more reasonable than todays misanthropic mob. And these economic waters are potentialy lethal to life as we have known it even without a wrecking Congress.
Still - there is reason to be hopeful. And we cannot afford to despair.
George Bush engaged in several mindless interviews last evening. He explained his most stressful moment in the oval office. Guess which would be most stressful to a responsible executive: 9-11, The invasion of Afghanistan and the loss of Bin Laden, the incredible moral load of implementing shock and awe or the greatest financial meltdown in human history climaxing in a deer in the headlights speech. None of the above!
Throwing out a first baseball in 2001 was the most stressful thing a President did Does that illustrate a reason why Conservative leadership at this point would be disastrous? These bozos don't have any part of an oar near the water!
But there is reason to hope - Some good reasons to discount polling showing an imminent disaster.
Exit polling is like shooting fish in a barrel. You don't have to wonder who is voting - you have a huge sample to tell you - so there is no likely voter model to go wrong.
Even with the barrel at point blank range the pollster missed the entire result in the 2004 Presidential exit polls. They picked Kerry to win the popular vote by several points. The later claim that they picked no state incorrectly is false. The actual results for many states - including Florida and Ohio were so far off the predicted that the estimate of the vote was simply too flawed to draw any valid onclusion. A very subtle selection bias - effecting who was approached and who accepted interviews - is most often suggested as the villain. As with many selection bias the predictions generaly skewed off in the same direction. There is a MUCH larger selection bias this year.
1998was also like this year. The backdrop to picking the wrong likely voter screen was the impression of pundits that the electorate would punish democrats for Monica-gate. Short story - they didn't. But pundits were so sure they would that the pollsters who are also pundits or at least pollsters live in the shared world view of the mainstream pundit chose a very republican oriented set of likely voter screens to fit what they thought would happen. The result - predictions of a large Republican win in a year of results that were a mixed bag. The dashed expectation brought down Gingrich from his leaders role.
2010 the same overblown punditry about the effects of job market and the tea party crazies on the electorate. But bullhorns at ordinarily civil town halls don't always inspire confidence in a movement. Take the Vietnam War Protest Movement as example. In EVERY election from 64 to 72 Identification with the most strident elements of the protest movement was the kiss of death for almost every congressional candidate. Nixon's Silent Majority was simply an observation that many average people were put off more by the rudeness of protest than the incineration of humans in Vietnam. There was a small number of violent attacks by the Vietnam protest movement - and a slippery slope developed between perceptions of strident activism and the seperate minority of violent activists in the minds of many. That blurring was surely enhanced by clever manipulation - including the blurring alliteration of the Vice President. The pundits might have this years activism effect backwards. There may be a new silent Majority opposed to the rude and often explicitly threatening tone often seen at tea party events and the random political violence we see here sporadicly but specatularly lately. The pundits lockstep agreement last summer that the democrats were set to lose large locked in the expectations of the pollster who developed very rigid republican leaning likely voter screens. Those voter screens are an art - and they change . Pollster pundit driven perceptions of the electorate can obviously impact a decision to overly value voters that have voted in a year relatively few democrats went to polls - for instance 2004 - in order to qualify as likely voters. The stakes for getting it right are huge - and there are few who deviate from the mainstream expectations for critical shadings that influence their results.
As for the economy - whom does the electorate blame most? They still blame most the party that announced a recession started in late 2008. Democrats will suffer because they are incumbents and the problems are not fixed. But independentsindependants casting a protest vote on jobs are still holding their noses because they still are unlikely to appreciate republicans - they are doubly put off by the tea party rowdies. Many of those who might protest might also be the most likely to stay home. They have two parties to vote against - this is not the perception of a party making a huge breakthrough.
That selection bias this year - its bigger than any since 48. MOST polls don't even try to survey the 25% of the population that has only a cell phone. Federal regulations make it much harder and more expensive to poll cell phones. Politicians prefer cheap polls - so...we havent had this big an obvious selection bias because we were not reaching people who had no landline since...Dewey beat Truman.
Moreover that bias is decidedly giving a pad to Republicans - More cell only phone users are single, have no children, have lower incomes and have a slew of other demographic charachteristics at odds with most Republican charachteristics.
The comparitively economicly distressed black community once thought more likely to stay home are more engaged than republicans according to a very
recent report.
There is no republican edge in early voting. If there is no such edge in the entire election all polling is quite far off - as the likely voter models depend on a MUCH higher portion of republicans at polls to accurately predict an outcome. In fact the edge now is slighty to democrats - including in some 08 battle states like North Carolina. Illinois is exceptional likely because of an impeached Governor and Pennsylvania is one of only 14 states still requiring voters make an oath that they have one of a few allowed execuses before obaining an early ballot. All such excuse early balloting has always contained a built in bias for republicans in the early voting. For one thing Republicns are more likely to travel out of the state and so have an excuse. Some states with no large Democratic Congressional delegations like South Carolina are trending republican too. But the much bigger good news is that big election states California, Nevada and Colorado look very good for Democrats. And Pennsylvania could easily turn around given that it's early voting will be tiny compared to excuse free early voting states.
The rules for early voting have never before been this relaxed and that makes the get out the vote effort a much earlier and overall larger potential factor. No pollster can factor that effort into his prediction. It depends on you. GOTV as if your future depends on it. regardless of whether or not you like much of whats happened the last two years there is a huge gulf between the future of a Republican and Democratic led House starting, just stariting in it's effects next year. Democrats have a better financed central GOTV. Republicans have more volunteers. Only you can change that. So far the only noticable effect of the enthusiasm gap is that Republicans are actualy contacting more voters in GOTV. (Collectively) You alone can change that!
Polling results are more usualy consistent than correct. If the polls are right they are almost all right. This year there is good reason to think they are consistently wrong.
Imagine a Republican Congress starving unemplyment, TANF, the health reform, education, hospital funding, science research - everything they can - in order to claim their twisted view of progress. These zealots have been nurtured to beleve Keynes was the enemy of all mankind. This sort of jobs killing budgetary malpractice isn't just possible - with a republican House it's likely. The more reasonable Republicans have no control over the tea party tiger they wanted to ride. We could be grooving on the rubble for decades.
But instead we might still win.
It is likely close. Even with a small Democratic edge in voters we might still lose the House. Over 10% unemployment makes for an incredibly snarly electorate. It is likely not nearly going to be as big a loss for democrats as some predict - but the differnce between a 35 and 40 seat Republican pick up is likely the difference between passing budgets and shutting down the government.
The cure for despair, in this case, is work!
If you have a supportable viable Democratic Congressional candidate then consider going to your Democratic local organizations and volunteer for the GOTV in your area as soon as they open! Otherwise try volunteering for another districts GOTV. Maybe nothing can keep the Republicans from taking over a chamber. In that case you might waste a couple of
days. But There is a very strong chance you can help prevent a disaster.