Are we in for more wave elections? Calculated as a net loss of 20 or more House seats, we've now had three such waves in a row. For as much as a year after the 2008 election—which, in tandem with the 2006 election, added 51 Democratic seats in the House and 14 Democratic seats in the Senate—there was considerable talk that we were witnessing a political realignment that might last a generation. To be sure, not quite the realignment of 1932-1936, during which the Democrats and allied parties netted 129 House seats and a phenomenal 32 Senate seats over the course of three elections. It was, however, quite impressive after a decade of only single-digit gains by either party. The earlier wave of 1994 was a standalone.

Following the elections of 2006 and 2008, the countervailing wave of 2010, in which the Republicans took 63 seats in the House and five in the Senate, curtailed much of the realignment talk. Some saw and still see that election as an aberration, a last gasp if you will, of a political party so out of step with American attitudes and so willing to overreach by pushing an extreme version of its radical agenda that the realignment may simply have incurred a hiccup. But if that's so, 2012 would have to see another wave, this time in favor of the Democrats.

A couple of months ago, Stuart Rothenberg wrote that since 1924, there has been only one instance of four consecutive wave elections. These occurred immediately after World War II. In 1948, the Democrats won big, and in 1946, '50 and '52, the Republicans did. So, four waves in a row, Rothenberg said, would be "not outlandish," but not likely.

If the public mood continues to improve (most likely because of an improving economic outlook and a dip in unemployment), voters are most likely to reward incumbents of both parties. That would be good news for Obama and House Republicans, each of whom would not hesitate to take credit for the good news.

Indeed, that’s exactly what happened in 1956, when Republican President Dwight Eisenhower was re-elected easily (carrying 41 of 48 states and winning 57 percent of the popular vote), while Democrats added a couple of seats to their existing House majority.

But last November, historian Norton Smith, "who leans right, says [a fourth wave might not be that extraordinary] because 'neither party thus far has demonstrated a willingness to grasp the nettle, to do the really difficult things.' And [historian David] Kennedy, who leans left, agreed: '[N]o real effective national spokesman so far, including President Obama, has really put together a narrative that has sufficiently convinced the American people of the necessity to…grasp this nettle, this set of nettles.'”

At the National Journal tonight, Charlie Cook argues that the trouble with having had three "wave elections" in a row is that this spurs people to think this is the normal course of affairs when they are aberrations.

Each of these elections [2006, 2008 and 2010] showed strong reactions by voters, specifically independent voters, and in no way resembled the previous five elections from 1996-2004. Wave elections are the exception.  While something has made them occur more frequently lately, it still doesn't make them normal.

We could have a fourth consecutive wave election in 2012, but the odds are against it. But here is another theory building on the premise that the "new norm" is volatility, particularly among independent voters.  After having vented at each of the two parties individually, what if voters decide to take out incumbents in a "pox on both your houses" election?

To be honest, I have always been dismissive of the notion of a truly bipartisan, anti-incumbent year, not that there haven't been years when incumbents deserved to be thrown out.  We have come to expect that when we predict that a certain party will get destroyed in an election, their consultants and party officials will try to sell the argument that incumbents on both sides, not just theirs, will get hurt. It's never right, but nothing says it never will be.

In other words, "throw all the bums out" is often voiced, but rarely acted upon.

• • • • •

At Daily Kos on this date in 2004:

If there were few less liberal hawks running around imagining they were "more serious" than the anti-war folks, providing the mushy middle with reason to jump on the war train, it just might have been.  The fact that a lot of center-left types, or what qualifies as center-left in our media anyway, took the pro-war position provided the pro-war media an easy excuse to completely marginalize all anti-war opinion.

Even now many of these same people still cling to the conceit that because they were previously for the war they now have a greater degree of credibility on this issue. Well, sorry, you were wrong. There were people who were right. Let them talk for a change.

Nothing currently happening in Iraq is a surprise. It was all very obvious. It might not have been inevitable, but it was likely. Shit, all it took was a cursory glance at the history of Iraq and a dash of good ol' fashioned (and apparently out of fashion) common sense to see the various ways things could go wrong.

And as we have subsequently found out, this administration lied to get us in, and then had no plan for any eventuality beyond protecting our troops from the torrent of flower petals that would be showered on their heads. ...