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The DNC is out with a new memo (PDF), short and worth reading, making the case that this November will not be as bad as 1994 was for Democrats or 2006 was for Republicans. It is an attempt to dispel the idea Democrats will lose control of the House.
The memo makes some compelling points, like the fact that President Obama’s job- approval rating right now is not nearly as bad as George W. Bush’s was during the 2006 election. For me, the most convincing piece of data is that Americans still trust Democrats more than Republicans on the most important issue, the economy.
In fact, on what may be the most important issue of this election – the economy – Democrats lead Republicans in voter trust, and do so by a similar margin to Democrats in 2006 and a larger margin than Republicans in 1994.
According to a Washington Post/ABC poll, registered voters trust Democrats over Republicans 42% to 34% to do a better job handling the economy, an 8 point margin [ABC/WP Poll, 7/13/10].
In October 2006, when the Washington Post/ABC poll asked the same question, registered voters picked Democrats over Republicans by 50%-41% [ABC/WP Poll, 7/13/10], a nine point margin. And when they asked the same question in 1994, registered voters picked Republicans over Democrats 43%-38% [ABC/WP Poll, 7/13/10], a five point margin. So, in the two most recent elections where control of Congress flipped from one party to the other, the party out of power held the advantage on the economy, while the party in power holds that advantage today.
The fact that the DNC needs to convince people that this election will be not as bad or worse than the two most game-changing midterm elections in the last several decades is not a good sign. Losing only half as many seats as Democrats lost in 1994 would still be a significant net loss of 27 seats. Doing better than the historic worst case is setting the bar very low.
The other thing to keep in mind is that we are a little more than three months away from the election. Even if things are not as bad as they could be for Democrats right now, there is still time for things to get worse. The economy is sluggish, and if unemployment goes higher in the coming months, it could undermine Americans’ trust in the Democratic Party on the issue of the economy. A drop in employment is a real possibility, since Democrats have foolishly all but abandoned trying to pass legislation to improve the jobs situation in the short term. If that happens, things could become even uglier for the incumbent party.
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The economy is sluggish, and if unemployment goes higher in the coming months, it could undermine Americans’ trust in the Democratic Party on the issue of the economy. A drop in employment is a real possibility, since Democrats have foolishly all but abandoned trying to pass legislation to improve the jobs situation in the short term. If that happens, things could become even uglier for the incumbent party.
I think for it to be bad is for things to simply stagnate. If unemployment stayed around 5% that would be great, but having unemployment stay around 10% (in reality actually much higher) is neither good for the economy itself nor does it motivate all those unemployed people (and friends and relatives of the long-term unemployed) to see how great things are. It’s also major whiplish listening to Democats one year be hardcore keynesians and the next year be hardcore monetarists – and actually turning monetarist when the unemployment levels are higher than when they were keynesian. Having Obama and the rest of the Democrats act like Sybil on the economy and a host of other issues doesn’t exactly seem like a recipe for success.
Setting the bar low is what Democrats do best.
Thanks Jon, great take on it all.
As to ’10, given all that’s passed since Obama was elected, all that Congress has done, all the dems have failed me on . . .
I’m already gone from the party vote wise, across the board.
I want to punish them. And I figger, as long as the dems are killin me, the GOP can only put me in the coffin I’m headed to.
There’s no dif, and I will punish the dem’s at the polls.
Third party, I don’t care.
Boxer? Screw it, bring on Fiorina!
Brown? Put him up on Ebay, bring on Teh Megster!
We’re all heading into the toilet, I say just pull the chain and flush it now.
That way, future generations might have a quicker start on a fresh chance, once it all goes to hell.
Cuz it’s going to hell with or without us, or the dem’s.
The system’s unsustainable, here in USA, planet wide.
The corporate fascism just can’t sustain what it’s doing, not for long.
So, I see a dem slaughter in ’10 . . . as I’m not the only disgruntled prog with no choices but bad or worse.
And frankly, worse is of no more consequence to me and mine anymore, than bad is.
Let if fall, this fall. Dem’s slaughtered at polls, from votes or stay at homes.
After the carnage, maybe we progs come up with some ideas to move forward . . . I sure hope so.
But for now, it’s time for this prog to cut the umbilical cord of hope and change. Been time for a decade or more, for that matter.
Won’t get fooled again! *wimdmillguitarslash*
The question I have is, why aren’t the Democrats proposing to win the midterms, rather than not lose too badly? They’ve been handed a series of statements by Republican leaders who’s stupidity and absurdity are unprecedented — that should be sufficient to completely discredit Republicans and send the Republican Party into oblivion, and the fact the Democratic Congressional leaderers don’t see this as an opportunity, and act on it, is a clear sign the leadership hasn’t a clue what they’re doing.
I agree with your sentiments.
“Methinks the DNC doth protest too much.”
Because they know they fucked up HCR.
Had they passed Single Payer, Drug Re-importation, or Public option, or something tangible before 2014, they’d have a solid achievement to boast about.
They got nothing, and they know it.
O’bama? He wants Rs in the House & Senate so he can run against them in 2012. O’bama’s worst nightmare in a D house & Senate. Then he would have nothing to run against, and would have to run on his piss poor record.
Oh but with respect, the Dem “leadership” (cough cough) knows exactly what it’s doing, which is dancing to their corporate masters’ tunes. They’re not “into” the voters at all, so they’re just setting the stage here, so to speak.
It’s all Kabuki and jabberwocky, if ya asks me.
Am I the only one who thinks most of the DemApocalypse forecasting going on is the media trying to create a horserace.
I can’t shake the feeling that the electorate is way ahead of the pundits and politicians.
I suspect Dems will do rather well in terms of national percentage of votes garnered, but gerrymandering will mean little change.
And that’s a big, empty win for BHO, et al, just like the hollow legislative victories of the past 18 months. That’s bad for the rest of us, but still probably not as bad as the media wants to speculate.
Amen, Larue!
I withheld judgement vis Jerry Brown and whether I’d vote for him. But given his craptastic “campaign”… well, eff me dead. He’s toast. I loathe detest and despise E-Meg, but wtf?? Queen Meg is what the “people” want, so let ‘em have her in spades.
Fiorina chills me to the bone, but at this stage?? What’s the frickin’ difference?? Boxer’s done. Boxer, like Brown, was reasonably decent at one time. Both appear to have SOLD OUT. Eff them. No votes from me.
Waste of time. We’re all owned by the corporations now.
“Waste of time. We’re all owned by the corporations now.” The sci fi B cable movie V tells it all. The alien reptilians have taken over and are eating the rest of us.
Third party is the only real alternative at this point.
Phew. If the DNC is feeling fine incumbent Dems can sit back and relax. Progressives can stay home. Perfect.
We’re on the same page. The big sucking sound we hear is the sound of anyone making less than $60,000. a yr. being flushed down the shitter.
If I had any fucking money I’d bankroll your campaign for something.
A lot of people, rightly, got mad at OFA after a few shivs by the Administration, and jumped off the OFA email lists.
I did not, for a specific reason; to keep up with what OFA was up to, and to find opportunities to exhort and/or disrupt them, particularly as they barge into local politics.
So if you hadn’t opted out, you would have gotten an email about a drive tomorrow – the one for Denver goes like this:
So you bet your ass I’m going to show up, listen to determine whether it’s generic, or if it’s a “Vote For Bennet and DeGette Like We Tell You To” event which I suspect it is.
If it is, I am disrupting it, armed with a bunch of pro-Romanoff/anti-Bennet points. Because that OFA machine needs punched back from the hippies.
Can you spell “SLAVE”?
Actually its worse than slavery. At least the slave master has to feed and house their property, or the asset could neither produce work product nor offspring.
I think they are setting the bar low so when they “only” lose 30 or so seats, they can claim a victory.
No way – I’m a “firebagger”!
Actually the majority of my working career has been close to the slave category. Shitty jobs, shitty pay, shitty benfits and being treated like something on the bottom of ‘the man’s’ shoe. I wasn’t beaten but I had enough shit pounded down my throat to last me a lifetime.
I want to throw something everytime I hear about the terrible plight of the small businessman. There may be a couple good ones out there but I’ve never heard of them.
I’m with you. I’m so tired of holding my nose and voting for the lesser of two evils. Currently the only difference between Ds and Rs are differences in degree (do I want to be drowned or burned to death?). So much of the public is too ignorant to see that the only ones that benefits from the situation are the wealthiest and the corporations (if they were chickens they’d be campaigning for Colonel Sanders). They don’t see us headed for that cliff at 200 mph, perhaps they’ll get it when they’re in the flaming wreckage.
Thelma/Louise 2012!
Less of a majority, or ideally, no majority, means less explaining why nothing of substance for the “little people” can be accomplished, and more opportunity to use the “bad Republicans made us/wouldn’t let us” excuses for future sell outs.
“…Dems will do rather well in terms of national percentage of votes garnered, but gerrymandering will mean little change. …”
The most important result of the 2010 elections will occur in the statehouses, not Congress. We will be electing the legislatures that will be in charge of redistricting as a result of the census. Progressives must put aside their disgust at the state of things in Washington and turn their attention to their state capitols.
“… less explaining why nothing of substance for the “little people” can be accomplished,…”
Since I haven’t seen anything of “substance” for the little people yet, I’d settle for a little less pandering to the corporate masters.
Gridlock is not always a bad thing.
2010 stands to be a turnout election and the enthusiasm factor remains with the republicans. The Democratic leadership seems utterly clueless in acknowledging this or doing anything to reverse it.
Forcing a couple of real fillibusters would help. Jim Bunning reading the phone book in opposition to an unemployment extension on the evening news would be areally good thing long about now.
Eli is upstairs!
Well, Which Is It?
Don’t they usual take the bar and hit their “base” with it?
I continue to maintain that we should go to the polls and vote for someone — anyone: write in Jane Hamsher — to show that there were votes the Dems “missed” because of their craptastic performance.
If you don’t show up, they’ll never know your vote was available, but they didn’t win it. [Think how long it took them to figure out how many Dems stayed home in the Scott Brown race. DNC et al. are still denying that one.]
I’d love to see a concerted effort — “approved list” — of third party folks to vote for in the various campaigns, so we can point to the 10,000 or so votes in that column that could have put Mr. or Ms. Dem over the top.
They need to know we’re out here, that their current MO doesn’t attract us, and that they’ve got to come get our votes. Think how effective the Tea Party and other folks are vis-a-vis getting Repubs to change their tune and woo them.
The stock market has been declining since April. This week, it tried to break into a rally but failed today, pretty decisively. Weak consumer sentiment is the culprit.
Wall Street hates the Obama administration, and I’m willing to bet they hold things down from here until November, just to give the GOP more to use against the Democrats.
I will come in and vote, but I sense that the people of this country are so disappointed in what they got for their votes last cycle, they aren’t going to show up at the polls this cycle.
The conservatives, on the other hand, are in a frenzy. I fear the worst.
The headline I’d like to see come election time is: Record Turnout for Third Party Candidates
Not that I expect Independents to actually win but the D’s and R’s need to receive the message that they are both increasingly unpopular. And that unpopularity has been well earned.
What we really need is a 3rd party which focus’s on economic populism. Sticking to economic issues, it could be made into a rather big tent. Key elements would include:
Full Employment
Banking reform: Move the Wallstreet Casino’s back to Vegas where they belong
Prison/legal reform: Return to pre-1980 incarceration rate norms, ban the privatized prison racket.
Trade reform: Restore a system of balanced trade.
You don’t pass this mess onto the next generation. We allowed Reagan and voodoo economics to prevail. Who was minding the store when the Bush tax cuts were rushed through the congress??? I don’t even remember it. It is our responsibility to rebuild the middle class which we allowed the repug policies to shrink. We have to make sure the Bush tax cuts expire: even Alan Greenspan now agrees it is a bad idea for these cuts to continue. Nobody but no body who loves this country can get off the Obama express just yet. It is discouraging at times, but thinking that my grand children may be working under the tyrany of corporatism is far more discouraging.
The DNC has let the dems down by being unimaginative and weak on responses to the repug constant rants about dems actions. Obama has done some extraordinary good for the country. And for the dems to sit by and let the like Michael Steele come out, steal headlines and condemn the president and dems in congress is negligent. Tim Kaine, let that ideologue cracker McDonnell take over VA without a fight. Every time I read the WAPO and see the damage the man is doing to the state, I am appalled. We really need a DNC that can act and not just mouth a few encouraging words. Show me, DNC how are your going to make it better for dem candidates to prevail this election go round???
“Government is the Entertainment division of the military-industrial complex.” Frank Zappa
Why should I care which set of corporate controlled puppets dominate the congressional stage?
Whichever subdivision of the one-party-with-two-names wins, the people lose. Discussions of Democrats versus Republicans as if they present different political ideologies fly in the face of reality. Get real or get screwed.