Seven Months Away

November 2, 2010
- Election Day for the Mid-Term Congressional Election

The mid-term congressional election will be held in a little over seven months. The pundits and the experts are already saying Democrats will lose big. Some are even saying that the Democrats will lose their majority. Yes, historically the party in power looses seats in both the House and the Senate, but it is unreasonable to believe this early that the Democrats are headed to a repeat of 1994.

In 1994 the Democrats were caught in several scandals that seemed rooted in a tone-deaf assumption of privilege. The Clinton White House was in chaos and neither the President nor Congress seemed in control. Congressional Republicans were running without the baggage of a legislative record and were able to present themselves as a credible alternative to the Democrats.

Things are different now.

The Republicans have a recent track record of legislative accomplishments to live down. Whether it is the disastrous tax cuts that squandered the surplus, or deregulation that lead to the economic meltdown, the Republicans have a lot to answer for.

If they can muster the courage, Democrats can easily portray Republicans as the “Party of No” and remind the voters how Republicans have stood in the way of jobless benefits, health care and economic stimulus while offering no alternatives.

In 1994 the Republicans also ran on ethics. They pledged to clean Washington up. Now the Republicans have John Ensign (R-Nev) and strip clubs. Despite the flurry of subpoenas that have fallen on the friends whom he deceived to arrange hush money jobs for his mistress, her husband and son, Ensign seems to determined to hold on to the bitter end. As a result his case should be coming to a head right about election time.

A deeper problem for the Republicans is their low “Voter Identification” numbers. In the summary of party ID poll tracked on Pollster.com, (http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/party-id.php) the Republicans are tracking steady with a voter ID of about 26%. 33% of voters identify themselves as Democrats, and 36% identify themselves as Independents.

To win Republicans will have to win those Independents over.

That doesn’t seem to be happening. As the Pollster.com chart shows, the difference between the percentage of voters who identify themselves as Independents those who identify themselves as Republicans has held pretty steady since September of 2009.

For all the Republican bluster about representing “The-Will-Of-The-American-People,” the American People seem to have other ideas. After a year of tea party rallies and dominating the message, voters don’t agree with the direction of the Republican Party - this includes Republican voters.

In a poll released on 04/13/10, by Public Policy Polling, (http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2010/04/republicans-in-disarray.html) only 28% of voters approved of the direction of the Republican Party. It is surprising only 54% of Republicans approve of the direction of their Party.

Michael Steele only adds to the Republicans image problems. It is hard to claim any credibility when you have staffers taking donors to bondage clubs, and using donor dollars to pay the bill. In the same Public Policy Poll, only 10% of Americans have a favorable view of Steele. Within the party the numbers are not much better, only 15% of Republicans have a favorable view of him.

It is hard to see how the Republicans can drag these sorts of approval numbers around behind them for a long period of time and not be hurt.

In the meantime Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), is also doing her best to present a smaller target to the Republicans. The vote count on Health Care Reform indicates that. Both times the House voted on Health Care Reform, the bill passed with a bare majority. Many analyst were looking at the vote counts and describing how weak support in the House was for reform.

The Republicans have fallen for that story.

Electoral-vote.com (http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2010/Senate/Maps/Mar23-s.html) has an interesting chart that shows that all but four of the Democrats who voted no came for strongly Republican leaning districts, and one of those four is running for Governor of Alabama. Pelosi wisely did not sacrifice these members to run up the count. She (like Karl Rove) understand to win in politics sometimes all you need is “50%+1.” These Democrats can run against Health Care all they want. For now they are not as large a target.

What will happen in November?

It is simply too early to tell. But the Democrats are in a better position than most people give them credit for. A CNN Public Opinion poll released on 04/13/10 (http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/04/13/rel7d.pdf) shows Democrats taking the lead back from Republicans in the generic ballot poll. 50% of voters surveyed said they were more likely to vote for a Democratic congressional candidate and only 45% said they would vote for a Republican. This is a change from the March survey where only 45% chose the Democrat and 49% chose the Republican. This is the first time since November of 2009 that Democrats have lead in this monthly survey.

In 1994 the face of the Republican Party was Newt Gingrich. Gingrich was a likeable, intelligent spokesperson for the party who presented ideas that gave Americans a vision of what the Republicans would do in power. Sixteen years later, the face of the Republicans is Sarah Palin, who has no ideas for the future, just bumper sticker slogans about becoming the party of “Hell No.” The country has no idea what the Republicans stand for.

As the Democrats learned painfully in 1984, 1994 and 2004, you can’t win running on a platform of “I am not the other guy.”