We find it amazing that the Democrats and the mass media are not making a big deal out of how much trouble the Republicans are in at the moment. Even liberal leaning pundits seem to think that the Bin Laden bounce for Obama has run its course. We do not know where they get this idea because we cannot find one poll that is not positive for Obama and they actually are getting stronger for Obama with every passing day. If the presidential election were to be held now, Obama would be a shoo-in.
Now it is true that the Democrats and the media tried to convince the public that the special election held in New York's district 26 showed that the Ryan budget plan is the kiss of death for the Republicans in 2012 and most pundits did not buy that. The problem is not with the Ryan budget plan but rather with the Republican messaging. They are trying to sell it as as a necessary reform to balance the budget. They keep pushing that line and not only will they not gain control of the Senate in 2012, but they will not defeat Obama and will come close to losing the House of Representatives as well.
At the time of the 2010 elections, the generic congressional ballot was running from 7 to 15 points in favor of the Republicans depending upon which poll you looked at. Right now our average of those polls is actually slightly in favor of the Democrats. Clearly the Republicans have a gigantic messaging problem. How about a message that proclaims they are try to SAVE Medicare before it goes bankrupt? Is that too much to ask of the Republican leadership? The voters voted for Republicans in 2010 in hopes that the Republicans would jam the brakes on all that the Democrats had done in the previous two years.
What have they gotten in exchange for this vain hope? They have gotten Democrat-lite from the Republicans instead. As Obama has said, Democrats bring a gun to a knife fight. The Republicans do not bring a knife or even martial arts to the fight. The Republicans are wimps and they have no clue on how to go for the Democrat jugular. The Democrats run ads proclaiming that the Republicans are trying to destroy Medicare and kill granny. How do the Republicans respond? They point to charts and figures that there is a problem with the financing of Medicare. How about proclaiming that the Democrats are sitting idly by while Medicare goes broke and that this is what will kill granny?
Republicans seem to think that the baby steps they have taken towards controlling government spending are all it takes to win public approval. How about wielding a meat axe instead? Whole departments need to be axed as they are doing more harm than good. Polls showed that a majority of the likely voters did not have a problem with shutting down all but the essential parts of the federal government if that was what it took to get the Democrat's attention to their habit of spending other people's money like a whole carrier group of druken sailors. What did the Republicans give them instead? They gave them cuts that did not even come to the amount the government borrowed while they were arguing about it.
The debt ceiling hike is the last chance the Republicans have to make good on their promises for the 2010 elections. They have just one chance to make believers out of the voting public that they are serious about cutting government spending. They need to refuse to raise the debt limit no matter what cuts the Democrats agree to. The public will support this stand. The folks in Congress need to learn to live within their means just like everyone else has had to do. The Republican leadership (and that means you, Mitch McConnell) need to get in the Democrats' face and stay there no matter how much the media beats up on them for doing that. Frankly, we doubt that the Republicans have the guts to do this and that means that we get four more years of Obama and continued Democrat control of the Senate and perhaps the Democrats regaining control of the House to boot.
The Republican Messaging Problem
No Instinct for the Jugular
If there is one thing that has become clear to me after almost 50 years in Republican politics, it is that Republicans have no instinct for the jugular. Professional Democrats always play hardball and do not take prisoners. Most Republican politicians, especially those in leadership positions, have some need to be loved or if not loved at least to be approved of. These types just cannot handle rejection and this causes them to roll over and be complete wusses rather than be labeled by Democrats and the media as anything negative.
Democrats pros do not play nice in the sandbox but Republicans seem to be determined to play under some sort of Marquis of Queensbury rules. They insist on operating in politics with one hand tied behind their backs and then seem surprised and hurt when the Democrat operatives hand them their heads. Strangely enough, there is a total reversal of the two parties in attitudes when it comes to foreign affairs. Here Republicans know that needing to be loved is a losing proposition and that respect is required. Democrats, on the other hand, cozy up to leftist and Islamo-Fascists because they recognize a kindred spirit who believes in the power of the mailed fist.
When I first got elected to public office, it was at a time in Arizona politics when enough Republicans had moved into the Phoenix area to allow the Republicans to gain control of local offices. On taking office as the first Republican to ever have held that office, I soon discovered that the majority of my employees were Democrat precinct committeemen. This did not provide an optimum situation. So what was the first thing the other Republicans wanted to do? They wanted to form a civil service system and lock all those committeemen in place before I could ascertain which ones I could live with.
Needless to say, I protested vehemently but they insisted that eliminating political patronage was the "right" thing to do. I pointed out that there was no danger of our being accused of political patronage like the Democrats had been doing for the last 100 years since where could we find any Republicans to work for the lousy wages the County was paying? They paid no attention and went right ahead and put a civil service system into place to the approval of editorials from the media who had never said boo about the Democrat political patronage.
Fortunately the really rabid Democrats quit right away and I won over the remaining ones by creating a new series of job classifications at significantly higher wages using the savings from not replacing the ones that had quit. However, that is beside the point. Paying decent wages was the right thing to do but installing a civil service was a politically stupid thing to do at least until we had weeded out the bad apples. All a civil service system does is lock bad employees into place.
Under the new rules, it took 3 bad employee reviews to fire an employee. This forced me to go to a system of quarterly employee reviews over the the screams of my supervising employees who hated evaluating other employees. That allowed me to get rid of an employee that did not work out in 9 months instead of three years. My other problem was that some of my employees were unionized but not all of them since Arizona is a right to work state. I went to the AFL/CIO seeking their support since I was treating my employees better than the Democrats had. They refused because I was a Republican and opposed me at every turn. Doing the "right" thing does not mean beans to Democrat activists.
That was only the beginning of a continuous barrage of my fellow Republicans not wanting to play hardball to even out the playing field. Thanks to me and three legislative reapportionment plans I had drafted and helped get approved by the federal courts, the Republicans controlled both houses of the legislature. I drafted a bill to overhaul the elections laws and to remove their bias towards the Democrats in them. While I got it introduced, the Republican House leadership did not want to move the bill because it was too "partisan". They only agreed to move the bill after all the language was removed that eliminated that bias towards the Democrats so in that form it passed the House.
Over in the Senate, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee was not a wuss and put all the language the House had deleted back into the bill over the screams of the Democrats. That was when the Democrat minority leader made the mistake of making it a party issue and getting unanimous agreement in the Democrat caucus to oppose the revised bill. I immediately went back to the House leadership and asked what they were going to do now that it was a partisan issue. My parentage was questioned but they also said that they would pass the amended bill since they now had no choice. That was just the beginning of the Republican leadership at all levels trying to get me to be a "team player" (translation: roll over and let the Democrats have their way). After three trips to the U.S. Supreme Court and umpteen sit-ins in my office by the great unwashed, they finally got rid of me, but that is another story.
Believe me when I tell you that this was the first of a long string of such cases when the Republican leaders refused to stand up and be Republicans instead of go along and get along Democrat lites. One other incident will suffice to make the point I am trying to make and that was lowering the voting age (and adulthood) to eighteen which the other Republicans were all for. I showed them an analysis of the voter registration rolls by party and age using a computer program I had written for that purpose. It demonstrated that voters under 30 were much more inclined to register Democrat than Republican so why did they want to add more Democrats to the rolls to vote against us?
I got the usual answer of it being the right thing to do and would garner all this supposed approval. All it did was elect more Democrats to the state legislature. Is it a coincidence that the three congressional districts in Arizona that went Democrat in 2006 or 2008 have huge state universities in them with those folks voting at the urging of their professors including hordes of out of state students? The Republicans kept pushing to make voting easier just like the Democrats wanted them to do by easing voter registration requirements and going to the motor voter method of registering voters. They felt it was more democratic to have more people voting. Maybe so but the Republicans were already registering to vote and voting at twice the rate of the Democrat inclined groups. I pointed out that these new voters would be much less informed and the most easily swayed by demagogues.
In vain I kept pointing out that all these new voters would be predominately Democrats so why were the Republicans so anxious to help the Democrats by making things easier for them? Well, you know what happened not only in Arizona but all over the country. Just where do you suppose all those new voters who ordinarily would not have bothered to register let alone vote and who elected Obama came from? I have gotten used to the Republicans committing political suicide by doing what Democrat operatives want them to do after being convinced by them that it was the "right" thing to do. It is this tendency among Republicans that prevents me from projecting a massive landslide for the Republicans in November.
I just witnessed John McCain lose an election that should have been a piece of cake because he did not want to be too partisan and say not nice things about Obama when there were a boatload of things (or lack thereof) that cried out in Obama's background to be made an issue. I protested in vain as the McCain bozos sat on Sarah Palin when her selection was the only thing the campaign had done right. They kept her muzzled and threw away the one thing they had going for them. It was not until the night before the election that I realized that the McCain campaign had totally blown the election when I saw hordes of young people out in force to taunt him at his last campaign stop and knew they would turnout and vote for Obama when they never had bothered to vote before.
There is no way the Democrats can win this fall but the Republicans will always try to lose an election that should be a cakewalk. They just threw away a potential 53rd Senate seat when Pataki decided he would not run because a Republican cannot win in New York. Gee, that was what everyone said about Massachusetts, too. Even there, I had to write a non-stop series of articles about how Scott Brown could win to get any support for him. Now I have to keep pounding on the clear fact that some so-called "experts" are hopelessly biased in favor of the Democrats.
The Republicans did not bother to even do battle in FL-19 because the Democrats convinced them that it would be a lost cause. The same thing can be said about not fielding candidates in marginal districts in New York like NY-21, NY-27 and NY-28. The Republicans need to wake up and smell the coffee. They could win as many as 100 seats in the House and as many as 11 in the Senate (instead of 12 thanks to Pataki) but you have to field good candidates who can win and then support them fully. The easiest way to lose a sure thing election is to concede defeat before the election is even held. In my personal experience, Republicans are very good at doing just that.
Seeing What You Want to See
Everyone is guilty of this at one time or another. Amongst political junkies it shows as the tendency to cherry pick data that seems to support one's own political point of view. What is even worse than seeing what you want to see is believing what the other side wants you to believe. The Democrats did that at first after Scott Brown got elected. They promptly saw that voting for the health care bill was the political kiss of death, which it was and still is in many districts. They eventually convinced themselves that they were believing what the Republicans wanted them to believe and pushed it through anyway.
On the other hand, the Republicans to this very day are still believing what the Democrats want them to believe. What is more Republicans have been conned into believing that most of the Democrat held seats in the House are "safe" or are at least only marginally vulnerable and so there is no point in seriously contesting any but a few of them. That is absolute bull crappy. Why do Republicans buy into this nonsense? They point to the projections of so-called "experts" as proof that this is true. We hate to tell Republicans this but most of those "experts" are Democrats and their "projections" show their bias big time.
Let's take the case of what will happen in the House of Representatives in the November elections. Even some of the most biased Democrats admit that they will lose a "few" seats in the House. So how many is a few and which seats are we talking about? Since 2008 was a presidential election and 2010 is a midterm election the Democrat turnout will be lower as it always is in midterm elections. When there is a Democrat president, this favoring of the Republicans is strengthened. To see what might happen in 2010, we need to look at a previous midterm election. 2006 was a banner Democrat year and this is not shaping up to be another banner Democrat year.
The 2002 election would appear to be more like we can expect in this election so let's see what the 2002 election tells us. We have arranged the table at the bottom of this article in order by descending Democrat results. That means that Democrat seats that were held by a Republican in 2002 will be a minus figure. In cases where there was no opposition by a major party, we have used the result from the closest year to 2002 where there was opposition. To the table we have added poll results, Obama's margin, the health care vote on 3/21 and ratings by four analysts plus our own.
One thing stands out immediately and that is a forest of the letter "D" in the races carried by Republicans by the widest margins in 2002 even when poll results show the Republican candidate ahead now. How can this be? The short answer is that these projections are highly suspect. Take OH-16 for an example which had a Republican incumbent from 1950 through 2006 and where Rep. Boccieri won with a 10.73% margin in 2008. Obama lost the district by 2.61% and a poll taken 3 days before the health care vote on March 21st shows any Republican candidate ahead of any Democratic candidate by 11 points.
In addition, the poll asks specifically what the respondents would do if "the Republican candidate proposes repealing and overturning the health care reform bill AND Congressman John Boccieri, votes to pass the health care reform bill." By a margin of 53% to 40%, the respondents would vote for the Republican. Rep. Boccieri did vote for the bill and yet this district is rated from leans D to likely D by four different analysts. Why would you believe any of them after that? Isn't our own rating of leans R a tad more realistic? Only Real Clear Politics has ratings that have any validity. At least they think the Republicans will pick up 18 seats with a good chance at 29 more.
If this were the only case then we could say this was just a mistake. Look at NY-20, PA-4 and IL-11 where the Republicans are up from 6 to 9 points in the polls but the other analysts say these seats will likely go Democrat. Look at VA-11 and NV-3 where the Republicans are up 5 points in the polls. Yet only Real Clear Politics sees these two as toss-ups. The other three give the edge to the Democrats by a little or a lot. Stop believing what the experts want you to believe and look at the results of the previous elections if you want to see what will happen in November.
Take NY-27 as another example. Yes, Rep. Higgins was unopposed by a Republican in 2008 and won by a whopping 58.54% margin in 2006. But his margin was only 1.33% in 2004 and the district had a Republican incumbent from 1982 to 2002 including a 41.57% margin in 2002. This is not to say that the Republicans can win this district but to say that it definitely will go Democrat and it is not even in play is another thing entirely. Republicans believe nonsense like this to the point of not even fielding a candidate against Rep. Higgins this year.
There are 13 districts in New York that the Republicans have a chance at winning and yet in three districts (21, 27 and 28), they are letting the Democrat run opposed. Why are Reps. Tonko, Higgins and Slaughter getting a free ride? Rep. Tonko is a freshman and this is not going to be a 2008 type year so his 27% margin does not mean much when Obama is not on the ballot and helping him with an 18.14% margin. Rep. Slaughter only had a 16.57% margin in 1994 so why let her run unopposed? Why do Republicans buy into letting Democrats win by default?
This is not 2006 or 2008. It is not even 2002 but going to be much more like 1994 and perhaps even more so. Republicans need to stop being defeatist. Unless both the Democrat incumbent and Obama won by more than a 30% margin, the district is a possibility. We list 137 districts as being in play unlike all the other analysts. Scott Brown won in the most Democrat state in the union so we know it can be done. Of course the Republicans will not win any 137 seats but surely half of them is not an unreasonable expectation.
Tomorrow there is an election in Florida for Congress. Did you even know that? Is anyone paying any attention? No, because everyone just assumes that the Democrat will win because the Democrats have won in that district since it was created in 1982. Well, hello, this is an OPEN seat. Look at the bottom of the table where you see a lot of the letter "R" in otherwise hopeless districts. At least we have a Republican running in FL-19. Ed Lynch has gotten no support and little money when he had a chance of winning. The best that the Republicans have ever done in this district was 41.15% of the votes. We predict that Ed Lynch will do better than that with no support. With the kind of support Scott Brown got, he could have won.
SEAT
02 MAR
OBAMA
08 MAR HCV POLL OURS
CQ POL COOK
ROTHBRG
RCP LA-3
-73.36%
-23.96%
14.72% Open Likely R
Leans R
Likely R
Leans R
Likely R GA-8 -56.66% -13.36% 14.49% No R toss-up Likely D Likely D D favored Likely D NY-25 -45.65% 13.12% 12.94% Yes R toss-up Likely D Likely D Safe D Likely D NY-27 -41.57% 10.16% 58.54% Yes R toss-up Safe D Safe D Safe D Safe D WI-8 -40.32% 8.47% 8.10% Yes Leans R Leans D Leans D D favored Safe D AL-2 -39.23% -27.37% -39.23% No D +24 Likely R Toss-up D toss-up R toss-up Toss-up OH-16 -37.74% -2.61% 10.73% Yes R +11 Leans R Likely D Leans D D favored Leans D MD-1 -37.69% -18.45% 0.79% No R +13 Likely R Toss-up D toss-up R toss-up Leans R IL-14 -37.26% 11.06% 15.50% Yes R +1 R toss-up Leans D Leans D Safe D Toss-up CO-3 -34.53% -2.54% 23.23% Yes D +2 Leans R Likely D Leans D D favored Toss-up NY-19 -33.47% 2.28% 17.35% Yes R toss-up Leans D Leans D Leans D Toss-up OH-15 -33.18% 7.12% 0.76% Yes Likely R Toss-up D toss-up R toss-up Toss-up OH-18 -32.33% -7.86% 19.75% No D toss-up Leans D Leans D D favored Toss-up PA-7 -32.18% 12.64% 19.19% Open D toss-up D toss-up D toss-up Toss-up Leans R NY-20 -32.13% 3.00% 0.45% Yes R +9 Likely R Likely D Likely D D favored Leans D MS-1 -31.99% -23.54% 10.59% No R toss-up Toss-up D toss-up R toss-up Toss-up NJ-3 -31.10% 5.38% 3.31% No Leans R Leans D Leans D D favored Likely D FL-8 -30.27% 5.70% 4.03% Yes Leans R Toss-up D toss-up R toss-up Leans R AZ-8 -29.74% -5.94% 11.90% Yes Leans R Likely D Leans D D favored Toss-up OH-1 -29.60% 10.25% 4.94% Yes R +17 Leans R Toss-up D toss-up R toss-up Leans R PA-4 -29.11% -10.45% 11.72% No R +9 R toss-up Likely D Likely D D favored Leans D CT-4 -28.86% 20.06% 3.97% Yes R toss-up Likely D Likely D Safe D Leans D IL-11 -28.64% 8.18% 23.92% Yes R +6 R toss-up Likely D Leans D Safe D Leans D VA-5 -26.99% -2.31% 0.23% Yes Tied Likely R Toss-up D toss-up R toss-up Toss-up MN-1 -26.100% 4.37% 29.57% Yes R toss-up Likely D Likely D Safe D Likely D NY-23 -26.29% 5.22% 2.37% Yes Leans R Leans D Leans D Leans D Toss-up PA-8 -25.19% 8.93% 15.14% Yes R toss-up Likely D Leans D D favored Toss-up AZ-5 -24.92% -4.53% 9.58% Yes Leans R Leans D Leans D D favored Toss-up FL-24 -23.68% -1.95% 16.09% Yes R toss-up Toss-up Leans D D toss-up Toss-up NY-24 -23.02% 2.36% 3.94% No Leans R Leans D Leans D Leans D Toss-up FL-22 -22.41% 4.04% 9.34% Yes R toss-up Safe D Likely D Safe D Likely D VA-11 -22.06% 14.96% 11.64% Yes R+5 R toss-up Likely D Likely D Safe D Toss-up MI-7 -21.04% 5.23% 2.31% Yes R +10 Leans R Toss-up D toss-up Toss-up Leans R CA-11 -20.63% 9.33% 10.55% Yes R toss-up Leans D Leans D D favored Leans D PA-3 -20.16% -27 votes 2.47% Yes Likely R Leans D Likely D Safe D Leans D NH-1 -19.64% 6.21% 5.89% Yes R +10 Leans R Leans D D toss-up Toss-up Leans R ID-1 -19.63% -25.94% 1.21% No Likely R Toss-up D toss-up R toss-up Toss-up NV-3 -18.81% 12.76% 5.14% Yes R +5 Leans R Leans D D toss-up Leans D Toss-up MI-9 -18.22% 12.96% 9.45% Yes R toss-up Likely D Likely D Safe D Likely D KY-6 -18.02% -12.19% 29.32% No D toss-up Likely D Likely D Safe D Likely D NY-13 -17.99% -1.82% 27.63% No Likely D Likely D Leans D D favored Toss-up NH-2 -15.95% 13.09% 15.01% Open R +7 R toss-up Toss-up D toss-up Toss-up Leans R IL-8 -14.86% 12.88% 21.44% Yes Tied R toss-up Safe D Likely D Safe D Likely D IA-1 -14.51% 17.52% 29.19% Yes D toss-up Safe D Likely D Safe D Likely D CO-4 -13.27% -0.88% 12.39% Yes R toss-up Toss-up D toss-up Toss-up Toss-up NC-11 -12.69% -5.62% 26.13% Yes R toss-up Likely D Likely D Safe D Likely D NM-2 -12.51% -1.33% 11.92% No R +2 R toss-up Toss-up D toss-up R toss-up Leans R CT-5 -10.99% 13.94% 20.17% Yes R toss-up Likely D Likely D D favored Likely D NM-1 -10.68% 20.43% 11.31% Yes D +9 D toss-up Likely D Likely D Safe D Toss-up GA-12 -10.38% 8.84% 32.00 No Leans R Likely D Likely D Safe D Likely D VA-2 -10.25% 1.96% 4.94% No R toss-up Leans D D toss-up D toss-up Toss-up NY-29 -9.86% -2.22% 1.93% Open Leans R Toss-up Leans R Toss-up Leans R NC-8 -9.00% 5.88% 10.76% No D +16 D toss-up Leans D Likely D D favored Likely D CT-2 -8.18% 18.41% 33.40% Yes D toss-up Safe D Safe D Safe D Safe D SD-AL -7.83% -8.41% 35.11% No D +2 R toss-up Likely D Likely D D favored Leans D IA-2 -6.45% 21.61% 18.42% Yes D toss-up Safe D Safe D Safe D Safe D IN-8 -5.28% 3.90% 29.50% Yes R +10 Leans R Toss-up Leans R Toss-up Leans R PA-10 -5.16% -8.43% 12.66% Yes Leans R Leans D Leans D D favored Leans D IN-2 -4.68% 9.38% 36.86% Yes R toss-up Likely D Likely D Safe D Likely D TX-23 -4.32% 2.69% 13.84% Yes R toss-up Likely D Likely D Safe D Likely D AZ-1 -3.57% -10.17% 16.45% Yes R toss-up Likely D Likely D Safe D Leans D KY-3 -3.22% 12.30% 18.73% Yes D toss-up Safe D Likely D Safe D Likely D CO-7 -0.07% 19.07% 26.96% Yes D toss-up Safe D Likely D Safe D Likely D UT-2 0.73% -18.17% 26.88% No Likely D Safe D Safe D Safe D Safe D NY-1 1.64% 3.82% 16.77% Yes D +2 R toss-up Likely D Leans D Leans D Toss-up PA-17 2.82% -3.45% 27.36% No Likely D Likely D Likely D D favored Toss-up KS-3 3.22% 2.58% 16.78% Open Leans R Likely R Leans R R toss-up Leans R PA-13 3.61% 18.05% 28.26% Yes D toss-up Safe D Safe D Safe D Safe D TX-17 3.98% -35.17% 7.48% No Leans R Likely D Leans D D favored Toss-up ME-2 4.01% 11.26% 34.87% Yes D toss-up Safe D Safe D Safe D Safe D WA-2 4.30% 13.95% 24.78% Yes Leans D Safe D Likely D Safe D Likely D ND-AL 4.81% -8.63% 23.95% Yes R toss-up Leans D Leans D Safe D Leans R IN-9 5.02% -1.76% 19.36% Yes D +1 Leans R Leans D D toss-up Leans D Toss-up TN-4 5.59% -29.81% 20.96% No D toss-up Likely D Likely D Safe D Likely D CA-18 7.90% 20.27% 30.95% Yes Leans D Safe D Safe D Safe D Safe D IA-3 8.37% 9.37% 14.25% Yes R toss-up Leans D Leans D D favored Toss-up MD-2 8.59% 21.59% 47.05% Yes D toss-up Safe D Safe D Safe D Safe D OR-5 9.65% 10.62% 15.92% Yes D toss-up Likely D Likely D Safe D Likely D FL-3 10.90% 47.31% 18.57% Yes Leans D Safe D Safe D Safe D Safe D NV-1 11.00% 29.43% 39.32% Yes D toss-up Safe D Safe D Safe D Safe D NY-4 13.01% 16.64% 28.01% Yes D toss-up Safe D Safe D Safe D Safe D PA-11 13.18% 14.83% 3.25% Yes Leans R Leans D Leans D D favored Toss-up AR-2 16.01% -9.91% 21.08% Open R +17 Leans R Leans R Leans R Toss-up Leans R WA-3 23.38% 6.72% 28.03% Open R toss-up Toss-up D toss-up Toss-up Toss-up TN-6 33.59% -25.78% 35.77% Open Leans R Likely R Likely R Leans R Likely R AR-1 33.67% -20.28% 33.14% Open Leans R Toss-up Leans R Toss-up Leans R MI-1 36.57% 1.82% 32.30% Open R toss-up Toss-up D toss-up Toss-up Safe D MA-10 38.46% 11.27% 34.94% Open R +3 D toss-up Likely D D toss-up D favored Toss-up TN-8 42.84% -13.28% 46.37% Open Leans D Toss-up D toss-up Toss-up Leans R PA-12 46.97% -0.31% 15.70% Open D toss-up Toss-up D toss-up D favored Leans R HI-1 47.94% 42.29% 58.07% Open D toss-up Leans D Leans D Leans D Likely D
Stuck on Stupid
You may have noticed that politicians of both parties are quite prone to get stuck on stupid. That is they keep doing something that is obviously counterproductive given the costs to them of continuing to do that same thing over and over. There is usually a difference between both parties as to how they get stuck on stupid, however. Although the ideological disease strikes both parties to some extent, the Democrats are far more prone to succumb to the siren call of their far left agenda. As we have commented earlier, Ideologues Make Poor Politicians. Ideologues are so consumed with their agenda that they lose sight of the fact that if they cannot sell their agenda to a majority of the voters, they will soon will not be able to do anything about their agenda because they will be out of office.
This problem occurs because the ideologue is convinced that his or her agenda is morally correct and/or is good for the country and its people. This conviction borders on a religious fervor among ideologues. In the case of the Republican Party, this is found among the right to life contingent. Because they are convinced that the soul takes possession of the fetus at conception and not at birth, they are adamantly opposed to Roe vs. Wade and will do whatever it takes to get it repealed. The fact that this is not going to happen because a majority of the voters do not want it repealed is lost on them.
They continue to oppose Republican candidates who are not "right" on this issue even when it results in the election of a politician who is actually pro-abortion as opposed to pro-choice. Refusing to turn out and vote for McCain because he was not sufficiently pro-life even when Obama was clearly a pro-abortion candidate is a case in point. This is definitely being stuck on stupid because they can sell banning partial birth abortions, prohibiting denial of care to a fetus born alive, and prohibiting federal funding of abortions to a majority of the voters. An ideologue just is not willing to settle for half a loaf of bread. Instead they prefer to go down with their capsizing ideological ship.
What is interesting is that the left wing of the Democrat Party clearly sees that the pro-life folks have the position they do due to their religious beliefs. What they do not so that they are attached to their own beliefs with that same fervor even though by and large those beliefs have nothing to do with religion. To them their beliefs are not beliefs at all but are facts that anyone with a grain of intelligence should be able to understand. After all they are intelligent and all the intelligent people they know accept these facts so anyone who does not is automatically stuck on stupid in their mind. Global warming caused by man is an excellent point in fact for this. To them the science is settled and information that the scientific data used to come to this conclusion was rigged does not deter them from continuing to insist that they are right.
To them, the fact that everyone does not have health insurance or even if they do the cost is outrageous is a crying shame. Since the health insurance companies are charging too much they are part of the problem and not part of the solution so then we must turn to the federal government for a solution. The fact that the federal government has screwed up everything it has touched since day one is lost on them. The fact that they cannot point to one thing the federal government has successfully accomplished outside of the military and the space program, both of which they oppose, is beside the point to them. Needless to say, the resultant loss of freedom to make one's own choices is not worthy of consideration to them.
One can push an agenda but only when there is some hope of getting it accepted. The Democrat leadership is determined to keep pushing their health care agenda seemingly oblivious to the cost to them. President Obama proclaimed recently that he is not an ideologue. He is either lying or has no clue what an ideologue is and how one behaves. He fits the definition of an ideologue to a "T". To anyone not committed to this far left agenda, this is a no sale with the American people. To continue to push an agenda that is not selling is to be stuck on stupid.
The lessons of the elections in Virginia and New Jersey might be written off as a phenomenon of local politics. What then are we to make of losing a senate seat held for 60 years by Democrats to a Republican in the most Democrat state in the union? If this message is lost on the Democrat leadership they are indeed stuck on stupid. Yes, they can continue to try and jam their version of health care through using the reconciliation process but at what cost? A prominent Democrat political analyst, Charlie Cook, says, "it's very hard to come up with a scenario where Democrats don't lose the House."
Their only hope is to sucker the Republican leadership into going along with most of their proposals which is entirely possible since Republicans are far too prone to "go along and get along". Democrats play hardball in politics whereas Republicans tend to play with some sort of political Marquis of Queensbury rules and one hand hand tied behind their back. They just have no instinct for the jugular unlike the Democrats. This is a prime example of where the Republican leadership is stuck on stupid. However, that pales in comparison to the current Democrat leadership where continuing to push this agenda if they cannot sucker the Republicans is a sure way to stay stuck on stupid and lose the Senate as well.
