It is amazing how often you see political activists and politicians from both parties doubling down on stupid. One definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same mistake and expecting different results. It may not be insane to do that but it sure is stupid. Since both sides of the political aisle are guilty of this, let's first pick on the Democrats. We just saw an election in which the Democrats got their worst drubbing since 1938. While a lot of factors led to this debacle, it seems fair to conclude that the voters felt that the Democrats were not listening to them. Nothing annoys the electorate more than to be ignored and it makes the voters inclined to teach politicians better manners by voting them out of office. At the top of the list of voter complaints about not being listened to was the imposition of Obamacare on that same electorate. A clear majority of the voters have been opposed to Obamacare since day one. So what did the Democrats do? They jammed it through anyway and effectively told the voters that the Democrats didn't care whether the voters wanted it or not because they were going to pass it anyway. So why should the Democrats be so surprised when the voters sent them a message about how really annoyed they were about being treated that way? The message was as loud and clear as any message that has ever been sent to a political party. Consider this data: out of 18 Democrats who won by less than 5% in 2008, only Jim Himes of CT-4 survived. Of the 10 Democrats who won in 2008 by more than 5 points but less than 10, 6 lost in 2010. Of the 19 Democrats with 2008 margins between 10 and 15 points, 9 lost in 2010. Ordinarily a 15 point margin in politics makes for a safe seat but in 2010, 24 Democrats lost out of 51 with that supposedly safe margin. That is a ton bricks that fell on the Democrats last November. So they got the message and straightened out, right? No, they doubled down on stupid. The Republicans who did get the message tried to repeal Obamacare recently. So how many Democrats showed they got the message the voters sent them? Only three Democrats in the House of Representatives voted to repeal Obamacare and not one Democrat in the Senate voted to save their own skins. Apparently all but three House Democrats who survived in 2010 figure they do not need to worry about 2012. Yes, they are right to figure that the Republicans will be hard pressed to make further gains other than the ones they will pick up from reapportionment in states where the Republicans control both houses of the state legislature and the governor as well. Still any Democrat who won by less than a 5% margin is considered vulnerable in any year and there are 20 such Democrats. So how many of those Democrats showed they did not get the message? If you guessed not one single one, you got it right. The three Democrats who did get the message are Boren (OK-2) who won by 13.05%, McIntyre (NC-7) who won by 7.36% and Ross (AR-4) who won by 17.38%. Boren and Ross had nothing to worry about but they listened anyway. McIntyre would probably have survived even not voting to repeal Obamacare but he was not taking any chances. As for the rest of the Democrat who won by less than 10% and who voted and should not have doubled down on stupid, 37 of the 38 did just that. In the Senate, it was even worse. There are five Senate Democrats who are in real trouble in 2012. They are Nelson of Nebraska, Testor of Montana, McCaskill of Missouri, Webb of Virginia and Nelson of Florida. The first three just committed political suicide by voting against repealing Obamacare. The Republicans were already going to pick up North Dakota when Conrad retired so this doubling down on stupid just gave the Republicans control of the Senate in 2013. Nelson of Florida will lose if Jeb Bush is the Republican candidate but otherwise might survive. There are another three Democrats who should be worried, namely Manchin of West Virginia, Stabenow of Michigan and Brown of Ohio. Manchin ran ads against Obamacare and then voted to retain it. If Hoekstra runs against Stabenow, she could easily lose. If DeWine runs against Brown, he could also lose. These Democrats could have made sure that did not happen but instead they doubled down on stupid and put nine Senate seats at risk. Now let's pick on the Republicans and the insistence of some of them on ideological purity tests. This is a center-right country, but some Republicans ignore the center part and think they can control Congress and the White House with only bone fide conservative candidates. That is not possible because there are not enough reliable red states to accomplish that. Republicans must win some seats in the purple states and a smattering in the blue states as well. The political activists in the Republican Party threw away three Senate seats in 2010 that they should have easily won by picking a right-wing candidate in purple and blue states. Sue Lowden would have beaten Reid in Nevada, Jane Norton would have beaten Bennet in Colorado and Mike Castle would have beaten Coons in Delaware. So instead of three more yes votes to repeal Obamacare, the Republicans got three no votes. Some of the no votes they got came from moderate Republicans like Brown in Massachusetts, Collins and Snowe in Maine, Graham in South Carolina and Kirk in Illinois. So what are the right wing Republicans going to do about these RINO Republicans? You guessed it. They are going to try and defeat Snowe and Brown in 2012 by running a more conservative Republican in the primary election and throw away another two seats. That is doubling down on stupid. Didn't they learn anything in 2010? They could have had a 50-50 Senate with Biden having to cast a vote to break a tie and thereby tie Obama-Biden to every vote along party lines in the Senate. Here is factoid for these purists: Only one Republican came closer than a 10% margin in the House in Massachusetts in 2010 and that one lost by 4.49%. Yet Scott Brown carried Massachusetts in a special election with a 4.76% margin. He will not do that well in 2012 because all the Obama voters who did not vote in the special election will vote in 2012. The only reason Brown won was because it was a special election which favors Republicans and because Scott Brown is a candidate manager's dream come true. The Republican Party had very little to do with Scott's victory because Scott did it his way. Scott may survive since he is ahead in the polls but if he has opposition in the primary, he will lose in the general. By doubling down on stupid, the Republicans can throw away another Senate seat.
Doubling Down on Stupid
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.
