posted on November 10, 2005 10:57:57 AM
So the demoncrats THINK the have won a major victory in this off year election. In reality it means as much as kerry's invasion of Cambodia.
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James P. Pinkerton
November 10, 2005
Midterm elections are predictive of the future, except when they aren't.
Although no Republican should feel good about the recent results, the historical record shows a murky relationship between midterm elections and subsequent midterm and presidential elections.
In 1993, for example, Democrat Bill Clinton sat in the White House, and his party got clobbered in that year's midterm. The Democrats lost the same two governorships that were at issue on Tuesday, New Jersey and Virginia, and they also lost in 1993, for the first time in three decades, the mayor's office in New York City. The following year the Democrats suffered a far more disastrous midterm result, losing both chambers of Congress. Party elders heaped most of the blame on the Clinton administration, although ordinary Democratic voters didn't seem to mind so much; in 1996, the 42nd president was easily re-elected.
The lesson of these disparate data is that there is no lesson. Or, to put it another way, the story line of the 2006 and 2008 elections was not written on Tuesday - it will be written in the months and years to come.
And because Republicans control the White House, the Congress and most governorships, it's the GOP that will do most of the writing; the party in power sets the agenda, for better or for worse.
So while scandals and flukes can affect events - sometimes a lot - the Republicans, for the most part, must focus on the success of their national platform, figuring that if it succeeds as policy in the years ahead, the party will succeed in politics.
Thus, we might consider Republican prospects in the three familiar "clusters" of policy - economic, social and foreign.
On economic policy, the GOP is doing well. The economy is growing at nearly 4 percent a year, which is much higher than the U.S. historical average. The challenge to the GOP is twofold: to be more energetic in taking credit for the good times and, also, to remind voters that tax increases - which Democrats are sworn to impose - would jeopardize the boom.
As for social policy, the Republicans are in good shape, too - for now. Most voters want a more conservative policy; one of the party's few successes on Tuesday was a big anti-gay marriage vote in Texas, the 19th such statewide victory in recent years. And the nomination of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court is another plus for the party, because it animates conservatives, who look forward to victory on the biggest social issue, abortion.
Parenthetically, one might observe that the politics of abortion favor the Republicans for as long as the Roe v. Wade decision is the legal status quo - that is, for as long as abortion is legal. Why? Because right now, it's anti-abortion conservatives who feel most aggrieved, and thus most motivated and mobilized.
That political calculus would change if Roe were overturned, because liberals who support abortion rights would be jolted out of their "we won" complacency. Yet, few think that any such overturning will happen soon, even if Alito is confirmed. More likely is a slow-motion chipping away at Roe. But for now, the GOP has the social-issue edge.
The third cluster is foreign policy, and here there's just one word that matters: "Iraq." The polls show three things: Most Americans think that the war is a mistake, they don't like the way that the Bush administration is handling it - and yet they don't want to pull out right away. For his part, the president and most Republicans pledge an open-ended commitment to "victory," although that position seems less and less tenable as the '06 and '08 elections draw near.
But as noted, for now at least, Bush & Co. are in charge. Despite Tuesday's disappointing results, they are the lead protagonists in the current political drama. Now their challenge is to keep the show going, to keep the Democrats from upstaging them - and to get the voting audience cheering once again.
posted on November 10, 2005 11:12:25 AM
Now, oi know bear knows more about politics than anyone ("Clinton did it" but Newt just MAY know a trifle more:
Gingrich Says Ohio Race Holds Lesson for GOP
By Dan Balz and Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 4, 2005; Page A04
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) warned fellow Republicans yesterday not to ignore the implications of the party's narrow victory in Tuesday's special election in Ohio, saying the public mood heading into next year's midterm elections appears to helping Democrats and hurting Republicans.
"It should serve as a wake-up call to Republicans, and I certainly take it very seriously in analyzing how the public mood evidences itself," Gingrich said. "Who is willing to show up and vote is different than who answers a public opinion poll. Clearly, there's a pretty strong signal for Republicans thinking about 2006 that they need to do some very serious planning and not just assume that everything is going to be automatically okay."
Gingrich's reaction came after Democrat Paul Hackett, an Iraq war veteran and vocal critic of President Bush's Iraq policy, came within 4,000 votes of upsetting Republican Jean Schmidt in the solidly GOP 2nd Congressional District in southwestern Ohio.
Schmidt and Hackett competed to fill a vacancy created when Rep. Rob Portman (R) resigned to become U.S. trade representative. Schmidt had won a contentious Republican primary and was heavily favored in a district that has been in GOP hands for nearly four decades. Bush won the district with 64 percent of the vote in November.
Republican apathy, dissatisfaction with Bush and congressional Republicans, a GOP scandal in Ohio, and Hackett's energetic, anti-Iraq campaign all may have contributed to keep the race closer than expected, according to strategists in both parties.
Carl Forti, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, acknowledged that the outcome fell far short of the party's desire, as expressed by Forti over the weekend, to bury Hackett in retaliation for attacking Bush. "We did not" bury Hackett, he said. "But it was a victory nonetheless."
GOP officials in Washington said the race carried no significant implications for the 2006 elections. They noted that special elections are often poor predictors of election trends and said they saw nothing to suggest real unhappiness with Bush or the GOP congressional leadership.
Jason Mauk, political director for the Ohio Republican Party, said: "To the extent that voters in that district were sending a message to the Republican Party at the state or national level, we have heard that message and we will continue to listen to their concerns."
Mauk said the economy, national security and a scandal that has touched Gov. Bob Taft and other Ohio Republicans may have contributed to the narrower-than-expected outcome. "There does seem to be a sour mood among the electorate at both the state and national level," he said.
Democratic pollster Geoffrey Garin said the GOP should be nervous about next year's elections, given the gap between Bush's support last November and Schmidt's on Tuesday.
"We got a lot of warnings in '93 and '94 that voters were unhappy and dying to send a message," he said, recalling when Democrats lost control of the House and the Senate in 1994. "What happened in Ohio is very consistent with what we're seeing around the country."
Gingrich, the architect of the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994, cited evidence that voter unrest is fueling Democratic hopes.
"There is more energy today on the anti-Iraq, anti-gas-price, anti-changing-Social Security and I think anti-Washington [side]," he said. "I think the combination of those four are all redounding to weaken Republicans and help Democrats. . . . I don't think this is time to panic, but I think it's time to think. If we don't think now, then next September [2006], people will panic when it's too late."
posted on November 10, 2005 11:14:24 AM
Nope it didn't....and that's why I've pointed out that FACT in the past when the dems were SOOOooooo hopeful they were going to win in 2004. And the WSJ article I posted yesterday listed out the FACTS that agree with this 'take' on the situation in 2006 and 2008.
....kerry's invasion of Cambodia....yes, another lie from a candidate they supported....but it WAS funny when disproven. Their HERO....
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"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on November 10, 2005 04:43:51 PM
Well, duh... if you look at it through clouded lenses as the neocons want you to do.
Truth is that it actually does set the story line for 2006 and 2008. It means that Democrats continue to control the Governorship of two states and all of Arnie's Referendums where shot down. It also means a Republican continues to hold the Mayor seat in NYC. Ask those who won if it means nothing, and see what they have to say about it.
It is laughable that the neocons think discrediting the other parties victories mean nothing, because they know their mudslinging is nothing but a lie.
Congratulations to both Democrats and Republicans who won their elections. Hopefully, they will do what is best for the areas they represent.
but Newt just MAY know a trifle more
:
And the WSJ article I posted yesterday listed out the FACTS that agree with this 'take' on the situation in 2006 and 2008.