1. Desperately searching for the Strawmen. One of President Obama's main rhetorical tricks since taking the oath of office has been to attack strawmen, trite caricatures against which Obama can contrast himself. Usually, the president does this to create the false impression that he is a centrist – he creates a straw man to his left, then one to his right, shrugs his shoulders and says, “I guess I'm the moderate!”
But the problem for the president was that between Arlen Specter's principled party switch and Scott Brown's victory, the Republicans were completely out of power. It's hard to create this false sense of centrism when you don't have strong opponents to your right.
Fortunately for the president, Donna Brazille has the answer:
The good news is that Tea Party Republicans are taking over the Republican Party. The bad news is that Tea Party Republicans are taking over the Republican Party. The party of Eisenhower and Reagan is dying, usurped by the party of Tea Parties who are clamoring for something, or maybe nothing.
Polls show that 50 percent of Americans have no opinion of the Tea Party. This provides an opportunity for President Obama to define it precisely. Now, newspapers almost always describe the Tea Party movement as being about “small government and fiscal rectitude.”
First of all, I love that Ronald Reagan is suddenly average!
Beyond that, the fact that Brazille thinks President Obama should try to turn Tea Partiers into his next straw men – Not to mention that the White House is actually considering the idea – is a sign that Democrats are running out of potential demons. Their shots against John Boehner last week seemed to fall flat, so I guess that's all that's left.
At best, this strategy could help swing the odd election here and there to Democrats – e.g. Delaware and (maybe) Nevada – and raise the historically low levels of Democratic enthusiasm by a notch or two. But that's it. For the swing voters who decide the election, it is now clear that the midterms will for President Obama's deeply unpopular policies. Attacking the Tea Partiers is not going to distract them because the The Tea Partiers had nothing to do with these policies. This cycle, the GOP has the better argument and they're not going to take the bait. Republican candidates everywhere will respond to the charge of radicalism with a simple question: “Where are the jobs, Mr. President?”
That the White House is considering such demagoguery is another strong indication that it is merely seeking to keep Democratic turnout high enough to prevent a 1974-style tsunami. And it's another sad milestone in the decline of Barack Obama, who promised to he is a leader who could heal political wounds and bridge ideological divides, but who has since embodied much of what he campaigned against.
2. Moribund in the Midwest. I've noticed that Democrats look pretty bad in Ohio and Pennsylvania, but the party's problems are broader-based and stretch across the Midwest. The latest figures come from Rasmussen, which finds Scott Walker, the GOP gubernatorial candidate in Wisconsin, 8 points ahead of his Democratic challenger, Tom Barrett. This is a bigger lead than that Rasmussen was found last month. Across the Midwest, the GOP is on track to win eight of the nine governorship contests. They very well could too sweep the nine Senate contests and in the region.
Since the election of 1824, the modern midwestern state has been critical in shifting the balance of power. Look in the annals of political history and you'll see that Jackson's Democrats, Lincoln-McKinley's Republicans, and then FDR's Democrats could dominate government because they ran strong in the Midwest. The district is set to swing GOP in 2010. If President Obama can't rebound here before 2012, he won't be re-elected president. It is so simple.
3. Mailbag…Health! Thanks to everyone who submitted a question. Eric from Phoenix writes:
I'd love to see a focus on “key Obamacare stakeholders” and where they are.
It's a wonderful idea. One of the major issues with the current Democratic majority is that the leadership comes almost exclusively from liberal congressional districts, and thus is almost completely insulated from the shifts in national mood that… ahem… can result from the massively unpopular bills they write.
Let's look at the top players on health care reform, their seats in the House, plus Obama's vote share in their districts:
Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, 85%
Steny Hoyer, House Majority Leader, 66%
James Clyburn, Majority Whip, 64%
George Miller, Chairman Education and Labor, 72%
Robert Andrews, Chairman of the Education and Labor Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Work and Pensions, 65%
Henry Waxman, President Energy and Commerce, 70%
Frank Pallone, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce on Health, 60%
Charlie Rangel, Ways & Means Chairman (at least during the health care debate), 93%
Pete Stark, Ways & Means Subcommittee on Health Chairman, 74%
Much ink has been spilled about why the first half of Obama's first term went wrong, and the numbers above show my long-term view of the issues. The president's emphasis was on domestic policy, meaning that Congress was the primary vehicle for reform. But the Democratic-controlled Congress is largely run by liberals, thanks in part to the seniority rule that governs committee chairs. By outsourcing the construction of Obamacare almost entirely to them, he ended up supporting a bill that was to the left of the swing voters who put him in office.
What about the members in the purple districts who gave the bill the necessary support? Liberal analysts have I obeyed informed us that the link between health care and Democrats' midterm woes is underspecified, meaning there isn't enough evidence to show that there is a link.
Of course, if your evidentiary standard is strict enough, you can claim that any theory is underdetermined, including the theory of gravity! And if we look at the 39 Democrats running for re-election in congressional districts that voted for McCain, we find some interesting results. 17 of those 39 Democrats voted for Obamacare. Of these 17, Charlie Cook now rates 14 of them as in upset races while only 3 are in “Lean Democrat” races.
22 of the 39 voted against Obamacare and fared much better. Just 6 of them are in flips, 8 are in the “Slightly Democratic” category, 5 in the “Likely Democratic” category, and 3 are currently listed as safe. Those safe Democrats include Gene Taylor (MS-4) and Dan Boren (OK-2), whose districts gave John McCain 67 percent and 66 percent, respectively.
But do not worry. The argument still stands underspecified!
Keep those questions coming! [email protected]
