First thread! Will Repubs retake the House? Senate?

[RingsOfPylon]

@Onomatopoeia

The problems the democrats have does not come, for the most part, from any anti-incumbent sentiment, but from Republican desires to destroy any Democrat, no matter who they are, what they’ve done, or what they stand for, which has been SOP for the last 16 or so years.

I get a different read. Folks are disgruntled with their representatives. They don’t care which letters of the alphabet are after their representatives’ names. The electorate is looking for retribution for a dreadful economy. Most of the talk is “vote the bums out”, not “vote for this Democrat” or “vote for that Republican”. Anyone currently in office is perceived to be part of the problem.

Very few of us think in purely binary terms of Democrats or Republicans. We’re not married to a party and we have no vested interest in whether a specific party succeeds or fails, however that is defined. We DO have a vested interest in our own well-being and many folks believe that their interests are not being served.

@Onomatopoeia

Not really true, unless you count inaction as an action. Republicans who are being tea-partied out are only vulnerable because they’re considered not to be obstructive enough to anything proposed by the Obama administration. It has very little to do with their records or votes before 2008, which were considered hunky-dory before they did the unforgivable and allowed a black man to become President.

I don’t know if you’re giving the tea party too much or too little credit.

All I have to go on to form my perceptions on this issue is what I’m hearing from other people – people who are not normally political creatures, although they certainly are politically aware. I live in a fairly liberal, Democratically entrenched area and people are very unhappy, even those people who were Obama supporters in the previous election (which was the vast majority of them).

A conservative has little opportunity here, but that doesn’t mean that the Democratic incumbents are safe by any stretch of the imagination. They are incurring a lot of wrath from their constituency, and they know they cannot take re-election for granted. They’re nervous and they should be. There’s a possibility that this disdain could spill over into elections of national-level reps. Several congressional seats are vulnerable in this general area - an area where, by enrollment, Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-1.

@Onomatopoeia

This is true, but again, it has less to do with an anti-incumbent sentiment than with the normal cycle of electoral politics, of which jobs is just one component.

Given the current economic situation, I don’t think this is a “normal” election cycle, although I agree that those cycles exist.

I think jobs is a huge component. I know I can’t take my job for granted and I’m also trying to help out an adult child who was laid off, while simultaneously trying to deal with double digit increases in property taxes and increased state payroll taxes and increased “fees” (in other words, taxes).

Unemployment/underemployment doesn’t just impact the person who has been laid off. The longer this goes on the more people realize that, even if still gainfully employed, they are picking up the financial slack for those poor souls who are not having luck finding another job, both directly and indirectly. It’s financially crippling to the middle class, who have yet to see any breaks regardless of who’s in office.

@Onomatopoeia

Again, not really true. To paraphrase a comment from a conservative on these boards recently, Republicans consider the worst conservative to be better than the best liberal. Sorry, I don’t remember who said it, or the thread I read it in. However, I do agree with it. Republican can and do vote for candidates who promote agendas that are against their better interests.

Well, I don’t know about conservatives, let alone the attestations of a conservative poster. Again, I don’t think most people care about political parties, which is why most people are independent voters, and they will vote for the people who best represent their interests. If people think their reps are selling them out they will, in turn, sell out their reps. Tit for tat.

Regardless of all of our musings, it could be a very interesting election year and I’m looking forward to seeing how wrong I might be.

Cheers.

[Squink]

@RTFirefly

There’s no freakin’ way that a mod can read every post in every thread in his/her forum.

Well, there might be a way, when the forum’s so new and small that it only contains seven threads.
I’d be willing to bet that Marley23 is up to that challenge.

[Chronos]

I get a different read. Folks are disgruntled with their representatives. They don’t care which letters of the alphabet are after their representatives’ names. The electorate is looking for retribution for a dreadful economy. Most of the talk is “vote the bums out”, not “vote for this Democrat” or “vote for that Republican”. Anyone currently in office is perceived to be part of the problem.

Except if you look nationwide, the people saying “vote the bums out regardless of party” are mostly Republicans living in Democrat-represented districts.

[Squink]

Yeah, there’s a real riddle wrapped in an enigma for you, Chronos, isn’t it?

[Cyberhwk]

@RingsOfPylon

I get a different read. Folks are disgruntled with their representatives. They don’t care which letters of the alphabet are after their representatives’ names.

Fine…which Democratic candidates have the Tea Parties endorsed?

Or even easier…which incumbents do you expect to lose to more liberal challengers this fall? Again, if this were truly just “anti-incumbent sentiment” then there should be proportionately as many GOP seats flipping Dem as Dem seats flipping GOP.

ETA: Dems DO have a chance to flip a couple of seats where no incumbent is running. Mostly due to GOP retirement.

[waterj2]

@Cyberhwk

Or even easier…which incumbents do you expect to lose to more liberal challengers this fall? Again, if this were truly just “anti-incumbent sentiment” then there should be proportionately as many GOP seats flipping Dem as Dem seats flipping GOP.

Not really. The Democrats did very well in flipping marginal seats in 2006 and 2008, such that the overwhelming majority of the seats that could be flipped have Democratic incumbents. Also, Arlen Specter just lost a primary to a more liberal challenger, and Blanche Lincoln got forced into a run-off that she might well still lose.

The Tea Party has certainly made a bigger splash in the media (I suspect Fox’s reporting on it may have been a bit biased), but it seems that people are breaking both left and right in their opposition to the status quo. I don’t know how things are going to shake out in November, but I think that anyone counting on Tea Party enthusiasm sweeping the Republicans into office in droves is going to be disappointed.

[Cyberhwk]

You bring up a fair point, I forgot about Specter and Lincoln, but do you really think those that voted for Sestack and Halter did so because of “anti-incumbent sentiments.” Or was it policy driven like everything else?

[Gyrate]

@Cyberhwk

You bring up a fair point, I forgot about Specter and Lincoln, but do you really think those that voted for Sestack and Halter did so because of “anti-incumbent sentiments.” Or was it policy driven like everything else?

You have to admit that Arlen “I’m just switching parties because I want to get re-elected” Specter was a victim of a self-inflicted injury; all Sestak had to do was keep replaying that clip for the masses.

[MsRobyn]

@Cyberhwk

You bring up a fair point, I forgot about Specter and Lincoln, but do you really think those that voted for Sestack and Halter did so because of “anti-incumbent sentiments.” Or was it policy driven like everything else?

Specter’s defeat came down to two things. First, his switching parties was seen as a cynical ploy to get re-elected. Most of the people I know didn’t trust him not to switch back if he got re-elected. Second, he’s 80, and he’d be 86 once his term ended in 2016, and that’s assuming he managed to make it that long. Also assuming he stayed Democrat, there was a very real risk that he’d be replaced by a Republican governor. None of these were especially palatable to Democrats. PA has a sore loser law, so he can’t run as an independent.

Sestak, on the other hand, is reliably Democrat, and he’s got the support of organized labor and veterans’ groups. Statewide name recognition doesn’t seem to be a problem since he took Pittsburgh pretty easily. It’s not clear if he’ll play well to the more rural parts of the state because of some of his more liberal positions, but that’s the nature of PA politics. We have blue stripes on either end of the state, and a tiny island in Harrisburg but a whole lot of red in the middle. Fortunately, it’s possible to win without the rural voters because there are a hell of a lot more voters in the cities.

The Democratic base is fired up, but it’s not the base I worry about. It’s the people who were OK with Specter who may not like Sestak all that much. We’ll know on November 3.

[RingsOfPylon]

@Cyberhwk

Fine…which Democratic candidates have the Tea Parties endorsed?.

To be frank, I don’t yet know who the Tea Parties are endorsing in my own state, but I suspect that, in other states, they’re endorsing people like Rand Paul.

@Cyberhwk

Or even easier…which incumbents do you expect to lose to more liberal challengers this fall?

I think Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is vulnerable if she gets decent competition. And, she could certainly be replaced by another Democrat, if another Democrat challenges her. She was respected by her district (which generally goes to Republicans) when she was in the House, but a lot of people don’t like her as a Senator, including other Democrats. She was appointed by the governor to replace Hillary Clinton.

Scott Murphy (D-NY20) is also vulnerable. That district tends to be more conservative, so if he was replaced it wouldn’t have the same shock value.

Paul Tonko (D-NY21) may get some good competition which could dislodge him, although this is a heavily Democratic district. It’s also a particularly fed up district politically. If the competition is competent he’ll get a run for his money.

@Cyberhwk

Again, if this were truly just “anti-incumbent sentiment” then there should be proportionately as many GOP seats flipping Dem as Dem seats flipping GOP.

I agree, and I think you’ll see that situation as well.

@Cyberhwk

ETA: Dems DO have a chance to flip a couple of seats where no incumbent is running. Mostly due to GOP retirement.

Agree again.

[I’m not arguing that Republicans will be more successful as much as I’m saying that incumbents, regardless of party, are vulnerable. We’ve already started to see this.]

[DrDeth]

No, and no. The Pubbies may pick up enough seats so that only a few crossovers will allow the GOP to win a few fights. Generally, the other party picks up a few in the election after a new President comes in, and dudes find out he really can’t walk on water.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@RingsOfPylon

To be frank, I don’t yet know who the Tea Parties are endorsing in my own state, but I suspect that, in other states, they’re endorsing people like Rand Paul.

Which Democrats remind you of Rand Paul, exactly?

[Squink]

Looks like the tea party is starting to show a little tarnish in the eyes of voters:
Dick Armey: Avoid ‘tea party’ label, MSNBC

Republican candidates popular with tea party activists should refrain from self-identifying as tea party candidates — and also should stay off MSNBC, Dick Armey said Wednesday.

The former House majority leader, who has emerged as a leading figure within the tea party movement as head of the nonprofit group FreedomWorks told reporters at a lunch sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, that candidates who call themselves tea party leaders are opening themselves up for more negative scrutiny from hostile media outlets, and he singled out MSNBC as a leading antagonist of the tea party movement and its favored candidates.

This can’t be good news for the group which claims to represent mainstream America, or the GOP.

[Merijeek]

@Squink

Looks like the tea party is starting to show a little tarnish in the eyes of voters:
Dick Armey: Avoid ‘tea party’ label, MSNBC This can’t be good news for the group which claims to represent mainstream America, or the GOP.

Eh, same shit as always. Play to the ends for the primary and the middle for the general.

Except.

In this case, one of the ends (that’s the rightish one, for those paying attention) is psychotically focused on purity tests and seem to have no interest in whether or not their candidate is electable.

But.

The GOPer establishment has to bend over and accept the teabagged primary winners. However, once that happens they seem to get control of them. Which is why Paul and Angle won’t be talking in public for weeks, and after that they will only talk to people who are guaranteed to ask the right questions.

They may as well not say anything, because what they say will be as worthwhile as the answers a supreme court nominee gives.

Sarah Palin set the pattern. Hopefully she’ll have set the pattern for actual elections as well.

-Joe

[Larry_McAwful]

All things being equal, 2010 ought to be a fantastic year for the Republicans. The reason for this is that the Democrats just had two fantastic election years in a row, and we’re in the middle of a Democratic president’s first term. Plus the economy sucks. This should spell great news for Republicans.

But it won’t. The Republican Party is either leaderless or has too many leaders, depending on how you look at it. The Tea Partiers are revving up voters, sure, but they also risk scaring off moderates from voting Republican–even moderate Republicans.

Much attention has been paid to the special elections in NY-23, PA-12 and MA-Sen. But I don’t think any of these really set the narrative the way a lot of people would like to think. It’s more like we don’t want to have to wait until this November before we can talk about which way the country is definitely heading. So I could be just as wrong as anyone, but my takeaway is that the Tea Party is a weird populist movement, in that it opposes government but doesn’t actually stand for anything. (Sure, it claims to be in favor of the Constitution, but seriously–who runs for office while taking a stand against the Constitution?)

In the end, I think the Republicans will come out with a few more seats in the House and Senate than they did before, but that’s about it. It’ll hurt them, too, because of all this talk we’ve been hearing about how Obama was spelling certain doom for the Democrats, for America, for Western civilization, for Christendom, etc. When the doom fizzles, what are the Republicans going to have left to freak out about? Not that they’ll stop freaking out or anything, but unless they take at least one of the houses of Congress, they’re going to look pretty impotent.

If Rand Paul loses his election, the Republican Party is going to want to have a lot less to do with the Tea Party. However, there’s not a whole lot they can do to get rid of them. The Republicans are going to be in a bad way until someone inside the Republican Party stands up and actively tries to rip the Tea Party out of their party, because no one can clean the Republicans’ house for them. Until that happens, the Republicans are going to remain a very vocal minority, and very likely shrinking in influence.

[Chronos]

But it won’t. The Republican Party is either leaderless or has too many leaders, depending on how you look at it.

Actually, I’ve figured out who the leader of the Republican Party is. There is in fact one individual who is single-handedly determining what the Republican position on any given issue is. That man being, of course, Barack Obama.

[Askance]

@Marley23

If the oil gusher in the Gulf doesn’t count as a major disaster, I really don’t want to see a major disaster. Not that I hold Obama solely responsible for that, and I don’t think most of the public does either, but it does not make him look good and it is not going away.

Are you saying you hold him partially responsible for it?

[gonzomax]

http://politicalcorrection.org/blog/201007120006
As long as the tea party gives you people like Angle, they will diminish their effect. This is a Fox Gnus interview and Cavuto is begging her not to be stupid. But she did not get the hint.

[BrainGlutton]

@Curtis LeMay

Well McCain has the support of the retirees in Sun City and elsewhere who form a massive voting bloc but don’t usually respond to polls.

What makes you think they don’t respond to polls? I mean, what else have they got to do with their time?

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Order people off their lawns?