To address the OP, I say no and no.
Standard middle of the road response: too early to tell.
A number of things relating as much to American political history as to the 2010 midterm election: party loyalty has fallen to record lows in recent years. Once upon a time both parties had strong bases, and not just in an ideological sense. The South was solidly Democratic, the farm belt Republican. Most of non-Southern rural and small town America was Republican, of varying degrees of conservatism depending on the region. Yadda yadda. That’s all changed. The heartland isn’t the heartland anymore; the far west is cosmopolitan, especially the coast; while the South doesn’t even like to be called the South nowadays: it’s the southeast.
Bottom line: we’ve become increasingly an ideological rather than the sort of idiosyncratic party-oriented nation we once were, yet the parties themselves, while they reflect these changes, haven’t changed as quickly as the American people. My sense is that the political landscape is beyond the comprehension of both major political parties, one of the many reasons I hesitate to even guess what will happen in November.
For what it’s worth: my sense is that a lot of the anti-Obama sentiment comes from people who are traditionally Democratic,–working folk, middle class but not really Yuppie professionals, those one might loosely called the educated poor. Some of these people have gone the tea party route, others are just simmering. It remains to be seen whether the Republicans can win these kinds of people over. At the other end of the spectrum, many well to do Dubya Republicans, the affluent, the complacent (and I don’t mean that in a negative sense), those for whom life is good because they were born that way, these people (my sense) don’t really hate Obama. They’re naturally moderate to conservative, can accept Obama as a symbol, can live with his social policies. In other words, they’re not fans of the guy but they don’t hate him enough to drop their golf clubs and rush to the polls to vote straight ticket Republican in November. They may sit this one out, split their tickets, vote in insufficient numbers to turn the tide toward the Republicans even though if they were really motivated they probably could.
Not too early to tell. GOP will take the House by a slim margin, Democrats will retain the Senate.
Have you got some breakdown of House-seat races you base that on?
What, my grandmother’s casting of the chicken bones ain’t good enough for ya?
Probably more scientifically valid than Research 2000’s predictions.
The Tea Party is more of a reaction against Obama than Bush.
Reagan did nothing for the religious right, but he pretended to share its concerns. Christian conservatives were used to being laughed at since the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925. By the Bush administration, those in the religous right were tired of being pandered to. They wanted results.
Also, during the Reagan years the economy slowly recovered. An average of 2,000,000 jobs were created every year, as opposed to 375,000 under Bush.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/01/09/bush-on-jobs-the-worst-track-record-on-record/
Finally, under Reagan there were no foreign policy disasters. The Iran Contra Scandal was trivial compared to Bush starting two expensive wars he could not win.
Bush tried to govern like Reagan, but he choose advisors who were yes men and yes women. Reagan had good advisors, and he listened to his advisors. He would have wanted to invade Iraq, but his advisors would have counseled against it.
I doubt Christian conservatives were that used to being laughed at, since their side won the Scopes trial.
It was worse than that. Some of Bush’s “advisors,” especially Cheney, were really string-pullers and he was their yes-man.
It was a Pyrrhic victory.
[quote=“New_Deal_Democrat, post:87, topic:541626”]
Finally, under Reagan there were no foreign policy disasters. The Iran Contra Scandal was trivial compared to Bush starting two expensive wars he could not win.QUOTE]
Immediately after the Beirut Barracks Bombing Ronald Reagan distracted the American people by invading Grenada. It worked. Also, compared with the unwinnable wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Beirut Barracks Bombing was minor. Finally, Reagan had the sense to withdraw the Marines from Beirut. Bush would have sent more Marines there, and more would have been killed.
Taken from Political Wire:
That’s interesting. I’m not pretending that the Democrats aren’t in any trouble but if the bulk of their trouble is in losing one region by 20%, that’s a lot different from losing nationwide by a couple percent.
Bumping this. It’s fun to compare threads and see how dramatically perspectives have changed in just 3, 4 months
This thread is pure gold.