Last Six Year Itch election where Republicans should have gained was 1998.
Given what I’ve seen of Kerry since 2004, I actually think Bush was the better choice. I wouldn’t say that of any other Democrat running in the 2004 field given what we know now. Democrats got stupid in 2004. They thought their biggest peeves with Bush were the electorate’s peeves and the nominated Kerry because he was everything Bush wasn’t: a vet(they REALLY wanted a vet bad in 2004), an intellectual, someone who didn’t see the world in stark black and white terms.
Given Bush’s weakness, and he only got weaker as the campaign went on, I think any of the other credible Democrats would have beaten him: Dean, Lieberman, Clark, Gephardt, Graham, Edwards… Democrats dropped the ball. THey also did something else stupid: they anointed Kerry after the early primaries. I think 2008 proved that a long, bruising primary campaign is not necessarily harmful. Kerry would have benefited from Democratic opponents being more aggressive with him. Which brings us to stupid mistake #3: Democrats being mostly kumbaya because they were united in hatred of Bush. Which left Kerry unblooded and untested.
But anyway, the point is that especially since Kerry became Secretary of State, I find his intellect vastly overrated and his moral compass is pretty much nonexistent. He has no firm views on anything at all. He nuances himself into believing in nothing. Contrast that to Hillary Clinton, who at least until Benghazi, won praise from across the political spectrum for her performance.
I’m good with to each other.
Now, I’m always the first to say that Money =/= Votes.
Still…
Thanks to John Boehner and Sarah Palin, Democrats Are Crushing Republicans in Fundraising.
I still think the polls are relying on the “midterm snooze” and are skewed more towards “likely” voters. This time, the Democrats might not be staying home November 4th.
You’ll find money means even less in midterms. The Democrats outraised Republicans in 2010, Republicans outraised Democrats in 2006:
http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/index.php?cmte=&cycle=2010
http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/index.php?cmte=&cycle=2006
My theory is that fundraising in the “non-sexy” elections tends to be better for the party in the most trouble.
As for predictions of increased Democratic turnout, we’ve heard that one before. When it’s actually likely to happen, such as in 2008 and 2012, the pollsters have picked up on it(my skepticism of increased turnout by Democrats was why I thought the 2012 polls were skewed). But the pollsters aren’t seeing increased Democratic enthusiasm at this point.
Kerry is an reasonably intelligent man, though perhaps not a solon of wisdom … this puts him far ahead of Dubya, a man of limited intelligence who was easily pushed by his PNAC colleagues (Cheney particularly) into an unnecessary and disastrous war in Iraq. Kerry would simply not have had the impetus toward war that Bush did, hell the Bush admin. lied to the American public about WMDs in Iraq and lied about Saddam having a role in 9/11 in order to get Congress, the media and the American public behind the Iraq War.
Given all this, a little yellow dog would have been a superior alternative to Bush. A Kerry administration might even have paid SOME attention to the crazed dealings of the financial markets and avoided the 2007 crash. (However, I will not argue that point too strongly, as Democrats are little better than Republicans when it comes to Wall Street.)
In addition, many progressives are feeling an active antipathy towards Obama and the Congressional Democrats. Not that they would ever vote Republican, but I wouldn’t call them highly motivated to get out there and get those Democrats that are ignoring them into office.
Kerry was talked into voting for the war. Whose to say he couldn’t have been talked into starting it in the first place? In any case, that wasn’t what was being litigated in 2004. 2004 was the key election deciding what should be done to finish the war. In hindsight, while Bush started an unnecessary war and bungled it, he finally made a course correction. Would Kerry have? I doubt it.
And in Kerry’s case, you have to assume he would have made a decision, especially one that would likely be unpopular, since anything a President did to take the punch bowl away would have resulted in a mild recession. Kerry never had that much political courage.
I’m not seeing antipathy, but I am seeing resignation. Or, simply being unaware of what’s at stake. A lot of liberal friends I talk to aren’t even aware that Senate control is at risk. That’s just a thing with Democrats: if the election isn’t for President, they aren’t engaged. They weren’t even really engaged in 2006, when Democrats won the HOuse and Senate. It was independents that won that for them by supporting Democrats by a huge margin.
The day Democrats turn out for a midterm will be a political earthquake.
Mitch McConnell made comments yesterday that appear to lay out how he wants to run a Republican-controlled Senate: basically, threaten more government shutdowns.
I tend to think that Republicans do have the edge in taking control of the Senate, but I think a change in leadership for all the parties is probably a pretty good idea at this time.
Yeahhhhh, that wouldn’t be smart. It’s smart to force the President to veto stuff, but not smart to shut down the government over it. The best tactic is to send popular items to the President, let him veto them, and then make sure every Democratic candidate in 2016, whether for President or Senate, has to go on record as to whether they agree with the President’s veto.
Once the Republicans force a shutdown, they just lose again. McConnell seems to be under the impression that if the item Obama vetoes is popular enough, he’ll get blamed for the shutdown. Nope, doesn’t work that way. the only way it would work is for the President to threaten a shutdown if he doesn’t get what he wants, and for his supporters to back him. That would brand Democrats as the problem. Except they are smarter than that, so it won’t happen that way.
Although she doesn’t lead in the RCP average yet, the two most recent polls show Hagan moving back into the lead against Tillis in NC:
Well if it makes you feel better i think this is just posturing to the base from a slightly scared Mitch. He doesn’t actually plan to do any of that.
Yes, the prospect of actually having to attempt to govern probably scares the hell out of our current Congressional GOP. All they know is sabotage.
We’ll see. Hopefully the GOP wins an extra seat so we can part with Mitch.
If the Republicans take the Senate, Americans will have my pity, but it’s the kind of irritated eye-rolling pity one gives to a friend who seems determined to inflict self-harm.
It’s not self harm for about half of us.
Save it. I’ll be sipping champagne.
Bricker, I don’t think the collection of rabid asshats in the GOP’s Congressional delegation is gonna do anything that will make you proud if they take power. Really. I know you’re a conservative, but I think you’re sane … I suspect that will be a problem for you if the GOP takes power.
We’ll see. As has been pointed out, 2016 is not going to be an easy year to defend their new Senate majority. Plus I imagine they’d like to win the White House. They have to figure things out, or else losing the Senate could be the best thing that ever happened to Democrats. After all, what’s the difference? If you knew you the Democrats would win it all in 2016 by giving up the Senate in November, wouldn’t you take that deal in a heartbeat? Well, if you assume Republicans are going to govern really badly over the next two years, then that’s pretty much what’s going to happen.