Is the 2002 election a prelude to long-term Republican dominance?

Great Debates
1

This article by David Broder argues that it might be. What do you think?

As I see it, the Republicans were lucky this election, because:

– Bush was so popular and campaigned vigorously
– No leading Democrat could match Bush’s degree of support
– The war on terrorism and Iraq helped, since Dems are regarded as weaker on national defence
– The timing of the DC sniper attacks dominated the news
– The Iraq War drove economic news to the back pages.
– Democrats had too little positive in their campaign.

OTOH, there are aspects that could have continuing relevance:

– Republicans are no longer seen as “bad guys.”
– Social Security demonization didn’t work
– A significant portion of the Hispanic vote went Republican
– Republicans made determined efforts to woo Black voters
– Republicans took the election more seriously than in the past, in terms of organization.
– Losing begets losing. The Dems are in a worse position to solicit campaign contributions and to attract candidates.
– Media coverage has become less biased against Reps, IMHO.

In my opinion, the Dems need a major overhaul, which will not occur in the next two years. I see 2004 as a Republican rout and a Democratic defeat.

2

Now that the Democrats are veering to the left, I would have to say yes.

The thing is, the Republicans managed to occupy the center, and the Democrats, instead of trying to co-habit the center with Republicans, are moving to the left.

That means the nation might change from being essentially 50-50 Republican Democrat to 60-40.

Peter Bienart of The New Republic said last week that if the Democrats elected Nancy Pelosi as their leader, the country would become 60-40 Republican/Democrat for a generation.

Me, I think trying to predict even ten years into the future in politics is essentially a guessing game. Who would have predicted the world would look like it does today, even two years ago?

I read an article the other day, which I can’t find again, by a Democrat who agrees with this. His point was that along with the shift in the country towards Republican strengths (It’s security, stupid), the Republicans just have a lot better field of Senators than do Democrats. And this election made it worse for Democrats, because the Republicans got rid of a couple of their most unpalatable members (Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms) and replaced them with younger, more dynamic and attractive candidates. Plus the Republicans control the White House, so they get to control the debate.

If I were a Democrat today, I’d be worried about a massive landslide Republican victory in 2004.

3

If I were a Republican today, I’d wonder how it is that the Democrats managed to pick up so many governorships, including such a major state as Pennsylvania. Fortunately, I’m not a Republican.

4

Nobody can predict with any real accuracy. Why? Because sometimes things hinge on only a relatively few votes. Heck, Bush lost the popular vote (and the electoral vote as well – he just won the Supreme Court vote), so that doesn’t exactly give him a mandate (though he acted like it did). Similarly, a few Senate elections were decided by only 10,000 or so votes each. A swing of just some of those and the Senate would still be Democratic.

The GOP was definitely better at using the press this election. The Dems may learn that lesson and come back. Plus we have a full two years of GOP rule that may either show people how great Republicans are, or confirm their worst fears and send them running back to the Dems.

A few things that will be considered:

War in Iraq. We know Bush is just itching to find a reason to bomb the crap out of Hussein. But if it drags out and lots of Americans start dying, the electorate might not be too thrilled about it.

The economy. If they keep pushing tax cuts and the economy keeps going into the crapper, the Dems will have a definite issue to point to and say, “We told you so.”

The Right Wing. If Bush gives in to the far-right and pushes their agenda, it will energize the left and center to vote against him and his supporters.

So what can we predict? Absolutely nothing. But political pundits don’t get paid very much to predict nothing…

5

Apparently, only 39 percent of those eligible to vote actually did.

Unless the other 61 percent are taken into account, I see no Republican swing.

More than half the country did not vote. They get what they deserve. Unfortunately, those of us who did vote have to drag the 61 percent around whether we like it or not.

:slight_smile:

6

Sam wrote:

Yeah, but like you said later, it’s just a big guess. The whole think is fluid. Within the next month, ultra-conservatives might take over the party (under DeLay’s leadership especially), and push it far right enough to alarm the electorate.

David wrote:

Bush won 271 electoral votes to Gore’s 266. So how did Bush lose the electoral vote?

7

Sorry if you were confused, Libertarian. I was speaking more the way things should have been rather than the way the Supreme Court made them.

8

And a lot depends on whether or not BushCo succeeds in tinkering campaign finance reform to death or not. John McCain, may the Good Lord bless him and keep him, is already bitching about that.

december, I think you will find that the Democrats who agree with you are precisely those Dem’s who regard themselves as “centrist” and whom I regard as Pubbie Lite. I am quite content with governance from the center, though my views are quite to left, bordering on radical, I am suspicioius of sudden change. The chaos engendered offers too many opportunities for the unethical and power greedy. I am further content that the center is moving gradually towards progressive goals, whether or not one characterizes that as leftward. Social progress in my lifetime has been significant, if not sufficient.

Further, I am plumb tickled to have Tom DeLay more in the public eye, as well as the rock upon which he suns himself in order to stabilize his body temperature. I look forward to gleefully thrashing Board pubbies with his quotes every time the dread Hillary-beast is mentioned.

And finally, the Pubbies have no more cover. They have popped the champagne corks and declared “Landslide!” and “Mandate!” when they might have been better advised to be cautious. The situation is tenuous at best, and if the trajectory of the shit intersects the locus of the fan, they have nobody left to blame.

I would rather have had it different, but the current situation has certain roseate ramifications.

9

I’ll take Nancy Pelosi as Democratic Leader of the House in comparison to Tom “the Hammer” Delay as Republican leader any day of the week. (I know that Denny Hastert is the Speaker, but Delay is the real power in the House.)

10

centrist seems to be the term liberals are using now to hide the fact that they are liberal and to seem more mainstream.

Also Bush won the electoral vote after numerous recounts under some very suspect circumstances (dem’s counting and rep’s not allowed in to watch) - the SC just put an end to the endless recounts. As for the popular vote - that and $2.50 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks - they game was for electoral votes not popular votes - campaign strategy would be different on both sides and no comparison should be drawn except to see if we should go to a pop vote system.

As for the OP - Rep’s have a different view on some key items - one of which is that the people will spend their money better then the gov’t can so I expect to see lower taxes and a corresponding bump in the ecomny. If this happens then we should have rep’s in power for many years.

People are much more patriotic now then before the attack on our country. The dems (and liberals) always seem to be the ones who say that one of the cornerstones of our country is that they have a right to disagree with such items as national defense policy - yes they have such a right here but this does put them in a very unpatriotic light (this last part they are in denial on IMHO).

Also a very large part of the country realized that the former admin had Bin Laden offered to him multiple times (IIRC 3x) and he didn’t want him (not to mention terrorist caught making bombs on video tape pardoned)- this just doesn’t set well with many people today. Not that this would be something to be celebrated before the attack but easier to shrug off.

Also some of you have stated that the rep’s have moved to the center? I don’t agree their major issues are and always have been lower taxes and stronger national defense. perhaps the center have moved right.

11

If you want to see how badly the Democrats are in trouble, have a look at the latest polls.

For example, this gallup poll from Nov 15 asks, “Who has a clear plan for solving this country’s problems?” Bush scores 53%, the Republicans 50%, and the Democrats a measly 30%.

A 30% rating for Democrats means that even some members of their core constituency think the Republicans have a clearer plan than Democrats. Bad news.

But here’s the really bad news: It seems that the majority of supporters of the Democratic party want it to stay moderate or move to the right. this poll shows that only 11% of Democrats think that the party is too conservative, as compared to 39% who think it is too liberal.

And yet, the party is veering sharply to the left. This election pretty much wiped out the Democratic Leadership Council, the moderate Democratic coalition championed by Bill Clinton. Instead, the party is moving back to Kennedy liberalism. Their next convention is going to be in Massachussets, their candidate for president is likely going to be either Al Gore or a liberal New England Democrat, John Edwards.

Another very interesting result that should terrify Democrats - 57% of the population thinks that Democrats are not tough enough regarding the threat of Terrorism. 27% even think the Republicans are not tough enough. And yet, they just picked Nancy Pelosi to lead them, one of the most dovish Democrats.

The Democrats are simply out of step with the public, and moving in the wrong direction.

12

I reckon you mean the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that the Florida Supreme Court violated Title 3, Chapter 1, Section 5 of the U.S. Code. Setting aside for the moment the equal protection issues, I would be interested in how you reason that the Florida court was not in violation of the federal code, since as the higher court noted, a recount could not be completed before the statutory date of December 12, and how you reason that the Florida court had the authority to modify (or ignore) the statute.

I also wonder whether, if the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld the Florida court, you would still be saying that the court made the election. You almost make it sound like the courts had no business reviewing the matter. As it wrote:

13

Yes, Sam, as long as the Pubbies can sustain War Alert status, and a decided monetary advantage, they may very well sustain a grip on power.

All this talk about centrism is very telling. In 2000, Bush ran as a centrist, but governs as a right winger, with distinct ideological bends in his thinking. Economy doing great? Time for a tax cut. Economy doing badly. Tax cut, best cure. War on the horizon? Well, then, that’s when you really got to have a tax cut. Pellagra, beri beri, hives? Tax cut, tax cut, tax cut.

The Pubbies shamelessly employed Weapons of Mass Distraction in this last election. The people are a bit slow, sometimes, to catch on, but catch on they do, eventually.

I think, as well, the people want to see campaign finance reform, and they trust John McCain on this, as do I. He is already bitching about how the Pubbies are trying to tinker it to death, and he will be listened to. Without the advantage of money, the playing field will be very different indeed. If the Dems can play a close game with that handicap, how might they do without it?

And war voodoo won’t work forever. It worked this time, for sure. But they’ve only got one Iraq, and they are about to cash in that chit, for good or ill. They will win, of that there is little doubt, and they will congratulate themselves mightily, but , sooner or later, people will stop tuning in for the Fox Victory Celebration, and the question will arise: what the hell was that all about? Are we any safer? The answer is going to be “no”. Win, lose, or draw the war on Iraq cannot have any other result that to make terrorist recruiting a booming business.

All of that said, we are speculating in a void. A week is a long time in politics, 2 years is damn near forever. We shall see.

14

You need to read those polls, elucidator. A majority of people ALSO think the Republicans do a better job with the economy than Democrats. It’s not just war talk.

And your spin that Bush is governing as a ‘right winger’ doesn’t have a lot of evidence. The tax cut is a conservative plan, yes. But he also worked with Kennedy on the education bill, signed off on steel tariffs, and adopted the Democratically-sponsored homeland security initiative. But man, you sure hate that tax cut, huh?

By the way, the poll I mentioned didn’t say anything about Iraq. It asked if the Democrats or Republicans were tough enough on the war on terror. The Democrats scored very badly, and even 27% of the people thought the Republicans were not being tough enough.

But you go right ahead portraying it all as a big Republican conspiracy to hoodwink the public. You go right on believing that the public secretly wants something they publically say they don’t want. After all, that’s how the Democrats wound up in this position in the first place.

15

[hijack]

  1. SCOTUS itself stopped the recount at a time when it easily could have been completed before Dec. 12. They issued an injunction that halted the recount sometime around Dec. 7, if memory serves.

  2. How the hell did the Supreme Court know the recount couldn’t be completed in time? That sort of factual determination isn’t within their jurisdiction. Unless, of course, it gets a Republican elected.

  3. The Dec. 12 deadline was by no means mandatory. That was merely the deadline for Florida’s resolution of the controversy to be binding on Congress. Florida could legitimately have determined that an accurate vote count and the correct awarding of electors was more important than requiring Congress to accept its electors.

If you would like to discuss this further, may I suggest a thread dedicated to the subject? Of course, there are plenty in the archives.

[/hijack]

16

I take issue with this statement, most particularly the casual way you assert it as fact.

It isn’t as though this election saw scores of Pubbies swept into office. It didn’t take much for them to gain control, and that little is what they got.

Also, the idea (which I have always felt was overreaching, no matter which party is favored) that any congressional election going this way or that means much of anything as far as the whole country is concerned. Certain populations were faced with choices between certain candidates. Which one they chose is not, by any stretch, a foolproof indicator of the feelings of the entire voting population.

As far as this election is concerned, I think Koko and his Kohorts should send Osama a big fat bouquet of thanks.

17

Well, Sam, we both know about polls: phrase the question right, you can get any answer you want. If the left is defined as everybody to the left of BushCo, and includes both Gore and the Greens, then the electorate is pretty evenly split, with a very slight tilt to the left. Of course, all of this ignores the dominance of the Apathy Party, which controls 60% of the population.

I dont think Our Leader is especially right wing, I think he is controlled by the same people who told Ronnie where to stand, when to pause, and what his lines were. He is a medocrity, the Man Who Fell Up. But he panders to the extreme right, because without thier support, without the determination and organization the Fallwells and Reeds bring to the Party, they lose. If they had stayed home, do you really believe the Pubbies would have done as well as they did, either in 2000 or lately? Karl Rove don’t think so, you can take that to the bank.

The Pubbies were headed for trouble this time out. They fell back on the oldest of ploys, pounding the war drum. It worked, it always does. If the Dems had not cravenly caved in, it still would have worked, but at least they would have lost with some dignity. Shame on them, shame on us. With all of this on our plate, 60% of us couldn’t be bothered to get up off our asses and vote.

But a party that will resort to such tactics has no positions to respect, conservative or otherwise. They are power whores, nothing more, as are many in thier so-called “opposition”. Throw them all out, pack our legislatures with Wellstones and McCains, and we can get down to really discussing the issues, and doing the peoples work. Can’t happen soon enough for me.

18

I offer you my current sig…

19

And the majority are wrong. The majority believe a variety of counter-factuals. Such as the ‘fact’ that Saddam already has working nukes. When Republican support is based on misunderstandings rather than underlying facts, one has to suspect that the support isn’t very secure.

Personally, I would call him a right-winger, but not too far right. Fundamentally, he’s a Kleptocrat first, and a right-winger second. But even more fundamentally, he will sell out any principle to get elected to a second term. the steel tarriff is the best example of that so far. He’s always been willing to take credit for other people’s ideas once he is forced to accept them. Kennedy’s education bill, and Homeland security are the examples of that.

Agreed. Though I would think ‘effective enough’ is a better word. Did the poll actually use the word ‘tough’?

Are you denying that there is clear evidence of a large scale, coordinated Repulican spin campaign? Arkansas project? Talk radio? Are you denying that Rush lies repeatedly about all kinds of things? Or do you just believe that this has no effect on public perceptions?

20

Interpretation is everything. ** RTFirefly’s ** thread addressed in depth what I think those polls mean: not that people are suddenly all righty-right (an interpretation I find deeply strange…what, we got a completely different population of people in the past two years? 5? 10? 20? Are we nothing but a bunch of flibbertygibbets that can’t stick with a belief system through more than one election cycle? I don’t believe that. Especially when you bring up the public believing that the Pubbies have the answer for the economy…lessee…longest economic expalnsion in history under a Democrat, everything turns to shit under a pubbie, and the whole country decides that Pubs are da shit! Good grief.), but simply that the Dems have done a piss poor job of offering a clear message. The right doesn’t have better ideas, they just have unequivocal ones. The right doesn’t have the right answers, they have unity in the answers they give.

The Dems have screwed up alright, but it’s not in the basic philosophy, it’s in the communication of it.