An article in The Daily Kos points to an analysis by Houston Columnist Chris Ladd, who says the week of the 2014 midterms was, "a dark week for Republicans, and for everyone who wants to see America remain the world’s most vibrant, most powerful nation.”
As Daily Kos described it:
As a progressive I don’t find the prospect of an unstoppable majority of centrist Democrats all that exciting, but it sure beats an unstoppable Republican majority. First really convincing hopeful thing I’ve read about the 2014 midterms and it came from a Republican!
The logic seems to be that the GOP, emboldened by its victories, will finally demonstrate to the American people that they’re totally batshit crazy, and they’ll go right down the tubes in 2016.
Given that they’ve been totally batshit crazy for the past six years, but enough people still keep voting for them to let them block legislation at will, I just don’t see another two years of additional batshit insanity changing anything.
The MSM will continue to gloss over GOP craziness and act as if the problem’s that both sides are equally extreme, so there will continue to be no consequences for the GOP being a party of nutcases.
No, the logic in the argument is that the same kind of numerical superiority that made the 2014 election a crushing victory for the Republicans in the midterms will accrue to the Democrats in the national elections. Basically, the Democrats have a solid wall of 249 electoral votes based in states that have voted Democrat in recent elections, and if Virginia goes Democratic, it would have a solid wall of 270 electoral votes … the exact number needed to win the Presidency.
Furthermore, all the progressive Democratic ballot initiatives won in the midterms, while all the personhood initiatives offered by Republicans lost, meaning the Democrats have a better grasp on the public in the area of policy than the Republicans do.
It may be good to be a Republican for the next two years, but things are going to suck, and suck hard, for the Republicans thereafter, just because of the numbers.
Hm . . . He doesn’t seem to be saying anything about state governments. The GOP will remain strong – and will be in a prime position to inflate its strength through gerrymandering – so long as it can hold on to as many of those as it has now. The state level is where the DNC really needs to focus its strategizing, IMO.
We have a disconnect. The republicans schlacked the democrats in 2014 and this spells their doom?
I am reminded of the Miller’s Crossing quote:
Sounds like a bad break for me I wasn’t killed!
To me, it sounds like just another talking head trying to get his name out there by any means necessary. I mean, as a democrat I would like the guy to be right…but I think it’s bluster.
What would such a realignment look like? I have wondered if Rand Paul’s early momentum, being a candidate significantly less hawkish than Hilary “Democratic Version of McCain” Clinton, might foreshadow a realignment around foreign policy. On the other hand, Rand Paul will never make it through a primary process that requires out-hawking everyone else on stage.
What else could save the GOP from being a permanent and shrinking minority?
Of course, it’s not that the Republicans won, it’s that the Republicans lost because the Republicans actually won. :smack: They counted the votes and elected Tea Party and Republican members replaced many Democrats.
Who is this “Republican Analyst” that wrote the article? And where did he originally post the article? It wasn’t in the cut-and-paste dailykos. Is there any truth to the rumor that the “Republican Analyst” actually lives and works in the well-established Republican stronghold of Chicago?
Everything in the article that inspired this post is false, or close enough. Let’s have a look at some examples.
“all progressive Democratic ballot initiatives won in the midterms.” Not even close. Ballot initiatives typically aren’t partisan so there were no “Democratic ballot iniatives”, but lots of measures promoted by liberals got crushed. Nevada’s Question 3 sought to raise business taxes and give money to public schools. It lost by 4-to-1 margin. Colorado and Oregon both voted on measures requiring labeling for genetically modified foods, long a dream of hippies. The measures were crushed by 2-to-1 margin. Massachusetts voted on an expanded recycling program and rejected it by a 3-to-1 margin. Massachusetts also repealed an increase in the gas tax. etc…
I don’t know why on earth anyone would try to claim that all progressive ballot measures won, but they didn’t.
“The Blue Wall is block of states that no Republican Presidential candidate can realistically hope to win.” The article does not explain why no Republican Presidential candidate can realistically hope to win this particular list of states. Some of the states in the “Blue Wall” were won by a Republican Presidential candidate as recently as ten years ago. The GOP also won big governors races in Wisconsin, Michigan, and New Mexico, among others. Obviously the Democrats may win all those states in 2016, but it’s certainly not guaranteed.
“Arguably Virginia now sits behind that wall as well. Democrats won the Senate seat there without campaigning”. This gets it backwards. In the 2014 Virginia Senate race, Democrat Mark Warner outspent Republican Ed Gillespie by 4 to 1. Republicans at the national level made no attempt to help Gillespie. It was the Republicans who were barely making the effort in Virginia. Even so, Gillespie came within inches of winning.
“The Midterms of 2014 demonstrate the continuation of a 20 year old trend. Republicans are disappearing from the competitive landscape at the national level where the population is the largest utilizing a declining electoral base of waging, white, and rural voters.” No evidence for this if offered.
I’m also amused by the fact that Kos describes the author, Chris Ladd, as a “Republican strategist”. Glancing over his webpage, he appears to be the sort of Republican who doesn’t like the GOP at all.
I appears that Chris Ladd, aka goplifer, very rarely has anything positive to say about the GOP. I question why anyone would refer to him as a Republican analyst. Maybe a Northeastern Republican? Or a Chicagoan looking to cheer up the Democrats?
Yes, gerrymandering is a bad thing, no matter who does it, and Illinois is no shining beacon of democracy in action. But still, not a single seat? Does not sound like the Illinois Republicans have any footing at all in that state on a local level.
The shellacking isn’t what spells their doom. It’s that the same numerical forces that made their success possible spells success for the Democrats at the White House and in the Senate.
There are a lot of Democrats who despise the Democratic party, and since the advent of the Tea Party, I am SURE there are a lot of Republicans who DESPISE the Republican Party.