A perfectly valid option. Those who can’t be bothered to vote will be governed by those of us who actually do vote.
(What’s annoying is that non-voters still get to whine about the government they refused to participate in. Life goes on.)
I’d say a minority (maybe 30-35% of the electorate) love Obama, and would love him no matter what because he’s the first black President and they’re still intoxicated with the kool aid from his first Presidential campaign. I’d say another 30-35% of the electorate absolutely hate Obama and some portion of those probably believe he is some incarnation of the anti-Christ.
A majority of people were willing to vote for him, in 2008 I’d say a majority were enthusiastic about voting for him. But there are a lot of people with strong feelings about Obama on both ends of the spectrum. I’d say the “middle” group who neither hate nor love him but just viewed him as a promising politician, a lot of them appear to be tired of Obama and particularly how he is 9/10ths talk and 1/10th action. Some of them still voted for him against Mitt for a host of political reasons, but I wouldn’t say Obama is a “broadly” beloved President. He’s deeply loved by some, but he doesn’t have the sort of broad appeal Clinton did in the end of his Presidency. Clinton took hits here and there, but he went into 1996 a lot more popular than he was in 1992. Obama went into 2012 much less popular than he had been in 2008 and while Romney never had a real lead aside from a blip after the first debate, Obama had a much tougher reelection than Clinton. Even after the impeachment Clinton became popular, and he left very popular. I’m not sure I see Obama as having such “broad” appeal that Clinton did throughout his Presidency–even though in 2008 he had a sort of zealous support that I’ve not seen since the Reagan years.
Im actually hoping the Repubs take the Senate this year. That just means that come 2016 the Dems are going to sweep everything - House, Senate, White House and a majority of the governorships. Republicans have shown themselves to be totally incompetent, anti-American to the extreme and sexist/racist to a fault. Give them a chance to think they can do something and they will step on their dicks with golf cleats. The backlash will be epic.
Nate Silver posted his first predictions about the 2014 elections at 538 this morning and sadly they pretty much line up with my own pessimistic thoughts. As I see it the best case scenario for the D’s will be a 51-49 split. West Virginia, Montana, North Dakota and Arkansas are pretty much guaranteed to turn R without some major scandal breaking in those races. It looks like the Republicans have managed to keep the crazy to a minimum with their nominees this time around so the chance of any Todd Akin-type stupidity turning a race to the Democratic candidate seems unlikely.
Looking at the 538 page I frankly think it is likely the Senate will be at least 51-49 in the Republicans favor. All it will take is for Landrieu and Hagen to lose and we get a Republican controlled Senate. Both are in super close races in states where Obama and the ACA are incredibly unpopular.
This interactive map at 270 To Win is fun to play with but I just don’t see a scenario where the Senate remains in the hands of the D’s without something turning Red State voters attitudes around.
While I agree recent behavior supports your conclusion, if the Republicans actually start working with the President to get legislation passed the public’s perception could change. Sen. Tom Coburn was asked this morning on This Week about what the agenda would look like if R’s get both houses of Congress. He ticked off a list of issues they would be willing to work with the President on. Most of these are things they have refused to even consider while they have been in the minority, so I remain skeptical how serious this attitude is, but it was a pleasant surprise to hear him put it out there. I think individuals like Cruz, Gomert, King etc. will do everything they can to continue obstructing anything and everything so who knows if this would really come to pass.
Note: That page has changed since I linked to it.
Then he spoils it at the end, with pundit-style backtracking:
It could be a big win, a big loss, or somewhere in-between! Good going, Nate. I suppose now that you have your own money on the table simply saying that it’s too early to say anything meaningful was no longer an option.
I didn’t realize I was literally correct. Saw Nate Silver on one of the Sunday talk shows today and his prediction for Senate seats gained by the GOP is: 6 +/- 5.
I put more stock into polls once the primary season is over. The ones where I think the GOP will definitely win:
WV: Retiring long term Democrat Senator in a conservative State that no longer votes straight ticket Democrat. Further, the GOP candidate is a multiple-term House member, daughter of a former governor, has 30x as much cash on hand as her opponent and polls at over 50% in a lot of polls while her opponent polls 35%, so even if all the undecideds break for the Dem it’d just be a toss up.
SD: Similar situation to WV with a retiring Democrat. The GOP candidate is a former Governor and the likely Dem candidate has much less experience. GOP candidate has 3x as much cash on hand as the likely Dem, and the State is hardcore red.
MT: Similar to WV/SD, except the retiring Senator became Ambassador to China meaning the Democrat Governor got to fill the position with a an appointee. The appointee may or may not win the primary, but he and his strongest primary challenger both poll very poorly against the projected GOP candidate (the current U.S. House Representative from Montana.) The appointed Senator has a long career in the Montana National Guard and was Lieutenant Governor before being appointed, but it doesn’t appear those experiences have given him a strong political base.
Those are the three I consider locks for the GOP. The rest, I do not:
AR: Yes, it’s a red state and Pryor is vulnerable. Further, Pryor has polled close to his challenger and has only polled worse and worse as the months have gone on. Yes, Pryor voted for Obamacare which also makes him vulnerable to a large range of attacks. But, he has some things going for him, he has more cash on hand than his opponent (2x as much.) He’s also going to get a lot of support from the party, so I expect him to be well funded. He probably won’t get support in the form of Obama visits or anything as that would hurt his chances at reelection.
But I never count an incumbent out, especially not one the people of Arkansas has sent to the Senate twice now. Incumbency is big.
LA: Basically the same as AR, except Mary Landrieu has been a Senator from LA for longer. She is politically at odds with the broad electorate of LA (basically anyone not living in New Orleans), but she’s also done a lot for her State for many years. I think it makes it difficult to unseat her.
If the GOP wins the “locks” and loses all the other competitive races that still leaves it at 52-48 Dem. Say the GOP wins AR and LA, that puts it at 50-50 which defaults to the Democrats since they hold the Vice Presidency.
To get to 51-50, the Republicans have to win all of the above plus capture a race that is currently either a toss-up or leaning Democrat. Most likely North Carolina (toss up) or Virginia (leaning Democrat.) Even if the GOP takes one of those, they also have to avoid losing in a few places they might lose, namely Kentucky and Georgia.
The funny thing is that I’m not terribly concerned either way. The truth is, a Senate GOP majority is moot. Obama is still the president until 2016. I don’t think EITHER chamber has a veto-proof majority (off the top of my head). So it’s not like the Republicans can really do too much damage, other than budgetary considerations, which they’re already nibbling at the roots of and have been for the last five years.
Nate Silver is not engaging in pundit-style backtracking. He’s being honest about the statistics, which is admittedly something so rare among commentators that it’s tough to recognize. At this stage in the game, the error bars really are just that big, and so he admits that.
It actually matters for a lot of reasons. Yes, as long as Obama has the White House the Republicans aren’t going to pass tons of laws that appeal to the far right base because they would get vetoed. But with Reid controlling the Senate that means the House Republicans and Senate Republicans really have two independent Democratic power bases through which negotiations must occur.
There have been several deals brokered because the independent Democratic Senate leadership was able to get deals done where the President was not. But there have also been deals where the President was willing to come to certain agreements with the Speaker but Reid wasn’t willing to sign off on it.
The nature of all negotiations going forward would instead be a much more united Senate/House negotiating with the President. Further, while a GOP Congress wouldn’t get away with just passing a bunch of crazy legislation, they probably will get to pass a lot of legislation where the Democrats get some of what they want but the bills have more of a conservative tilt than would otherwise be desired by the Democrats. You’d see this on immigration reform, budgets and etc.
The reason is, the President can veto any true nonsense like a PPACA repeal or deep cuts to social programs. But can he shut the government down because of slightly different ideas on immigration reform (especially if the Republican version gave current illegals some form of legal residency–the President’s veto would be prolonging their illegal and all the negatives associated with it), or because of small % differences on taxes and spending? That’s less likely.
Controlling both Houses of Congress means you get to send bills to the White House and force a veto, and if the bill isn’t totally unreasonable those vetoes can be politically costly–enough so that many of them probably won’t happen. Bush signed legislation he wasn’t super happy about when he faced a Democratic Congress.
But it also means the Republicans will be subjected to much greater scrutiny, and if they let the crazies run the game plan they’ll pass a bunch of nonsense legislation that probably hurts them a lot in 2016. But I am not sure that will happen, Boehner has shown he is willing to move against the crazy wing of his caucus even if it means voting with only a core 85 or so Republicans and the Democrats to pass legislation, and McConnell and the other big names in the Senate tend to have a lot more power in that body than Boehner does in his. Ted Cruz will do a lot of grandstanding but guys like Coburn and McCain have a lot more actually power in the Senate.
Exactly. There’s a world of difference between legislation that dies in one or the other chamber and legislation that reaches the President’s desk. Legislation that he wouldn’t have to contemplate will end up there, and he can only realistically veto bad legislation. He won’t have the political capital to veto legislation that just isn’t quite what he’d want. and he certainly won’t shut down the government because the GOP didn’t give him a 10% increase in spending.
Well, I consider it more of a problem than you do for two reasons. First, because jerks like Darrell Issa will have free reign to expand idiotic investigations into Benghazi, Fast and Furious or any thing else they want. If Hillary runs, I would expect him to try and subpoena her to testify about Libya just so he can make her look bad in the middle of her campaign.
Secondly, for the reasons Martin Hyde outlined in post #70. It doesn’t mean the Right would be able to ram through every loony bill they want but it would give them leverage to create much more conservative legislation that will be harder for Obama to veto over and over.
Even though it is unlikely the R’s would gain enough seats to seriously threaten impeachment of Obama, I don’t think it is too unrealistic to picture a situation where the Tea Party wing would start trying to force hearings on the matter. Even though there would be no chance of success it would potentially damage Obama’s authority for the remainder of his presidency.
In regards to Issa, there’s nothing wrong with oversight of an administration, even if it’s to make them look bad. It doesn’t actually do any harm, unless of course there’s something to find that the administration doesn’t want found.
As for impeachment, no. He’s a lame duck, you don’t impeach lame ducks. There’s an election to be won and doing dumb things during an election is well, dumb. Let Obama go off into the sunset with his loyal 35% who will think he’s been a great President, let him enjoy the speaking circuit, and let’s get a real President in there. I have no doubt that no matter who wins in 2016, it will be an improvement.
Nice to see you’ve come around to supporting Hillary, too. 
Issa is in the House, not the Senate. No one expect the Democrats to win back the House, so that’s not really an issue.
I’ve always been a fan of the Clintons. I’d obviously rather have a good Republican, but until such a creature is evolved, I’ll happily settle for the Clintons.
Don’t kid yourself. Obama is and will be the Democrats’ Reagan, as much or more than Bill Clinton (barring some weird disaster between now and the end of the term). He will have achieved real (if flawed) health care reform, which will be the basis for future improvements by future Democratic Presidents. He will be considered instrumental in drawing down the ‘perpetual war’ footing implemented by Bush/Cheney. He will be considered (by Democrats) as the greatest Civil Rights president (read – Gay Rights) since LBJ. And he will continue to turn out his base by campaigning hard with future Democratic Presidential candidates.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I look forward to seeing whether I’m correct or not.
At best he’ll be the Democrats’ Truman. Being a Reagan or a Clinton means leaving office a popular figure. Obama has been popular exactly twice: shortly after both elections. He’s spent almost all the rest of his time underwater.
Now you could say he’s underappreciated like some believe Truman was, but his accomplishments are flawed and minor.
I’m sure he’ll continue to be popular with the base, unless he costs Democrats the 2016 election, in which case he’ll be like Carter.
A lot of us like Carter.
Because your political analysis has always been nothing but unbiased crystal clarity and uncanny precognitional accuracy…