I was pretty sure you were making a rediculous point that relied on the Democratic loss of the solid South in the 1960s and 1970s, but I wanted to give you an opportunity to explain yourself.
I now see that you are, in fact, ignoring the most significant shift in the history of American political parties in order to make the point that Obama is the suxxor.
Other aspects of your assertion of American political history are shit. Obama has lost a total of 76 House seats and 15 Senate seats during mid-term elections. Since you’re the one who brought up Hoover, FDR lost 126 House seats and 15 Senate seats during the midterms of 1938 and 1942. Truman lost 74 House seats and 18 Senate seats during his two midterms, and is now often regarded as one of the best 10 presidents (for reasons I don’t agree with). Cites.
But surely even you can agree that the odds are slightly in favor of having a Democratic president elected in 2016, and whether the Senate remains in Republican hands is probably a toss-up. Is that what you predict as the fate of a Democratic party destroyed by Obama? Having a good chance to win the White House and even-money on winning the Senate? We should all be so lucky as to suffer such indignities at the polls.
ETA: Plus, if you actually informed yourself of patterns of party control, there’s a pretty well-worn trend of having the opposition party do well as the state level as the party in power does well nationally. Democrats did very well in states during the Reagan years and the Republican Senates of the 1980s, and over time Republicans took over states during Clinton’s presidency, which swung back to Democratic advantage during Bush II, and has now gone back to Republican controls.
In other words, big friggin’ deal. You act like none of this erosion of the party of the president has ever happened before, and it happens all the damned time. Literally ALL THE DAMNED TIME.
In both cases, they have a chance to win a razor thin margin, while Republicans continue to dominate everywhere else. Then comes the 2018 midterms, which involve an absolutely brutal map for Democrats, the worst yet for them.
If the Democrats fail to win the Presidency, then by 2018 the Republicans will be in a more dominant position than they’ve ever been. Even if the Democrats do win, that’ll just mean the Republicans win even more Senate seats and states in 2018.
I see no evidence that people here don’t know that the Democratic party had some very big losses (after huge gains in '06 and '08) in '10 (holding onto the Senate) and '14 (losing the Senate). This just isn’t nearly as big a deal as you’re making it.
Obama has fixed or is fixing many of the problems caused by Republicans (and past Democrats, too). Obama trounced any ‘backlash’ in '12, and I think it’s very possible that any '16 backlash will be similarly weak. We’ll see.
Obama won in 2012 because Republicans made themselves unacceptable. That also kept Republicans from winning the Senate in 2010, a few unacceptable candidates which thankfully didn’t spread to the party as a whole.
In 2014, they got their shit together and won handily. If the Republicans had run better campaigns in 2010 and 2014(as in, no dumb abortion comments or 47% comments), we’d have Republican Senators in Nevada, Delaware, North Dakota, Indiana, and Missouri right now, and very possibly President Romney. Because the contagion never did spread to the states, Republicans have been consistently dominant in state elections.
It’s not always about the Republicans. Obama ran very good campaigns and did good things in office. You might disagree on some of them, but some of the things (killing Bin Laden, rescuing GM, ending the recession and growing the economy, START treaty, and more) were undeniable political winners across the board. That is a big part of the story.
There might be a few Senate seats different, but Romney could not have won. He ran a poor campaign and Obama ran a very good one. He wasn’t just a few percentage points away – IIRC, he would have had to shift everything more than 5% to win enough states to get 270. There was no chance of that happening. The 2012 election was pretty sealed pretty early on, as Nate Silver tracked and noted. We’ll see if 2016 is different.
A better way of stating it is this: when things go how you want them to go, you predict it correctly. When they don’t go how you want them to go, you predict it incorrectly. That’s not exactly a record that would inspire confidence.
Because you were so, so bad, and because you ran and hid for weeks/months afterwards, and because it should have been easy to predict.
And because it was a presidential election, which is pretty much not comparable to a midterm.
For the last few elections, political predictions have been pretty easy – just go with Nate Silver and you’ll be close. I plan to stick with the same method for 2016.
Well then, keep track of what I actually predict and give me a batting average rating or something. My Bernie Sanders/NH prediction is looking pretty solid right now. I seem to recall a poster saying that Clinton would not lose NH. Was that you?
This is better than my response. adaher, all of your predictions have been wishful thinking. Sometimes your wishes your granted, and sometimes they weren’t. But I see no reason to trust adaher’s wishful thinking for 2016.
It’s worth studying that article in detail, given that it’s the topic of the thread.
Fiorina gained 6 points and Walker lost 4.6. Trump came in 2nd to last place: he lost 2.3 points. But that’s hater-loser talk: given what he was up against it was a total victory.
Rubio and Carson each gained 2.4; my man Ted Cruz gained 1.3.
Bush lost 2.0, which I find interesting. He needs to up his game. Kasich treaded water at 0.0.
The next debate has everyone but Gilmore and neurotypical longshot Mark Everson though, so Kasich is safe for the time being.
I did make myself look pretty foolish in 2012, no doubt. But at some point, those who criticize my record just look foolish themselves when I keep getting things right.
They are following the same top 10/everyone else split though. Since the bottom tier got less eyeballs there’s still risk associated with dropping positions relative to the field. The bright side is CNN is looking at putting them back to back instead of with the intervening time gap.
Gilmore still has a chance of a late invitation. He needs to hit 1% in the polling though. Everson is screwed because his name is not included in the polls so it’s impossible to actually make the cut.
Good on you for the debate predictions. But I think your 2012 election (and probably '10 and '14) was based purely on wishful thinking, not on any reasoned analysis, except when good analysis happened to confirm your wishful thinking. Similarly, I think your 2016 predictions are too.
Predictions: Results:
+15 House seats +13 House seats
+8 Senate seats +9 Senate seats
51-47 GOP pop vote 51-45.5 GOP pop vote
Called one of two upsets, 4 of 5 toss ups.
Now you’re engaging in wishful thinking. Yes, I do have a pro-Republican bias, and I let it get the better of me in 2012. I think I’ve recalibrated quite well, and so far everything I’ve predicted about the general election has come true as well: Clinton’s lead has shrunk, Sanders is leading in NH, and lo and behold, Biden might just jump into the race. Kasich made the debates, Perry is the first one out.
It would behoove those who think they can do this better than me to actually try to do better than me.
Sanders is not yet “leading in NH” – there’s been one poll. Biden “might just jump into the race” means nothing at all until he actually does it; Perry’s not yet out of the race; Kasich has so far made one debate.
I’m not making predictions yet because it’s too early. It’s just a crapshoot right now, and I have no interest in throwing dice with you. I’m going to stick with Nate Silver and co – I think there’s a science to this stuff, and you’re not using it for your predictions (maybe you were in '14, but you certainly weren’t in '12 and aren’t now, since there’s no data for these predictions to be made). I don’t trust your “feelings” because I think they’re just subject to your own whims and biases, and because you were so spectacularly wrong in 2012, when it should have been so easy to predict (and was, for many of us).
You’re going to get some right and some wrong shooting dice this early. I don’t feel like playing.
I didn’t say these things had come to pass, just that it’s looking good, as if I’m playing an NFL pool and 12 of my 13 teams are winning in the 4th quarter.
Nothing wrong with that, but if you’re going to take potshots at my prognostication skills, put up or shut up.
