Two years in the making, nearly a billion dollars spent campaigning and hundreds
of political careers on the line — it’s finally game day.
The political forecast for the Democrats is bad. If you believe the hype and you’re
a Democrat, this evening might be among the worst in your political life. If you
believe the hype and you’re a Republican, tonight you inherit the earth.
But what of the hype? Political prognosticators are scrambling ever higher in their
predictions about the so-called “wave” election. Estimates of House seats “in play”
have topped 120, an astounding number even if it were half-true.
Even if the prognosticators are right and the Republicans gain every seat possible
in the House but fail to capture the Senate, they will control only one of the three
brass rings in Washington, and the least powerful one at that. Control of the House
of Representatives would be a significant accomplishment indeed, but it won’t change
much in Washington — except the Republicans, with a share of the leadership, will
be unlikely to continue to deceive the American people about their responsibility
for nearly bankrupting our country. With leadership comes responsibility, Mr. Boehner
et al.
The hype over the impending “category 4” election, as one notable Democratic pollster
describes it, ignores reality. Democrats fully acknowledged the uphill fight the
2010 midterm elections would be. In fact, many Democratic operatives have been fretting
the 2010 and 2012 elections simply because of the electoral map — Democrats holding
traditionally conservative districts and Senate seats are likely to have difficult
reelection campaigns. Many of those electoral gains were won during the historic
2006 and 2008 elections that brought Democrats huge majorities in Congress.
With that in mind, Democrats knew 2010 would be an uphill battle for three reasons:
First, the party of the president historically loses songressional seats in midterm
elections. Second, fair or not, when the economy is in the tank the president and
his party get the blame. When taking over the reins in 2009 the White House had
an enormous hole to dig out of courtesy of the previous president’s eight years
of reckless economic policies, and despite creating more private-sector jobs in
eight months than President George W. Bush did in eight years, this president and
this Congress are shouldering the blame. And third, and perhaps most significant
politically, the number of seats “in play” in this election is the result of those
electoral successes of 2006 and 2008. Indeed, Democrats today hold 49 House districts
that John McCain won in the presidential election in 2008. The Republican expectations
should have a floor of 49 expected seats gained based on this factor alone.
This election isn’t a mandate, it’s a market correction. Republicans squealing about
“tsunami” waves must recall that the American people aren’t putting their faith
in them. Republican favorability continues to lag behind that of Democrats and the
president. In a recent NBC/Wall Street
Journal poll, the Republicans’ favorability rating stood at 31 percent-42
percent, compared to Democrats’ 38 percent-45 percent. And the Republicans’ approval
ratings lag far behind that of the president, who had a favorability rating of 48
percent to 43 percent.
Those numbers show that the Republicans still have a long way to go before the American
people will again trust them with our futures.