Could 2006 Be Another 1994?

[Nym90]

I highly doubt that the Democrats could possibly gain as many seats as the Republicans did in 1994. There are just too many safe seats. There's really no way the GOP could drop under 200 seats in the House even under the worst of circumstances.

That being said, I do think that the Democrats have an excellent chance of taking the majority, even if it is a narrow one.

[Nym90]

If Bush's approval ratins stay where they are, the GOP will lose the House and possibly the Senate as well, unless the Dems are totally incompetent (which is possible).

If the President can get himself consistently back over 40%, the GOP has a decent chance of keeping the House (50%) and would almost certainly maintain the Senate.

It's pretty much a certainty that the Democrats will gain seats in both chambers unless Bush somehow gets back above 50%, which seems highly unlikely at this point.

[Nym90]

Yeah, Dazzleman is just a tad overboard in his descriptions of Democrats. He's entitled to his opinion, but I don't think it reflects the reality of what Democrats actually believe, at least not the vast majority of them. Perhaps someone should make some polls to see what percentage of Dems actually believe this stuff.

Investigations of the President would be risky. On the one hand, some really nefarious stuff might be found, which would hurt Bush badly. On the other hand, if nothing bad is found, then it backfires on the Democrats. It all depends on what the results are, and whether it is conducted as an honest fact-finding mission or a witchhunt. I do think that some things which have been swept under the rug should be looked at, but it should not be an obsessive focus of government.

In any event, I'd always prefer to have control then to not have it. I hate to sound like Jfern here, as you are one of the best Democrats on this board and we need a lot more people like you, but it could well be argued that if you think a party would be so bad if in control that you wish that they lost, then why would you identify with that party? I think it's an honest question. I understand perfectly what you mean about a backlash, and that's definitely something to be wary of.

If I understand you correctly, you seem to be saying that you would rather the Democrats win the White House in 2008, with the hopes that they would take Congress as well, rather than win Congress in 2006, which perhaps puts any victory in 2008 in jeopardy.

[Nym90]

I appreciate the response, Frodo. I was certainly not questioning your loyalty to the party at all, I was merely asking an honest question, and I got an excellent answer.

I agree that there is certainly the possibility of overreaching by a Democratic Congress. 1976 is a bit of a different circumstance, in that I think things were going to go badly no matter which party was in power. Thus, in retrospect, yes, it would be better for the other party to be in power and take the blame.

I'm not nearly as cynical about the Democrats' ability to put forward a positive message and to govern effectively in the next two years. I hope my faith is not misplaced.

I definitely believe the country would be better off with a Democratic majority now, even if it hurts us somewhat in 2008. I am confident that we can win Congress, govern effectively, and then win the White House and keep Congress in 2008.

[Nym90]

Well, I'm just wondering if it might be, but there is one major concern in my books. Let's say that there is a uniform 5% swing from GOP to Dem (compared with 2004), how many GOP congressmen would go down and how many INCUMBENTS would go down? If what I have heard is true, the answers will be less than 50 and zero for the second one.

Well, in a certain sense, you're asking the best case scenario.  The problem is, that this never happens.  There are certain incumbents in danger CDs whose support will hold on and others who won't.  Also, the simple fact of being incumbents makes them stronger than they would otherwise.  The GOP has done a fairly good job of keeping those incumbents in marginal CDs this year, but still some are still vulnerable.  Keep in mind, also, that scandal could affect other incumbents that are not within this window.

Anyway, I saw this posted on another site by a poster I respect greatly on these matters.  If you compare the Congressional partisan index (this is what Charlie Cook uses to gauge House races) from 1992/1996 and the one from 2000/2004 against the seats won in 1994 and the seats that are seriously in contention in 2006, you come up with this fact:

If the Democrats were to achieve a reverse 1994, a respective mirror of those results, they would gain somewhere in the range of 18-24 seats in the House.

That seems about right.

I would note that Bush's approval ratings, however, are worse now than Clinton's were in 1994, so if anything, I would think the Democrats could do better than simply reversing 1994.

[Nym90]

Maybe I am wrong, and these positions don't represent the position of most Democrats.  I've been looking in vain for years for any indication of that.

I sympathise...to an extent.  Seattle's leftists may be bubbling and acidic, but they do know when to shut up better than, say, those in San Francisco, New York, or other similarly liberal cities.  However, there is plenty of insane liberalism.

I do not, though, see how you cannot find moderation in the Democrats.  What of, say, Lieberman?  You also must consider that you live in Connecticut - by and large, a pleasantly suburban state surrounded by pleasantly suburban areas that would never consider electing a Ray Moore.  But move to virtually any other part of the country and you are a short drive from the Christian rightist heartlands - the wheat fields which, for every two amiable rightist populists produces a fire-and-brimstone fundamentalist.

Really, it's not surprising that we hear more about crazy liberals than crazy conservatives.  Cities are the most liberal areas, and certainly no one is closely tracking the county offices in Glasscock, Texas (other than people looking for some very strange porn).  They may get less power, but they're no less crazy, and I really do not think they represent significantly less of the population.

You raise an excellent point. One's political views are clearly skewed by the conditions in which they live. In a liberal part of the country like the Northeast or the West Coast, the Democratic party is more likely to be extreme, and the Republican party moderate. However, if one lives in a place like the South, Great Plains, or Rocky Mountain West, the opposite will be true. Therefore, if someone tends to be a moderate, they will be likely to support the party that is in the minority in their particular area.

Having grown up in a rural area with very little crime, a spectacularly clean environment, almost no racial diversity, and fantastic public schools probably makes me more liberal than I would be if I had grown up in an inner-city area.

[Nym90]

To give Dazzleman credit, he has said he is going to vote for Lieberman.

[Nym90]

I think it's called being partisan. We are all guilty of it at some point or another.

If you sincerely believe that one party is better than another, than the overall thrust of your comments will be skewed by that, since you are trying to achieve a goal of getting more people to vote for your party and against the other. So the ratio of positive and negative statements that you make about each party does not necessarily reflect your actual overall feelings, because you are trying to persuade people to vote for your party, which obviously can be best done by emphasizing the negatives of the opposition and deemphasizing your own party's negatives.

[Nym90]

I don't see Democrats as wanting to destroy traditional values at all. Certainly some traditional values are in need of tweaking. Segregation comes immediately to mind as something which was a tradition and the arguments for which were made in similar terms in their day to issues like gay marriage today. Sure, some people argued that blacks are inferior to whites, but many reasonable people argued in favor of things like segregation and slavery on the idea that any attempt to disrupt tradition would start down a slippery slope that would lead to the moral bankruptcy of society. Essentially the logical fallacy of Appeal to Tradition.

But regarding issues like gay marriage, liberals merely seek to add additiional rights, not to take any away from anyone. Obviously these things don't exist and never can exist in a vacuum, which is a large reason why I tend to shade toward the populist side. Sure, there are some extremists who wish to destroy the nuclear family (out of some sense of vengeanance due to their own past bad experiences most likely, thus placing the blame squarely not where it should be placed), but claiming this is true of liberals makes no more sense than saying that all conservatives hate gays and think they should die or some such.

I don't see how it weakens marriage to ensure that all loving couples who are willing to make life-long commitments to each other are included within it. In my opinion, that would strengthen marriage by making it truly have meaning. In a time in which we decry ever increasing divorce rates, why would we want to deny the instutition to those who are willing to enter into it? Marriage is not and should not be something that is to be taken lightly, and it would strengthen the instutition to be more welcoming of those who have made this measured consideration.

So in summation, I don't think it's so much that liberals and conservatives have different values, but simply that they disagree on the most effective solutions to the problems. Foreign policy and defense are excellent examples of this, too; the vast majority of Americans of all ideologies do not hate America, they rather disagree on how to strengthen the country. Those who oppose the war, for the most part, feel that it is hurting the country more than it is helping (that is my view, due mainly to the tremendous cost involved, though I did not disagree with the war's overall premise and do support the notion of spreading democracy, though I felt the intiial reasons for going to war were largely exaggerated if not false--I do view all dicatorships as collectively dangerous to freedom worldwide, however, but I didn't think the immediacy of this threat was much of any worse than any other we face).

[Nym90]

It's not going to be another 1994 in the sense that the Democrats won't gain 52 seats in the House and 8 in the Senate like the GOP did in 1994, but then the Democrats have fewer targets than the Republicans did that year.

I'm currently predicting the Dems to pick up 30 in the House and 6 in the Senate.

[Nym90]

Democrats will come up with a set agenda of policy items in due time -what I am more worried about is how they will use their majorities in Congress (if and when they get them).  To be sure, I want President Bush to be held accountable, but I don't want our desire for vengeance to define our tenure, or our Congressional majorities will not last past 2008.   

I'm not sure they can come up with a positive message that will sell.

The left wing of the party has a stranglehold and is a tremendous liability, probably driving off more voters than they attract, and forcing the party to take positions that ensure minority status.

The Republicans really didn't have this problem in 1994.

I share your concern about what the Democrats would do if they won control.  They seem to have nothing but anger and vitriol, and no positive program.  They would just use their time to hound Bush, and it could very well backfire, costing them their majority and the presidency in 2008.

If you really think about it, to have Democrats controlling Congress and 'hounding' President Bush would be the best possible outcome for your party, allowing the GOP to take a breather, and use the resulting backlash from all the investigations to take back Congress and retain the White House in Republican hands for another four years -at least.

For this reason I prefer letting your party retain control of Congress this November, but with margins so slim you won't be able to accomplish much if anything.  As I said in another post in another thread, this way you (the GOP) will get the blame for whatever goes wrong as the party in power, but virtually none of the benefits accruing to that status.

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Now that we have seen Democrats in control of Congress for about eight months now, I'm curious to see whether anyone has come to the same conclusion I did last year. 

I certainly don't agree that the Dems would be better off in the minority.

While it's true that there is discontent with the Democratic failure to get us out of Iraq, this is really more dissatisfaction coming from the base rather than swing voters. I doubt it will result in Republican gains at the polls.

The GOP is still bearing the great majority of the blame for the war.

Not to mention there have been many positive accomplishments that wouldn't have happened if the GOP had remained in control. In the long run the good of the country should matter more than partisan gain anyway.

The theory that Dems would be better off in the minority was mostly espoused by those who feared the Dems would go too far to the left if they took control. Instead most of the dissatisfaction at this time is with them being too far to the right (regarding Iraq), rather than too far left.

[Nym90]

I'm currently predicting the Dems to pick up 30 in the House and 6 in the Senate.

And you weren't far wrong all, Eric

Dave

Hah. Yeah, I nailed it perfectly didn't I? Wow.

[Nym90]

The GOP only picked up 3 Dem Senate seats in 1996, and lost one seat of their own for a net gain of two. I think you are confusing 1996 with 1994, though the GOP actually picked up 8 seats in 1994 (though only 2 by defeats of incumbents), then proceeded to pick up a 9th one day after the election by a switch of parties by Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, who didn't have the balls to make the switch the day before the election as opposed to the day after.

And the Dem gain of 6, all from incumbents, was in 2006. In 2008 the Dems gained 8 (assuming they prevail in Minnesota one of these decades).