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When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, and George Bush was photographed posing with a guitar and giving John McCain a birthday cake, I had one happy thought to offset all the horror that was unfolding before us: I was convinced that the Democrats would win back Congress in 2006 with a wave election, and win a second wave election in 2008, along with the White House. It would be, I believed, a classic realigning election. Howard Dean was already out there working on his 50-state strategy, which was absolutely huge. But the Katrina disaster finally punctured the bubble of Versailles ass-covering for conservative failures. My only regret, looking backward, was that I didn't write more systematically about what I felt. While I was right about the shape of elections to come, the waves were not as large as I had hoped, nor were the policy consequences--due largely to Barack Obama's manic embrace of discredited conservative ideas. This has helped enormously in extending the hegemonic continuity of Nixon-Reagan Era.
With all the talk of a GOP wave in November, it has seemed that the once-promising opportunity to shake off 30 years of failed conservative policies was about to disappear. (Obama's own infatuation with those failed policies, reflected most recently in David Kaib's quick hit, HUD is Trying to Privatize and Mortgage Off All of America's Public Housing, is another huge part of the problem--but outside the scope of this diary. Suffice it to say that if Obama triangulates like this with large Democratic majorities, one shudders to think what he'd do with the GOP holding some actual face cards.)
Now, I think I've learned my lesson, though--which is to be far more outspoken about what I think the future holds. Unfortunately, I'm not nearly as certain now as I was then. But I am as certain that the conventional wisdom is missing something big--although as Tom Schaller notes the Critz victory in PA-12 is already having some impact on the conventional wisdom about a GOP wave in the House. But the wave election narrative is just the tip of the iceberg of what I'm thinking about. The wave is a "what?" kind of question. I'm thinking about "why?"--and "what's next?".
Before going any farther in thinking about the future, I need to add one more point about the past: The change I foresaw in September 2005 did not actually materialize, due largely to Barack Obama's manic embrace of discredited conservative ideas--though of course he was not alone. This has helped enormously in extending the hegemonic continuity of Nixon-Reagan Era. And that leads directly to what I think the conventional wisdom is missing: the distinct possibility that that hegemony might actually fall apart sooner, rather than later. I say only possibility, because that's all there realistically is at this time. But Paul Krugman made a very good point last weekend with his post "Will 2010 be 1948?"
Taking note of the recent trend back toward a slight Democratic edge in Pollster.com's generic ballot poll average, Krugman wrote:
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This has me thinking about the 1948 election, when Harry Truman shocked the pundits by pulling it out at the last minute. You might have thought that such a narrow victory wouldn't have changed that much - that people would have dismissed it as not giving Democrats a mandate to do much. In fact, however, it marked the end of Republican attempts to undo the New Deal (that is, until the rise of the hard right several decades later.) In effect, many people came to the conclusion that if the GOP couldn't pull off a win in such favorable circumstances, it wasn't ever going to be able to win until it changed its positions.
If Democrats hold on to the House this year - if a recovering economy and growing public revulsion over the crazies does the trick - it may have a similar effect.
I think that Krugman is absolutely right in spirit, if not in form. There's just way too much conservative infrastructure out there for them to so easily change their tune, and Republican Party, in contrast, is far too weak, So if a breakdown comes it will not play out the same way. But the possibility of some kind of breakdown and reorientation on the right is a very real, and nowhere visible on the Versailles radar screen--and it could be matched by a parallel shake-up on the left as well. So I'd like to talk about what that possibility is, and why that should help motivate progressives this election year. Put simply, if the GOP fails to win a significant wave election come November, there could be substantially more political turmoil in the years ahead, leading to a resurgence of progressive activism that could, over time, start to seriously erode the hang-over of Nixon-Reagan hegemony. Progressives have every reason to be furious with how the Democrats have preformed in power so far. But a GOP wave in November could make things immeasurably worse. OTOH, a GOP failure could help create a political opening for progressives--particularly given a much more realistic sense of just how much opposition we're up against within the Democratic Party.
What are the reasons for me thinking along these lines? I'll give you X:
(1) There is currently a huge disconnect between the American people, and the elites of both parties. Glenn Greenwald wrote about this on Wednesday ("What explains the anti-establishment sentiment?") where he wrote:
Why do Americans, seemingly regardless of party affiliation or geographic location, despise the political establishment?
One reason why media mavens seem reluctant, even unable, to grapple with this question is because it so plainly falls outside their familiar, comfortable narratives. Contrary to efforts earlier this year to depict the problem as one aimed at Democratic incumbents due to the unpopular health care plan and the growing "tea party" movement, Republican voters -- as demonstrated in Florida, Utah, and last night in Kentucky -- clearly hate their own party's leadership at least as much as the animosity directed toward Democratic incumbents. The trend is plainly trans-partisan and trans-ideological, and the establishment political media has a very difficult time understanding or explaining dynamics about which that is true.
My explanation for why the trend is trans-partisan and trans-ideological is pretty simple and straightforward: Democrats have turned their backs on their working-class base, along with every other facet of their base. Had they not done so, they would not be the targets of populist rage, they would be channeling it to achieve one smashing political victory after another. To not have passed the Employee Free Choice Act within the first month or two was an inexcusable act of betrayal. To not have passed a much larger stimulus, preventing state & local government budget crises was equally inexcusable. So, too, was the failure to force sweeping financial sector reforms when the big boys were down on their knees, and to help out Main Street at the same time. There is no deep mystery here at all.
(2) Virtually all the Versailles narratives--as well as most of what's in the blogosphere--are based on short-term thinking that ignores long cycles of American politics, cycles that show periodic breaks from the conventional wisdom of one period to that of the next. This short-term focus is as true of Chris's poll tracking and election projection as it is of Charlie Cook and Nate Silver. There are both good and bad reasons for this, however. The good reason is that that's where the detailed data is. We simply don't have pre-election polling data for the 1934 midterms, for example. The bad reason is more concentrated in Versailles, but it's fairly widespread in the blogosphere as well, and it's that fundamental long-term political change is largely unthinkable for most people. It's my position that we have to pay attention to the sort of nitty-gritty analysis that Chris does, because it would be downright foolish to ignore the best data we have. But it would be equally foolish to uncritically assume that the best data we have is necessarily the best indication of what's to come. Usually it is. But we do live in unusual times. There are long-term, much more unpredictable factors that could play a role, and if they do, all bets are off.
(3) There are significant indicators that give cause for a more optimistic outlook, but they are difficult to integrate into statistical models. In a comment to Chris's most recent Senate forecast this past Wednesday, texas dem highlighted some of these factors, such as crossing a 2-1 cash-on-hand threshold, and having an advantage in favorable/unfavorable spreads. As he explained,
my real point is that races that have been fully engaged by both parties are different than races that haven't been -- Sestak-Specter being the example par excellence.
I can certainly add a hearty "Amen!" to that from California. The only reason Barbara Boxer looks to be anywhere close to trouble is the fact that the airwaves have been flooded with GOP candidates for both governor and senate, each trying to seem more anti-liberal than the other. This is almost certainly as good as it gets for them for both offices. Moreover, texas dem offered what seems like a pretty realistic overall assesment:
The Specter-Sestak trendlines show us that there is a real difference between a race that has not been engaged yet by both parties, and a race that has been. Despite the "Dems will sell health care after they pass it" prediction, which I and many others expected, Dems decided to just pass more legislation now, and sell it all later. ("Pivot to jobs and finreg") That actually was a better decision. Assuming they pass a strong finreg, and maybe even an energy bill, they are going to have a really strong set of arguments to offer in August-September, when they do settle into campaign mode. Right now the polls reflect a reality in which Republicans have been campaigning exclusively and non-stop since the stimulus, and Democrats have been mostly passing legislation and not really making the public case necessary to increase their favorables as a party. When they begin to make that case, I think at least some of the electorate will find it persuasive, and the yawning gap between, say, Hodes and Ayotte will start to close.
Obviously it would have been far superior for the Dems to be selling legislation as they were fighting to pass it. But Dems walking & chewing gum at the same time? What are the chances of that? Pass first, sell later is not the brightest strategy in the world, but it might could be just good enough to dash GOP hopes in November, especially if the economy keeps adding jobs at a decent pace. All these are reasons why it pays to keep in mind that even the best polling analysis shows where things stand now, not where they will stand come November.
(4) Last Tuesday's election results were about the strongest indications possible that the standard GOP November wave election narrative is not a foregone conclusion. This narrative may have been shaken up a bit, but it's unlikely to be replaced by anything more insightful. Versailles just doesn't do insight. ("Dem's can minimize losses by focusing locally, and distancing themselves from Washington" is about as insightful as we're likely to get.) On the obvious side, Democrats really could pick up a Senate seat in Kentucky, no matter what Rasmussen says. And they really could hold a good number of "Red" districts like PA-12, possibly even almost all of them if things go well for the Dems on multiple fronts--improved economy, GOP infighting & incoherence, good Dem messaging, etc. It's bad enough for the GOP wave narrative now, as former GOP representative Tom Davis noted after the election:
Tom Davis, a former Republican House member and top party campaign strategist, saw the win by Democrat Mark Critz, a former aide to Mr. Murtha, over Republican Tim Burns as a serious blow to the Republican claim to be within reach of the 40 seats needed to recapture the House.
"If you can't win a seat that is trending Republican in a year like this, then where is the wave?" asked Mr. Davis, who said Republicans will need to examine what went wrong. "It would be a huge upset not to win this seat."
The signs surely mean something And by November? That's an eternity in politics, particularly if the GOP keeps moving farther and farther to the right, while the economy slowly but surely continues to improve. If the GOP nets just 5 Senate seats and 15 House seats, that would be a huge disappointment. And what if they do even worse? It could happen. A five point shift across the board from Chris's Wednesday forecast would limit Dem's Senate losses to two. And Chicken Lady in Nevada could well make that just one.
(5) The sheer idiocy of the Versailles press corps could actually even help the Democrats beat a GOP wave. As David Weigel tweeted yesterday:
So was this the week we stopped being dazzled by tea parties and started asking what they believe? Took a while.
Indeed. Had Versailles ever taken any sort of critical look at what Tea Baggers believe... well, that would have been so unfair. Know what I mean? But now that they have started to notice, don't expect them to be terribly bright about it. But the Tea Baggers are even dumber, and without anyone really intending anything the end result could be the sort of political bonanza that the Dems (also not terribly bright) could have never earned on their own. Rand Paul this week is only a taste of what could be all the way to November.
Bottom line: when everybody gets stupid in the same way, very bad things tend to happen. But when they get stupid in different ways, then surprising things can happen. It's nothing to bet on--that would make you stupid in yet another way. But it is a possibility--something to keep your eyes out for. A joker in the deck means you can beat four aces with five deuces.
(6) Although ruling parties lose House seats more often than not after realigning elections, they do so only barely. They gained seats in two elections--1802 and 1934--out of five (the ruling party lost seats in 1830, 1862 and 1898). That's much better odds than for first mid-term elections generally. Indeed, 2002, barely a year after 9/11, was the only year that a new President gained support in the House in the first mid-term since 1934. Prior to that, the only exceptions were 1810 and 1818, as Democratic-Republican Party grew ever-stronger while the Federalist Party eventually withered away to nothing. In short, the best way for a new president to avoid losing seats in the House in his first mid-term is to win a realigning election. If Obama loses seats this year, a contender for the best explanation of why must be his failure to act as if he had won such an election, and his insistence on compromising with-and sometimes even strengthening the policies that the electorate had rejected by electing him.
Conclusion
So what does all the above mean, in the end? First of all, it means that progressives should not despair, despite having plenty of apparent reason to do so. The upcoming election could very well be as bad as it gets for us, and it very well could be the point at which we sow the seeds for renewing our push for the sort of large-scale change many had hoped and expected that Obama's victory in 2008 would bring.
That said, this is only a possibility. We need to work to make it come true. And we need to pressure Dems to make the most of opportunities that they may not even recognize. As mentioned above, the new conventional wisdom may well be that Dems can avoid the worst by focusing locally and distancing themselves from Washington. But I think there's another way to go that's not entirely at odds with that logic, but not entirely with it, either. In a comment to Chris's Monday diary, "National Congressional Ballot: Dems inching up", I wrote the following:
It Really Is A Crapshoot
The Dems screwed up by doing too little, and not blaming the Republicans from the get-go. This allowed the GOP to mount a much more ferocious opposition based almost entirely on hot air. But now that the economy is showing some improvement, not only might the Dems be spared, due to factors cited by the New Yorker, the GOP might have hurt itself by going all Tea Baggy.
I could really see a very effective DCCC campaign ad stressing what a hard time it's been, how Dems have been working hard to turn things around, and in contrast highlighting some of the more glaringly absurd GOP antics--both top leaders and Tea Party clips, super-short. Then end with something like, "It's been hard work, and there's still more hard work to be done. It's not party time. It's work time. Vote for the party that works."
Of course it would be over-selling the Dems. But better to have them on record in "us-them" mode, rather than "me too!" It gives us something to hold them to.
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