History has shown us that with very rare exceptions- 2002 being one- the President's party loses seats in the midterms. But what's amazing is how Village pundits go out of their way to point out how not everyone will vote for Democrats this fall. Here's Marc Ambinder:
The Democrats midterm message is easy to understand: we've done things to help you, and Republicans are obstructionists for the sake of politics, want to bring back failed Wall Street friendly ideas, and are increasingly captive to the Tea Party audience. This is a good message for the core of the Obama coalition, but does it work for the midterm electorate -- particularly this midterm electorate?
Obama ran on a fundamental promise to make government work for the better, and Republicans believe they've blocked him from achieving that goal, and that the economy, combined with their own scorched earth strategy, has left voters extremely skeptical of government intervention again. Midterms are about noise, not volume; usually, the most exercised partisans and their lackeys will react against the president in power, creating a referendum of sorts. Voters tend to be older and whiter.
The new Democratic platform does little to recognize this demographic. The party is getting annihilated among whites, even in states like California. Declaring that the Democrats are the party of accomplishments is one thing, but it really does not matter to swing voters in all those House seats straddling the Appalachian Trial, the industrial Midwest and the Rocky Mountain region that the U.S. is once again beloved in the world, that Obama is a man of science, or that he appointed a Latina to the Supreme Court.
The alternative is not to run away from accomplishments, of course. The angle that projects a "mommy state" isn't going to work -- "we made things less worse and protected you." People are hurting and feeling neglected. They've gone from shock to anger about the last few years. And Democrats still lose credibility when they talk about being part of the most honest, open, ethical government ever. Whether right or wrong, the public, after health care, sees Congress AND Obama as part of the politics as usual crowd.
Shorter Ambinder: Lots of midterm voters think you suck and no message will dissuade them of that. And this is new how, exactly? No "message" in the world will reach some of these voters.
Also, if Obama decided to govern entirely with the understanding of the makeup of the midterm electorate and an eye towards November 2010, and the advice Ambinder gives him, he'd probably be bombing Iran with one hand and signing gun rights legislation with the other. Also, who's to say the Village conventional wisdom regarding the midterms is always right? Conventional wisdom said young people don't turn out and don't spend any time on them. It also said black people with the middle name "Hussein" who spent part of their childhood in Indonesia and don't have much national experience don't get elected President. Then the 2008 election happened.
So I, for one, am willing to see if the strategy Tim Kaine outlined as the DNC effort- reach the 15 million voters who registered and turned out for the first time in 2008- works. I think that's a much better idea than trying to find a "message" that will reach voters who are unlikely to support you, or governing from the start to try and make sure they support you.
The other thing I would say is that what all the how-to-win-the-midterms hullabaloo misses is this: to some extent, what happens in the midterms is out of everyone's control. Villagers use the public simply being in, as Mike Lux puts it, a foul mood about the economy, and the strong likelihood that Democrats will lose seats, to point to Obama and say "aha! Proof that the Obama style of governance, with its mommy-states and ethics reform and Latina justices isn't working!" I think that's reaching for a message just a bit too far.
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