Carville: Throw the lead to November
By James Carville - 03/18/14 05:48 PM EDT
In early February this year, I wrote a column for The Hill in which I tried to talk Democrats off the cliff. I warned them against having such a gloomy outlook for November. To tell you the truth, though, when I saw the result from the Florida special election last Tuesday, I asked myself where my straight razor was because I thought I might need it. But before we succumb to 1994 and 2010 syndrome, I’d like to say that a lot of the things that I said in the February column remain true.
The fundamental consideration is this: if the election were held in the current climate, it wouldn’t be hard to argue that the Democrats might have a bad, perhaps even awful, election ahead of them. However, the one thing we know is that it is not going to be held now — it is going to be held in November. This is a case where we don’t know if there is going to be a political climate change or not. Suffice to say, I am pulling for some political climate change.
Let’s apply the same logic in terms of the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, if you must. Is the law and its implementations likely to stay the same, get worse or get better? A fair analysis of recent polling shows that while current polls are not impressive, they are improving slightly. In the March 7-10 edition of Bloomberg’s poll, 64 percent of Americans support the law outright or support changes to it. That is up from 60 percent in Bloomberg’s December poll. Well, in that same poll, 72 percent said the healthcare law will affect their voting decision. If we continue on this trajectory the climate might be more favorable.
It’s the same thing with the economy: look at the December, January and February jobs numbers. We have had some pickup, although it’s been slower than most would like. Will it continue? I am not sure, but it is not unreasonable to assume economic conditions will be better in November.
Read more: http://thehill.com/opinion/james-carville/201114-throw-the-lead-to-november#ixzz2wWRgQEs3