The outlook for the Democratic Party for the 2010 midterms is not looking good. In the Senate, most pollsters see the Democrats losing seats, though the possibility of losing control of the Senate seems quite remote.
Nate Silver rates 8 current Democratic-held Senate seats as being the 8 most vulnerable seats for 2010, and he estimates that the Democrats will lose approximately 4 seats. He estimates the chance of a Republican takeover of the Senate as being only about 6%.
The House is looking worse than that, mainly because of the fact that
all House seats are up for re-election, compared to only one third of Senate seats. Some are predicting that Republicans will take control of the House, and others aren’t. Certainly there are many factors that will determine the outcome, and they can’t all be predicted by polling with much accuracy.
Of course, more important than numerical predictions is an understanding of what the relevant factors are, and what can be done to improve the outlook.
Generic Congressional ballotThe
generic Congressional ballot is a poll that asks prospective voters for which party they would vote for the U.S. House of Representatives if the election was held today. These polls have been close now for a long time, with both major parties winning in different polls, but in general Republicans have held a slight lead since November of 2009, as you can
see here. The fact that the last two polls have shown a tie and a slight Democratic lead may be a good sign, or they may simply be a couple of outliers. If they are indicative of an impending trend, that could be because of the recent Republican fiascos on the issues of immigration, banking reform, and maybe even health care too.
In any event, it is not a good sign for Democrats that the Republicans have held a slight lead for several months. As
Nate Silver points out, the
actual popular vote margin for Democratic House candidates since 1992 has averaged about 3.4 percentage points less than the generic Congressional ballot poll numbers – which makes the slight Republican lead even more ominous. With respect to how the actual popular vote translates into the final distribution of House seats, the correlation has been pretty good for the past half century, with a correlation coefficient of 90%. And furthermore, in the past 50 years (25 elections), the party that won the popular vote (not counting
1998, when the popular vote was a tie to the nearest tenth of a percent), ended up with control of the House in 23 of the 24 elections, the one exception being
1996, when the Democrats won the popular vote by 0.3% but ended up with a deficit of 22 seats. The bottom line, according to Silver’s analysis is that if the election were held on the day his article was written (April 9), the Democrats would likely lose 51 House seats, which would be more than enough to give control of the House to the Republicans.
But of course the election won’t be held for another six months. So the Democrats’ best chance is to change the dynamics in the remaining time before the election.
Summary of polling for individual House seatsThe Cook Political Report is perhaps the most widely quoted analysis of individual House elections. That report largely underlines the bad news from the generic Congressional ballot polls. According to the
latest Cook Political Report, dated April 29, 64 Democratic House seats appear to be vulnerable, compared to only 5 Republican seats, as noted below:
Democratic House seats at risk: 64 – 31 lean Democratic; 26 tossup; 5 lean Republican; 2 likely Republican
Republican House seats at risk: 5 – 2 lean Republican; 2 tossup; 1 lean Democratic
Analysis of vulnerable Democratic House seats by correlation with votes on health care reformOne of the most important things to consider is how vulnerability is associated with voting records. Of 219 Democrats who
voted Yes on the recent health care reform bill, only 48 (22%) were rated vulnerable in the Cook Report, whereas of the 34 who voted No on health care reform, 16 (47%) were rated vulnerable. At first glance that would seem to suggest that voting in a conservative direction puts Democrats at risk for losing their House seats.
But the issue is more complicated than that. The problem is that the great majority of vulnerable Democratic seats are from conservative Congressional districts. These tend to be the districts that the Democrats took over in the wave of dissatisfaction with Congressional Republicans in 2006 and on Barack Obama’s coattails in 2008. But these are not safe Democratic seats.
The principle can be seen when Congressional districts are divided into 4 groups, based on the Democratic presidential margin of victory for 2004 and 2008 combined, with positive numbers indicating Democratic victory margins and negative numbers indicating Republican victory margins:
Highly Democratic: More than 25% (combined margin of victory for 2004 and 2008)
Moderately Democratic: 16% to 25%
Neutral: -5% to 15%
Republican: Less than -5%
When House seats are categorized in that way, the current vulnerability of Democratic House seats is as follows:
Highly Democratic: 1% vulnerable (2 of 144)
Moderately Democratic: 20% vulnerable (5 of 25)
Neutral: 54% vulnerable (20 of 37)
Republican: 71% vulnerable (37 of 52)
In other words there is a very strong correlation between the way that Congressional districts voted for president in the past two elections and the current vulnerability of the Democratic seats.
It turns out that the reason that those who voted Yes on health care reform are far less vulnerable than those who voted No on health care reform is that the vast majority of the Yes votes are from highly Democratic districts, whereas many of the No votes are from Republican districts.
But when analysis is carried out according to the general voting preference of the district (as measured by its votes in the past two presidential elections) a very different picture emerges. In the highly and moderately Democratic districts only 3 of 166 Democratic House members voted No on health care reform. In the neutral districts, 4 of 37 voted No, and their vote had no correlation with the vulnerability of the seat. But in the 52 Republican districts, a Yes vote was strongly correlated with vulnerability. Of 25 Yes votes in Republican districts, 92% (23 of 25) were rated as vulnerable. But of the No votes in Republican districts, only 52% (14 of 27) were rated as vulnerable.
InterpretationIn other words, in the Republican districts, it is the more liberal Democrats rather than the Conservadems who tend to be vulnerable. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that this correlation is related solely to their health care vote. Those House members who voted for health care reform are more likely to have a more liberal record in general than those who voted No on health care reform.
What all this means is that the problem can’t be solved merely by recruiting more progressive candidates for conservative Congressional districts. As things stand at this time, those districts are populated with voters who are likely to vote progressive candidates out of office. That is not to say that progressive candidates shouldn’t be recruited for those districts. But doing that alone won’t help much, due to the voting habits of the voters.
What is it about most voters from Republican districts?The base of the Republican Party tends to be characterized by exceptional gullibility, combined with an authoritarian bent, which includes a lack of community mindedness. Those characteristics are all related, and they make for a dangerous combination.
GullibilityMost Republicans believe the absurd lies they’ve been constantly fed regarding President Obama. For example,
less than half believe that he is an American citizen, though his birth certificate has been
publicly posted for all to see.
Most believe that he is leading the country towards socialism, though he leans far towards the center of the political spectrum. Most believe that he increased taxes on most Americans, when in reality a substantial tax
decrease was a part of his stimulus bill that many right wingers have so strenuously protested against.
Kate Zernike wrote
an article that delves into the self-contradiction and extreme gullibility that characterizes the Tea Party movement, which is
approved of by almost half of all Republicans:
Nearly three quarters said they would prefer smaller government even if it means spending on domestic programs would be cut. But in follow up interviews, people said they did not want to cut Medicare or Social Security – the biggest domestic programs – suggesting instead a focus on “waste.” …
Others defended being on Social Security while fighting big government by saying they had paid into the system, so deserved the benefits. Others could not explain the contradiction.
“I guess I want smaller government and my Social Security,” said Jodine White, 62, of Rocklin, Calif. “I didn’t look at it from the perspective of losing things I need. I think I’ve changed my mind.”
I subscribe (for free) to an electronic version of
Human events, the right wing rag of which Ann Coulter is the most visible member (I do so in order to obtain a better understanding of what makes these people tick). I recently received a newsletter from them telling me that if I would have taken their advice I could have turned $10,000 of my money into $250,000 in just 49 days. Not only that, but they gave me a chance to save $800 by purchasing their financial advice – valued at $2,500 – for only $1,700. What a great deal! I have to say that none of the many progressive/liberal organizations that regularly send me e-mails have ever offered me a deal anything like that!
Al Gore, in his book, “
The Assault on Reason”, describes the religious faction of the right wing movement in the United States:
A group of ultraconservative religious leaders (who actually are primarily politicians) provide manpower and voter turnout. They serve a special purpose with their constant efforts to cloak the right wing faction’s political agenda in religious camouflage. Many of them also have their own media outlets and are part of the propagandist wing of the coalition…
Lack of Community mindednessGore also describes in his book some of the economic shibboleths that the leaders of right wing movements (including the Republican Party itself) sell so many of their followers:
First, there is no such thing as “the public interest”; that phrase represents a dangerous fiction created as an excuse to impose unfair burdens on the wealthy and powerful.
Second, laws and regulations are also bad – except when they can be used on behalf of this group, which turns out to be often. It follows, therefore, that whenever laws must be enforced and regulations administered, it is important to assign those responsibilities to individuals who… reliably serve the narrow and specific interests of this small group…
What members of this coalition seem to spend much of their time and energy worrying about is the impact of government policy on the behavior of poor people. They are deeply concerned, for example, that government programs to provide health care, housing, social insurance, and other financial support will adversely affect work incentives….
A large part of the phenomenon of lacking community mindedness is related to the fact that many or most right wingers tend to have a different conception of morality than liberals/progressives do. This was evident in an issue of
Human Events in which
Patrick Buchanan attempted to put his criticisms of Barack Obama in the best light during the 2008 presidential campaign. Buchanan wrote, in a somewhat transparent attempt to justify slavery:
The Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these: First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.
The task of the leaders of the right wing movement / Republican PartyThe leaders of the right wing movement in the United States include, among others, most of the leaders of corporate America, including their far flung monopoly of our communications media, as well as their lackeys who lead the Republican Party, which means the good majority of Republicans who are elected to national office.
Their task of selling their absurd ideas and lies to the American people seems daunting. But it is made far easier by virtue of their monopoly of communications media:
They must convince many millions of Americans to buy into the absurdity that their economic policies are not weighted heavily in favor of the rich and powerful; that their tough talk and excessive eagerness to pull our country into war is a manifestation of their courage; and finally, the absurd idea the Republican Party is the party of Christian values. They attempt all this while resisting every effort of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress to help the American people out of their current economic plight.
More specifically, they lead their followers to believe that taxes have been raised when in fact they have been lowered. They lead them to believe that Democratic efforts to reign in the power of big banks
are in fact designed to give the banks more power. And they lead them to believe that the act of government making health insurance affordable to those who lack it
is a form of tyranny.
What Democrats and other liberals/progressives must do to combat themThe right wing leaders have some great advantages and one great disadvantage in their efforts to misinform the American people in order to maintain and increase their wealth and power. Their great advantages consist of their wealth and their monopoly control of the means of mass communication. They use their wealth to influence our elected officials – of both parties – to pass legislation favorable to their interests, and to garner control over a system of “think tanks”, news media and other forms of mass communication that will do their bidding.
The great advantage for the liberals/progressives who oppose the right wing movement is simply the truth. It takes a lot less effort and money to convince people of the truth than it does to convince them of the truth of lies. One big slip-up can cause a massive unraveling of a carefully woven web of lies.
But liberals/progressives don’t take full advantage of the truth. To a large extent they buy into the rules of our corporate media that determine what is acceptable and what is unacceptable discourse in our country. That just plays into the Republicans’ hands. Some do this because they represent conservative districts, and they risk being voted out of office if they take the truth too far. Others worry that if they step over the implicit line of acceptable discourse they will be ignored, marginalized, vilified, or worse by the corporate media and power structure. They have good reason to fear this.
Dennis Kucinich,
John Edwards,
Cynthia McKinney,
Howard Dean and perhaps
Paul Wellstone serve as examples of what can happen to politicians who pose substantial danger to the powers that be.
The fact of the matter is that individual politicians, acting alone, are often too vulnerable to withstand combat against the powers that be. It will probably take an organized and coordinated movement of several truth loving politicians, with a great deal of support from the grass roots, to mount a serious challenge to the current power structure. However this is done, they will need to be consistently bold in challenging the false assumptions and lies that overshadow our culture. There will probably be many political casualties along the way. But only through an unrelenting attack on the web of lies that characterize our political landscape will we be likely to change it enough to turn our country around.
Health care reform as an exampleConsider health care reform. The Democratic Party was vehemently criticized by Republicans for their bill, and most intelligent people understand that they would have been criticized just as much no matter what the bill contained. So why water down the bill? In particular, why allow the medical insurance that Americans receive to continue under the control of the private insurance industry, despite their infamous history of arbitrary denial of claims and corruption? Will federal government regulation of the insurance industry be sufficient to curb their myriad abuses? Nobody knows, but it seems doubtful in the short run. It seems to me that the Democratic Party’s best chance would have been to pass a bill that would provide much more benefit to the American people. In that case, all the lies about the bill taken together could never overshadow the benefits that people would experience for themselves.
That’s what happened with
FDR’s New Deal. Due to its stunning success, most of its components lasted for decades. Largely as a result of this, we experienced for the next three decades what Paul Krugman calls “
the greatest sustained economic boom in U.S. history”. As a result of the
labor protection laws enacted during FDR’s presidency, the percent of non-agricultural U.S. workers who were members of labor unions rose from 10% to close to 30% during his presidency and
remained at that level for many decades, until the
anti-labor policies of the Reagan administration resulted in a precipitous decline in union membership. The labor protection laws and other New Deal innovations, such as
Social Security and unemployment insurance, were instrumental in alleviating poverty in our country and producing a vibrant middle class.
Median family income rose steadily (in 2005 dollars) from $22,499 in 1947 to more than double that, $47,173 in 1980. Then, with the onset of the Reagan Revolution, it came to a virtual standstill. The American people who lived during the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the “greatest sustained economic boom in U.S. history” knew what the New Deal did for them. And so did the Republican Party, which gave up on trying to fight it, for reasons that are made clear in a letter that President Eisenhower
wrote to his brother on the subject:
Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are…. a few Texas oil millionaires… Their number is negligible and they are stupid.
By now of course, few Americans are left who remember the Great Depression and how “big government” helped the American people to get through it and set them on a course to prosperity. Desperate times call for bold words and actions. Otherwise we can let the corporate elite and their gullible right wing minions set the agenda for our future.
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