Walking through my living room, just now, which is replaying an earlier airing of the Larry King Show, I noticed Time magazine’s Jay Carney being asked whether or not there might be an Obama landslide in the offing. Carney’s response was telling. He said that he hadn’t seen a Democratic landslide in his lifetime and that there is an argument to be made that America is still a centist or center-right country. Carney then acknowledged that, based on a look at the polling data, an Obama landslide has to be considered as a real possibility.
Carney’s observations are basically unassailable. Everything he said is factually true. But he’s not being asked to tell us what his life up-til-now has taught him. He’s being asked to predict the future. And that is precisely where today’s punditocracy (and the larger half of the blogosphere) is failing you. There are now 91 competitive Republican-held congressional seats. I’ll detail them tomorrow. But, if you read Stu Rotherberg or Charlie Cook or Chris Cillizza, you’d be under the impression that we’ll be lucky to win 30 new House seats. Forget it. If McCain doesn’t stop the momentum, we’ll win the majority of those 91 seats, plus 8-12 senate seats, plus the presidency in a landslide.
The past means almost nothing, except what it can tell us about the obstacles to be overcome. We won special elections in heavily Republican seats this year in an environment that was almost infinitely more favorable to Republicans than our current atmosphere.
I am always optimistic, but I base my projections on my perception of reality in November, and not on current polling data. The Republicans are on track for total decimation. I’ll let you know if I see anything that might change that between now and election day, but people are already voting.
I had the best projection on the 2006 midterms, pegging the exact number of Democratic pickups to within one seat. And the reason I got it right was because I projected the Dems to win any race that was remotely close. This year that same principle will hold true…with a vengeance.
I can’t even imagine being so optimistic. But then, my entire lifetime has been lived in the Regan and post-Regan era.
Bowers is currently predicting a max 20 seat gain.
Bowers is using a methodology similar to the pundits. He’s not calling a race for the Democrat unless they are showing a lead outside the margin for error. But even by that standard we are probably well past 20, and it if there was current polling available, it would probably be past thirty and approaching forty.
Well, if stuff that’s happening in Ohio right now, where the 6th Circuit – sitting en banc – has sided with a Republican lawsuit requiring the (Democratic) SecState to subject up to 660,000 new registrants to more extensive proof of ID before they could vote next month, is repeated in the remaining weeks before Election Day in other states, it could be a lot closer for Obama and Demos than the polls and “intuition” would have it. Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched!
I’m so thinking that they are making the same mistake as the Hillary campaign made in the primary — running a 20thC campaign in a 21stC world. Using same fear tactics that somewhat worked in 2004, 2000 even, to an extent. But you can only punk people so long and your failures are out in the sunshine, and you have perfect spokespeople for that failure — McPa + 8 long years. I have to say that they thought we were so damn stupid! That’s the turning point. Give the minamal people enough “acceptance” in the political arena, then marginalize all others and “assume” they’ll take the handouts forever! They totally forgot the power of the marginalized, most especially the middle class. Because the whole point of the last 40 years (maybe longer) was to get rid of the middle class. Those pesky people! And they almost succeeded. Let’s VOTE, damn it!
i completely agree. the magic word is “momentum”. i made the same call in 2006: anything close will tip in the direction of the momentum, and this year things are a lot less close than two years ago.
i should add that i prefer that the village pundits continue to indulge themselves in their conventional diagnoses, because i’ll enjoy a “shocking” landslide so much more than an expected one.
But … Obama … is … centre-right. What’s the problem? The Democrats are centre-right. Pretty much the whole of American political discourse is centre-right. Most of the people on this site are centre-right, mildly centre-left at most, at least in the too0ls that are considered available or solving problems.
Hell, I took fire a while ago for suggesting that Sinn Fein/IRA were Marxists because even the “radicals” around here think that “Marxist” is a deadly insult, not a description of a political position.
“tools that are considered available for solving problems.”
<sigh> Don’t type and make faces at the baby at the same time.
I think top-bottom is a more appropriate scale. And people who would never consider themselves socialists are realizing that they and everyone they know are closer to the bottom than the top. Sometimes self-definition is more inaccurate than what is.
He’s a “centrist or center right” candidate.
Well, not exactly, not in statistics anyway. The most robust estimator is “more of the same.” The most reliable predictor for what tomorrow will be like? What today is like.
However, (1) the electoral conditions today are pretty good, therefore tomorrow looks good also; and (2) you’re absolutely right that…shit happens, period.
The best thing that can transpire is for the winning margin be so big, all the vote tampering in the world can’t create false doubt or controversy about the outcome.
Wait, 1996 wasn’t a Democratic landslide?
There’s a sect in the GOP that’s so, So brazenly rabid. Why is that?
Betcha these same people will tell you they’re followers of sweet baby Jesus.
Creepy! and this is not an isolated incident.
No wonder this country is f*cking morally bankrupt.
This is smart. Talk to your parents about McCain. Enjoy