Considering how many presidential campaigns he’s lost, I’d be wary of putting too much stock in anything that Bob Schrum has to say about the mood of the electorate or the outcome of the 2010 midterm elections. Schrum seems overly confident both that health care reform will pass (and be popular) and that the economy will recover in a timely and meaningful way. But he’s right about the Republican Party and their strategy. Perhaps goaded by their own fringe and the threat of primary challenges, the Republican Party seems content to maintain an across-the-board stance of total opposition. They make weak efforts to offer alternatives to the president’s agenda on health care, climate change, and energy policy, but their ideas are not honest, realistic, or sincere.
As frustrating as it was to see the Democrats accommodate so much of Bush’s radical agenda and fail to hold his administration accountable, the end result was that they gave Bush more than enough rope to hang himself and his party. I mean, who paid the price for the unpopularity of No Child Left Behind? It wasn’t Teddy Kennedy and the Democrats. It wasn’t until Bush tried to privatize Social Security that the Democrats closed ranks and defeated his agenda. Perhaps the Republicans are right to see health care reform as an existential threat to their future electoral prospects (in the same way that the Dems saw Social Security privatization), but that doesn’t explain their opposition to all other elements of Obama’s agenda.
I’ve seen some analysis recently that suggests that the Republicans are poised to make some gains in the midterms (at least, in the House). And they really should. All the historical markers suggest that they should. There are a half dozen Democratic representatives who should lose simply because Obama isn’t on the ballot and overall turnout will be much lower. There are a couple of others who only won because the Republican incumbents were fatally compromised. And the Democrats have won two straight congressional elections by big margins, meaning that all the low-hanging fruit has already been picked.
But the Republicans have very serious problems. They are currently feeling more pressure from the right to oppose everything the president does than they are from their strategists who are telling them that their base is both shrinking and alienating the swing-voters and growing minority demographics of the country.
The rage on the right in inchoate, unarticulated and irrational. If you attempted to codify it into some latter-day Contract With America, it would argue for something like State’s Rights. It would be a movement to strip the federal government of most of its powers based on a very idiosyncratic interpretation of the Tenth Amendment.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The Tea Party movement does have a passing resemblance to the Reform movement of Ross Perot, as noted in the CQ Politics article:
Former Rep. Bill Frenzel, R-Minn. (1971-91), a Brookings Institution scholar, says the tea parties remind him of the third-party presidential campaigns of Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996.
“It is a two-edged sword,” he said. “Democrats have a greater exposure. But Republicans are likely not to come out of this unscathed.”
Even though Ross Perot did eventually present a policy platform in 1992, his movement was driven mainly be the force of his personality and the idea that Congress was a corrupt and ossified institution in need of drastic overhaul. Term limits and balancing the budget were the two main ideas taken over by the Gingrich Revolution and used successfully in the 1994 elections. Other elements of Perot’s agenda, like tax hikes and massively reduced military spending were simply dropped by the Republicans.
Another difference between then and now is that Perot sold himself as a successful businessman who could get things done. If some of his policies seemed a bit outlandish, he at least assured us that he could lead the way and get them enacted. He had a positive agenda. He had things he wanted to do. The Tea Party movement just wants the world to stop spinning. They either deny that we have any big problems (e.g., climate change) or they want the solutions to come from the states, not the federal government that is in the control of Democrats.
Without a positive vision of what the federal government should do, the Tea Partiers are left with an empty vessel. In essence, they are saying ‘elect us so that we can do nothing and leave it to state and local officials to solve our problems.’ That kind of political argument only gets you halfway home. If Congress is sufficiently unpopular come election day, it might be possible to cultivate a kind of ‘throw-the-bums-out’ backlash. But without presenting a positive alternative, the upside is greatly limited.
But the reality is even tougher. It isn’t just that the Republicans are lacking a positive message. They are creating many negative ones. It’s somewhat parallel to the unhelpful presentation of the New Left in the 1968-1972 era. Taking to the streets with outlandish signs and costumes puts people on notice that there is passionate opposition, but it has yet to persuade the vast middle of the electorate to put their eggs in your basket. The Tea Partiers are every bit as alienating to blacks, latinos, gays, and liberal-minded people as the hippies were to the lunch pail crowd. Yet, despite the price the Democrats paid, they were always more careful to distance the party from the more radical elements of the New Left than the GOP is currently with the Glenn Beck hordes. The GOP is recklessly allowing birthers and deathers and screaming townhall teabaggers to represent the face of their party.
Whatever electoral metrics you use to predict a resuscitation of the Republican Party’s prospects, you cannot ignore the train wreck we’re currently witnessing with their messaging and image. Even as the polls show a decline in the Democrats’ popularity and a narrowing the Congressional preference gap, they also show increasing regionalization. The GOP remains popular in the South (albeit, a shrinking section of it) but continues to do appallingly poorly in the rest of the country.
To really rebound, the GOP must start winning suburban tax-sensitive high-income districts in the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and Left Coast. Nothing I am seeing suggests that they are poised to do that in 2010. And, after 2010, it will just get harder. The Democrats will benefit greatly from the post-2010 census redrawing of districts because they control so many statehouses and governorships. In 2012, Obama will be back on the ballot. And, every year, the country grows browner, more diverse, and more tolerant.
It’s definitely possible that the Republicans will pick up a few seats in the midterms, but without radically changing their ideology and message, that will be little more than a speedbump on their way to the ash-heap of history.
