There were four big announcements over the last two days. U.S. Senators Byron Dorgan and Chris Dodd both announced that they will not be seeking reelection. Bill Ritter, the governor of Colorado, did the same. And John Cherry, the Lieutenant Governor of Michigan, announced that he is dropping his bid to replace Jennifer Granholm as the governor of the Mitten State. Cumulatively, especially on the heels of the Parker Griffith party-switch, this leads to the meta-narrative that the Democrats are dropping like flies. That narrative might be a bit of hyperbole, but these announcements are definitely a canary in coal mine.
They follow retirement announcements from several conservative members of the Democratic caucus. It’s becoming clear that there is internal polling data circulating among Democrats on the Hill that shows that many of them are in bad shape. But, if the accompanying retirements of Republicans Henry Brown and George Radanovich are any indication, the phenomenon may not be as partisan as it is anti-incumbent.
The signs are decidedly mixed for predicting what will happen in November. Usually, the outcome of congressional elections are determined well ahead of election day and can be predicted by looking at a combination of recruitments, retirements, fundraising, and polling. The Republicans are beating the pants off the Democrats in recruitments and have an edge in retirements (that matter). But the Democrats are crushing the Republicans in fundraising and hold a slight edge in the polls (if you discount partisan Rasmussen polls). On balance, I’d rather be the Republicans right now because the pendulum is definitely swinging their way and fielding a strong slate of candidates is more important than having a money advantage (as the outcome of the 2006 midterms showed).
The polling data indicates that the Democrats are still more popular than the Republicans, but not enough more popular to retain the 60-40 advantage they currently enjoy in both houses of Congress. Democrats running in districts that went for McCain, or only marginally went for Obama, are in trouble. The voters are looking to punish someone for the high rate of unemployment, and there are going to be a bunch of shocking upsets in both parties if the mood doesn’t change before November.
The Democrats have ten months to improve the mood of the electorate, but the window on candidate retention and recruitment is rapidly closing. And the Democrats need to put more Republicans on the defensive. The filing date closed for federal offices in Texas yesterday and the Democrats left seven Republican-held house seats uncontested. That is no good. If the mood of the country is indeed more anti-incumbent than anti-Democratic (and the polls definitely indicate that that is the case) then the Democrats need to be more aggressive in fielding long-shot candidates. We should not be seeing things like this.
It’s probably spitting against the wind, but progressives need to get their heads out of their asses and recognize that we’re at real risk of seeing Obama’s third and fourth year get hijacked and put at the mercy of a U.S. Senate where we have less than sixty votes and a U.S. House where we have only a nominal majority. And the Obama administration needs to stop dicking around and start giving the progressive base some things to celebrate and motivate them for the field work that needs to be done. But, most of all, DSCC chair Bob Menendez and DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen need to expand the field and get aggressive. Playing strictly defense in this atmosphere is a terrible idea.
Big picture, people. Big picture.
Fortunately, the GOP is really broke.
We’re going to face losses; the goal is to limit them IMO and given the gains made in ’06 and ’08 it’s obvious the democrats are by necessity playing defense since they penetrated the GOP map so forcefully.
My issue is that the democrats need a national narrative and they don’t seem invested in creating one: the Republican obstruction, refusal of regulation, and the fact Republican policies brought us to this brink is a good story that they need to start telling NOW.
Glad to see this. I was distressed when, after the elections, bloggers were predicting a long time of Democratic rule. I understood the euphoria but never believed it, myself. This is what I expected – two years, then out.
THAT is why I continue to push so hard for election reform in THIS congress. It might be literally our last chance. If the Republicans get control of our voting mechanisms themselves, and all the major electronic machine vendors are Republican-dominated, no field work will matter, because it will all be bought and paid for in advance.
So I hope those who care call their legislators and say hey, while we still have a majority, can we please pass legislation requiring paper ballots and an audit of the paper ballots? Ask them to look at Rep. Rush Holt’s bill, the only one proposing this.
Seriously. This could really be our very last moment to get this done.
If there’s an anti-incumbent mood and I think there is, Dems need to field challengers against Republicans in every Congressional District. Unfortunately, Texas Dems failed by six seats, as opposed to 1 seat in 2008. We might not win but a few of those seats, but it will stretch GOP resources thin and divert some resources from more competitive races. By devoting some resources to state party development, the DNC could begin to build a stronger position in Idaho, Utah, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina. Those incumbents are hurting too, and they include a bunch of Republicans. Indeed there are three Democratic challengers in House races in SC, two of whom have good odds. Only Bob Inglis is unopposed at this point and he has Tea Party problems.
But to do this, you have to have fired up local volunteeers, which are more likely for Dems in currently Republican districts.
And it’s not clear yet how the Tea Party civil war is going to play out on the GOP side. Crist is definitely in trouble, and DeMint is flailing about trying to stay out of trouble.
I do think that progressives are coming around to the viewpoint that aggressiveness against Republicans is needed. The difference is more over the effect on “principled-minded” independent voters of continuing to let lobbyists dominate the Congressional agenda. And those independents are not all of the same ideology. The base Democrats are coming back slowly; it’s the independents (not equivalent to moderates or centrists) who are increasingly falling away. And don’t look to see this in Obama’s numbers; he’s still got political capital.
“But to do this, you have to have fired up local volunteeers, which are more likely for Dems in currently Republican districts.”
I question this premise. Via Digby:
Now, i realize i’m an out-of-touch academic, but i don’t know anyone who’s motivated right now. on the other hand, i know a lot of disappointed people.
The key words “in Republican districts”. Democrats in Larry Kissell’s (D) (NC-08) district are not fired up because Kissell voted against the House healthcare reform bill and against cap-and-trade. On the other hand, Democrats in Virginia Foxx’s (R) (NC-05) are very fired up and would work hard to turn out the vote to defeat Foxx.
And there are still a bunch of self-motivated spinoffs from OFA that are getting fired up for removing Republicans from office.
What Digby says is generally true right now. But it is the volunteers in the Blue Dog districts and the safe Democrat districts that are going to lack enthusiasm.
I understand that a lot of “out-of-touch academics” are disappointed right now. With good academic reasons. It’s not even approaching policy yet.
What I wonder is if this would be different had someone like Dean stayed at DNC. Dean could do a lot to motivate a certain subset of activists and we know he really believed in the 50-state-strategy. I have no idea if Tim Kaine believes in anything but raising money.
You have to remember what the 50-state strategy did.
It essentially reconstituted some dormant state parties that were little more than file folders in some Democratic lawyer’s office. Then it funded regional field organizers in some critical states, like North Carolina and it worked to set up the state party on a sound financial footing so that it could continue to build strength, train candidates, and coordinate campaigns. It was very focused on the state party chairs, and for that reason it succeeded in a whole lot of states. But it did not succeed everywhere.
There now needs to be some investment of DNC resources in developing state parties in the states in which they are weak. Those would tend to be the so-called “dark-red states”, although parties in “dark-blue states” can become complacent.
Right, but I haven’t seen the DNC doing that.
the “academic” line was snark.
So was mine.
“On balance, I’d rather be the Republicans right now because the pendulum is definitely swinging their way”
If this is true, it’s because, as you say, “the voters are looking to punish somebody,” and the Democrats are the punishees because they’re the ones in power, and FOR NO OTHER LOGICAL REASON. The republicans got us into this mess and they sure as shit ain’t getting us out, and that should be REALLY fucking obvious to anyone who has more than 3 brain cells in their skull.
Sure, there’s blame to go around……but I just find it infuriating that so much of the electorate is SO knee-jerk stupid that they will swing the pendulum back to the same lying thugs who fucked them all over, just because Obama hasn’t achieved the impossible task of fixing it all in the space of one year.
Nobody has the RIGHT to be that stupid.
Most people don’t pay attention to politics and don’t understand that thing aren’t going to get better right away. That said, well, where are Dems on TV, radio, newspapers blasting republicans as obstructionists who are screwing up the country every day?
Republican monopoly of TV face time might turn out to be a good thing. Folks might get the mistaken impression that the Republicans are still in charge.
People get the question “Which party controls Congress” or “Which party controls the House” wrong a truly ridiculous amount of the time anyway.
Would those be any better than his first? History says, “No”.
Democrats are in trouble because working people’s backs are to the wall and the banks are passing out the blindfolds. They voted overwhelmingly for Change with a capital “C” and got no material change at all.
BTW, remembering the Bilandic-Byrne debacle in Chicago, it did not do BHO any good to be in Hawaii as the worst winter in years descended on the mainland. Frozen oranges in Florida, frozen strawberries in Louisiana, frozen pipes and feet in Chicago, all amid images of the President surfing in Hawaii! Bad, bad politics as any Chicagoan can tell you.
True. Nothing’s gotten better for the working class.