Jon Stewart and Frank Rich both spent the weekend before the midterms telling us that the Tea Party is really not reality. They tell us it is a mirage created with funhouse mirrors and Koch Brothers’ money. If we could just ignore the media we’d know that the opposition isn’t really a “pumpkin assed forehead eyeball monster” and that they “lack the numbers and financial clout to muscle their way into the back rooms of Republican power.”
We’ll have to wait to see how the elections turn out. Maybe not only the media but the polls have it all wrong. Maybe the primaries were a false sign. Maybe the Tea Party candidates will falter all over the country. Maybe they’ll be co-opted as soon as they get to Washington DC and will turn into well-behaving and sensible legislators like Bob Bennett and Bob Inglis and Lisa Murkowski. That worked out pretty well for us during the Bush years, so what do we have to worry about? Or, maybe, we can’t all get along. Maybe, we won’t be able to “queeze one by one into a mile-long, 30-foot wide tunnel carved underneath a mighty river” because it will turn out that the “selfish jerk(s) who zip up the shoulder and cut in at the last minute” are not so rare and were not scorned, but elected to high office. Maybe the Senate rules are such that the upper chamber cannot function with people like Rand Paul and Sharron Angle and Mike Lee and Joe Miller and Ken Buck joining with the likes of Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn. No one could have predicted that these people would actually carry though with their promises.
The Tea Party isn’t a mirage. It isn’t something that the Trent Lotts of the world can control. If it were, Mike Castle and Charlie Crist would be cruising to election to the U.S. Senate. When you put people in government, particularly when you put them into government with six-year terms, you change that government. Whatever heat-fever of passion put them in there doesn’t break as suddenly as it arose. It stays on. It metastasizes. It eats away at the flesh of its host. In this case, it will paralyze its host, and nothing will get done. We won’t be politely waving each other through as we all go about making the little compromises we make every day just to get to work.
Go out and vote. Vote because Stewart’s happy vision may be inspiring but it ain’t happening. Vote because even if Frank Rich were right that the Tea Party will be co-opted, that only gets us back to the Bush years. Vote because I asked you to while other people told you everything would be okay if you just turn off cable news. It won’t be okay. It won’t be anything remotely resembling okay.
Booman, I can see you’re on edge. Perhaps it’s the uncertainty of Pennsylvania as opposed to those of us in other places. I have had to accept the fact that Elaine Marshall has little remaining chance here in North Carolina against Richard Burr. I take solace in Jon Ralston’s prediction this morning that Harry Reid ekes out a win in Nevada.
I was very skeptical about Jon Stewart’s rally from the start, especially about the timing when thousands attending could have been out working at the grass roots level. But it was pitch perfect, had a great vibe, and, I think, will generate extra votes across the country.
When I see some of the old hacks on television trying to justify their year-long predictions of doom (Chuck Todd with Stuart Rothenberg yesterday was 5 minutes of my life I wish I had back) you can see how desperate THEY are to have their predictions fulfilled. But the problem is they refuse to admit how much they don’t know. Nobody really knows what’s going to happen Tuesday, and social networking has messed with the normal political time frames these hacks have depended on in years past. This is not the same country they cut their teeth on–the punditry is almost uniformly behind the times. The Tea Partiers are real in the sense that they are among the same recycled 20-30 percent that never stopped supporting Bush and they have simply repackaged their anger, resentment and bigotry to focus on some new targets. They were uninformed and easily manipulated 6 years ago, and that hasn’t changed one iota.
I am reminded of Obama’s ascent, when he was well behind Hillary and every one of these same hacks said she was a shoe-in, and why isn’t he attacking, etc. But then each time a primary rolled around people just voted, and there was some common sense displayed that was perhaps surprising. Even the Hillary “comeback” in New Hampshire made a certain amount of sense.
So I’m waiting for Tuesday night with a bit of optimism that the hard work of calling and canvassing will pay off. The House may be gone but the margin will matter. The Senate will be saved with strong, election day turnout. Nate Silver knows what the numbers tell him, but even in his case I’m detecting a little hedging creeping in.
Oh, you can tell that I’m on edge? 🙂
Your not the only one.
Uncertainty’s a bitch, isn’t it?
I know Nate Silver is saying we’ll lose 53 seats in the House(because I see it all over Twitter). Has he given a MoE? Because he was saying the same thing a few weeks ago but saying the MoE was between 25 & 71 or so. Meaning he was just pulling stuff out of his ass like anyone else(because most Houses districts are not polled .. ever).
Nate Silver doesn’t pull stuff out of his ass. The projection of 53 seats comes as the average of 100,000 runs of his model, which he reruns as new polls come in.
The margin of error is high because there is so much contradictory information in the polls, and because the model has such a long term historical perspective the data that is coming in is bouncing around all over the place.
Polling cannot predict turnout. A mid-term election is highly unpredictable because no polling organization polls all 435 districts and all 50 states frequently. No one knows what is happening in districts that are assumed to be so safe as to not warrant polls.
There are going to be a lot of surprises in this election and they are not going to break all one way.
Right, which is why I said to take Silver with a grain of salt. His prediction two weeks ago of the outcome in PA-06 is bullshit. I even Tweeted him so. Why do I know this? Because, I live here, and I looked up Gerlach’s record. He couldn’t even get 54%(which is what Nate predicted) against an empty suit in ’08. In fact, Gerlach has never gotten above 52% ever, in a district that is getting bluer(and that includes Presidential and non-Presidential years) and now Nate tells me that Gerlach is going to get 54%? I don’t buy it for a second.
And maybe the Jon Stewarts of the world will stop pretending to be above it all, get off their smug and self-righteous asses and lose the fake equivalence long enough to go vote.
Thank you. Finally someone else who was basically unimpressed. Not going to change things because 250,000 too-cool-for-school Nader voters who just know that it’s all a shuck, and that acting as though any of this actually matters is not fashion-forward turn up on the Mall.
A third of them still won’t vote — it’s tragically unhip –, and the remaining two-thirds will cancel each other out. The prosperous — and that crowd skewed prosperous — will go with whomever dangles the largest tax cut in front of them — that’ll be with the Republicans. The last third aren’t numerous enough to save the nation.
Irony, not tyranny, is what will finish off this Republic.
What you see as false equivalence, I see as a satirical and rhetorical feint aimed at false equivalence and funny to those who actually know what people in the media are saying.
But it doesn’t matter. African-American radio and Hispanic broadcasting is going to have more effect on the election than John Stewart’s audience, most of whom either have already voted or are going to vote.
Criticism of Stewart is based on the magical thinking that the media controls events. It does, only if one lets it. There are millions of folks in 435 Congressional districts determined to let neither the media nor the polling dictate reality. Their job is to reflect reality.
There is no guarantee that all of that immense effort will work. We will know on Tuesday. If it doesn’t, it will have been a predictable election like 1982. If it does, it will be a historic “come from behind” election that shows Obama’s continued popularity. At least, those are the two narratives that the media will chose between.
The media may not control events, but the magical thinking is that “it does only if one lets it.” I am in a district where not a single newspaper or television station broadcast the news that their crazy-right Congressman, who voted against bailouts, was owner of a bank which failed and whose depositors had to be bailed out for millions of dollars by the FDIC. The state’s main paper (not distributed in the district) mentioned it once in a news story and once in an editorial, but in this district, the only place where people will hear about it is in our ads. That makes it sound like overheated campaign rhetoric. It’s cold, hard fact that nevertheless exists only in political-land and has no being in public fact-land, because the media can’t or won’t touch it. That matters, and it matters whether I “let it” matter or not.
The only place that people will hear about it is in your ads or through personal networks. And the information that comes through personal networks will have more legitimacy than either the media or your ads. The more so if there is a public record, in state or out-of-state that can back up the claim. It’s a little late for this election to get that information out now, but that is why letting the media dominate the discourse to the point that it’s not real unless it is in the media is magical thinking. Magical thinking can be justified by events, even when there were more options for explanation.
It is this simple. Buying ads in the media in most areas is subsidizing the opposition. You are up against the media and nothing you can do in the media will completely give you and advantage. Organizing people who meet face-to-face, can be trusted, and trust each other’s information–and scrupulous attention to documenting from public records to improve your credibility. That’s the only way to get around media domination.
Obviously, this requires a lot of activity between elections. It cannot be a “Hail Mary” at the end of a campaign, nor can a large media buy be unless the messaging is unfailingly sharp and credible. And that is what has happened to Joe Miller and Christine O’Donnell. Suddenly the information became credible through attribution to trusted sources and public records.
For progressives and Democrats, the media is more or less a sucker’s game.
You’re from the South. Most of the personal political networking that’s done around here goes through the white dominionist churches. It’s constant. Its is a closed conversation. The facts do not disturb it, and nothing can penetrate it, with or without the media. It does not ever reflect on what is actually done in its name. People inside those personal networks will not talk to people from outside about politics. They are not interested in debating or hearing anything new. They “know” what they know. Their heads are entirely used as autonomic nervous systems and hatracks.
Of course we are backing up our claims from the public record, but the documentation is from the “liberal media” and the federal government, so it has no credibility with the bulk of white voters. As to subsidizing the opposition by buying ads in the media, there has been no other way to get them to broadcast damning facts about their Congressman.
The white South is going back to the mindset it had before the Civil War: closed, paranoid, murderous, foolish.
Cuts both ways. Black churches are doing the same thing, in the other direction.
And that, not a bunch of ironically detached hipsters, plus union families, other people of color, the LGBT community, Jews, and women, is the ‘Democratic base’.
The nose count is everything.
Correct about the black churches. Wish there were more of them with more members in this district. Ditto with union families etc. By definition, the progressives and college students who worked their asses off for Obama ALSO are the base, and are not ironically detached hipsters. Let’s not be reverse snobs, or discount the future effects of keeping those young people involved. And yes, our visible GOTV is better than the GOP’s locally. But I will be surprised if it is anything like enough to match the GOTV that happened inside the dominionist churches this morning – and every Sunday morning.
Personal political networking goes through family, friends, neighbors, co-workers. And not all of those are dominated white dominionist chruches, although some are. And not all of them are white, although most are. And not every contact you made will acknowledge that you influenced them until later, if at all.
A large segment of the white South has been bullying the rest into silence as it goes back to the mindset before the Civil War. When progressive Democrats white and black and Hispanic come out of “duck and cover” mode–wait only white affluent progressives are in duck-and-cover mode–that will make it safer for those who are now being bullied to speak up. It is what happened in the 1960s and 1970s. And the rest of the country can help us out by not freaking out over the loudmouths, but also keeping up with the networks in their own community that are enabling those Southern whites in their bullying. Without white dominionists in California, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Nebraska, and other non-Southern states, Southern white dominionists would skulk into the background.
You don’t debate the loudmouths, you see who shrinks back when the loudmouths open up and quietly and discreetly provide them with the information. It is a long-term strategy. And at some point, there will be a break similar to that of the 1960s in which those who want to move forward gain some measure of control again.
So do what you can now, and lay plans for bringing out this information when he runs again (if he gets elected). The fact that folks aren’t hearing it means that when it is brought up again and they hear it, it will be new.
I don’t know where you are, but it sounds like the Deep South (AL, MS, LA) or some parts of TX. Those are tough situations in the South; a lot of places never went through transformation that happened in other parts of the South in the 1970s. Progress will eventually reach that area. Hang in there.
Agree with you about the rally, except it might well help boost young, non-minority liberal turnout which otherwise might have stayed in their dorm rooms, and that’s so even though Stewart at the end did not actually tell the audience to go out and vote.
As a Dem, I’d be overjoyed if this one turned out like ’82. Actually that was one where the pundits seriously overestimated Repub losses. In 1982, with 10.8% unemployment and Reagan in negative territory in job approval, the GOP only lost 27 in the House, and zero senate seats. Amazing.
Today, with 9.6% unemployment and a prez a little more popular than Ronnie, Obama’s party is looking at a blowout loss in the House twice as bad as the GOP had in ’82 in actual numbers, plus a near loss of control in the senate.
I think 1982 — Ds do better than expected despite a terrible economy, only a few senate losses plus barely either keeping the HoR or barely losing it — and 1994 — massive HoR losses for Ds at more than the high 50s as at least one chamber changes hands and overall more of a blowout against the party in power than most polls are predicting, are the two media narrative frames.
Though if Rs do indeed win the House, but by a much smaller margin — say something in the 40s of seats as opposed to the 50s or more as predicted by most — that narrow victory will still be enough for the MSM to largely discuss the election results in terms of voter disapproval of the party in power, as opposed to how the Ds actually did better than predicted. As long as one chamber changes party majority — and particularly if it goes from D to R — that’s going to be the MSM emphasis, and margin of victory as compared to pre-election polls is going to be a footnote discussion.
There is no “Tea Party” except in the registrations in several states. There are “Tea Party” organizations. They are no different from people who have voted Republican since Ronald Reagan. Indeed a lot of them were Reagan’s base. Lobbyists can control some of the groups but not others.
Their philosophy is pretty simple and it is a reaction to a sense of powerlessness. We can’t control prices because Nixon did that and it made a mess and besides that imposes on the freedom of the market. And freedom is our talisman and mantra. We can’t control our working conditions or even our employment or income because we are in a recession and the free market is not hiring. But we can control our representative government that for too many years has taken our tax money and given it to corporations (which in turn hired many of us) or given it to efforts to end poverty improve education, most of which have failed because they don’t reinforce traditional values. That’s sort of a mainstream Tea Party position.
On the left of the Tea Party are the small businessmen, Chambers of Commerce, and country club Republicans who see this as a great non-sectarian way to turn out folks who the religious right had been turning out. And a way to rebrand the elephant after eight years of Bush’s disaster. And they are spending big money to co-opt the Tea Party constituents. And some Tea Party groups have observed that and resent it.
The movement will only be as strong as the votes it actually turns out for Republicans. And its success in putting reasonable legislators representing their point of view into Congress. More Virginia Foxx’s and Michele Bachmanns do not help them roll back government despite their theatrics.
On the right are the Birchers and LaRouchists and neo-Nazis and just plain out nutcakes who have come out of the shadows because of the internet. These folks are colorful, demanding, a small minority, and likely to easily go into a snit over a particular candidate’s messaging. The are unreliable voters, sometimes helping Republicans, sometimes being spoilers.
Finally, there are the large majority of Republicans who are not aligned with the Tea Party. And who put up the campaign signs, reliably vote, and often are multi-generational Republican families who have seen the drift from Eisenhower to now. These are the folks in question in this election. These are the folks most likely to lie about how they are going to vote, just like the Reagan Democrats did. They are the ones who might turn on Tea Party candidates in supposed safe Republican districts. Which are also the districts least likely to be polled. They might cause a Libertarian or Constitution Party candidate to will if they seem reasonable in their demeanor and not loopy. In the Senate races, clearly these are the folks who will defeat Joe Miller and Christine O’Donnell.
And after the election, the Tea Party folks that cannot be co-opted will be ignored.
Booman,
There are way too many underpolled and tossup districts for ANYONE in their right mind to think they know that the Dems are going to lose the House. The pundits talk about this the same way the baseball analysts on ESPN were entirely confident it would be the Rays or Yankees and the Phillies in the World Series today. Hmmm…
I’ve volunteered to be a pollwatcher all day Tuesday in a mixed Hispanic/Black district to keep the Mark Kirk plan from working in at least one location in Chicago. So I’m getting up at 5:00 a.m and going with a friend — taking a day off work when my office is too insanely busy to take even an hour off –for a midterm?! I can guarantee you I’ve never done that before so that’s just a tiny example how this midterm is different than previous ones.
C’mon, I think Colbert’s Fear Team got to you yesterday instead of Stewart’s very true statement that there is more of us than there are of them. 🙂
Obama’s helicopters just shook my condo building flying over about an hour ago and I am still very hopeful that Gov Dean is right and that the Teabaggers will get their world shook up in a bad way come Tuesday night.
What do you make of Michael Steele saying “Even if we fall short in the House, it’s still a success”?
When, where did he say this? Recently?
Michael Steele Even if we fall short in the House, it’s a success”, a Sam Stein report.
Turns out the actual quote is:
Paraphrase: If we’re not dead, we win.
Thanks! So he wants to consider 37 a success? Interesting. Although it is Michael Steele…
Not being dead as a party is a success. That’s his claim.
I respectfully disagree with your assessment of the “Restore . . .” rally.
Here is what I think:
http://libertystreet.wordpress.com/2010/10/31/rally-to-restore/
Check out Steve Singiser’s piece on dKos.
And stock your liquor cabinet accordingly.
Sorry, but here it is.
Yesterday in my article Daily Kos. Business as usual and the fall of the Obama Empire I posted:
Here is what the effect of the whole Stewart thing will be:
For every leftiness clone who looks at the coverage or is contacted by emails begging them to vote and actually does so…and when I hear the begging tone that is emanating from the Dems up and down the line I am fairly sure that the party inner circle is scared shitless about what is going to happen tomorrow..for every Dem vote there is going to be created a Ratpub vote based on aversion to the perceived “lightweights” that they see in the movement. At rallies, on MSNBC and the Comedy Channel, etc.
Watch.
Snark is not a viable political tactic.
Sorry.
Over and out.
I have to leave the house now to go pick up my Reagan mask. Not for Hallowe’en…for the approaching weeks and months afterward.
Gotta eat…
AG
Snark is not a political tactic at all. It is a means to keep people from committing suicide, seeing how Canada is no longer open to political refugees from the US. And the fact that its popularity extends so far toward the center tells you what a mell of a hess we are in.
Snark may not have been a “tactic” at first Tarheel, although I am not even sure about that. Do you not think that Olbermann, Stewart, Michael Moore and Bill Maher (just to name a few of the most prominent leftiness snarkers) had hopes of actually achieving political results from their humor?
I do.
But be it practical tactical action or just humor for profit, it is a “tactic” if it is seen by others as a tactic.
And make no mistake, that is exactly how both their fans and their detractors see it.
More detractors than fans, by the ratings numbers.
More nay votes than yea votes as a result.
That’s the way I see it, anyway.
Tuesday will tell.
AG
Snark may not have been a “tactic” at first Tarheel, although I am not even sure about that. Do you not think that Olbermann, Stewart, Michael Moore and Bill Maher (just to name a few of the most prominent leftiness snarkers) had hopes of actually achieving political results from their humor?
I do.
But be it practical tactical action or just humor for profit, it is a “tactic” if it is seen by others as a tactic.
And make no mistake, that is exactly how both their fans and their detractors see it.
More detractors than fans, by the ratings numbers.
More nay votes than yea votes as a result.
That’s the way I see it, anyway.
Tuesday will tell.
AG
What “real left wing”?? And how are the others lightweights? Compared to what? Palin? Beck? ODonnell? The Rep votes you predict were already there. The election will be won or lost on whether these “lightweights” vote or not. You live in LightweightLand, but the lightness does not limit itself to liberals. Get used to it.