I also noticed that Stu Rothenberg and Larry Sabato wrote bearish articles today about the Democrats’ chances of retaking the House of Representatives. I suppose we will read different iterations of those arguments for the next 18 months. Rothenberg’s approach is more useful because he looks more at individual districts and lawmakers than at historical trends. I’ve discussed this before but you can’t compare the second midterm of Obama’s presidency to LBJ’s (Vietnam), Nixon/Ford’s (Watergate), Reagan’s (Iran-Contra), Clinton’s (Lewinsky) or Dubya’s (Iraq/Katrina) second midterms. Our two-term presidents have been uniformly terrible in the first two years of their second terms. Maybe Obama will be as well, but there are no signs right now that he is about to blunder his way into anything close to the above list of fail.
History doesn’t matter here. What is much more significant is that the Republican Party is currently tearing itself apart over immigration and gay rights and anti-tax absolutism. It’s more significant that John Boehner has no control over his caucus. It’s significant that the country can’t do anything until the GOP gets out of the way.
We can win back the House because we have to. It may look impossible, but it may be more impossible to live with the status quo.
I agree about most pundit’s historical “analysis”. They are just a form of local folk wisdom or outright superstition. It may be that somewhere, sometime, someone really broke their back upon stepping on a crack.
The district-counting is better, but doesn’t take into account the unknown and uncontrolled events and shifts that sweep in and change everything.
Yes, the Dems could win the House. My own cause for pessimism is the pathetic loser behavior of the chamber we do supposedly control. The sloppy, politically inscrutable actions of the Dem leadership there makes me seriously wonder about the party’s ability to stage the kind of campaigns they’ll need to win. We need to push them way more than we need to push the Reps.
The Democratic Party seems to be too risk-averse to try and intentionally stir up those unknown and uncontrolled events.
You’re right, historical analogies are ridiculous.
I don’t remember any time in my life when the political situation was as bizarre and lopsided as it is right now.
Something’s gotta give.
There’s a political equivalent of “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent”, and we’re living it.
Sure, that’s their strategy — chaos and disruption. But it’s purely a rear-guard action. They’ve already lost the war. From 2009 to now, their position has steadily eroded. After PBO’s reelection, I don’t think this can be denied any longer. You have to look back at 2009-2012 from that perspective as well.
They started with a lot of power, they still have considerable power, but they can only use it to obstruct, they are boxed in. And they pay a heavy price for this strategy. To the extent it’s working for them, it’s also working against them. And Boehner has lost control of his caucus.
With a 12-15 seat House majority, no peel-able moderate Republicans (they’re as extinct as passenger pigeons) and money bills needing to originate in the House, you can fight one helluva holding action,
I don’t have the link and I’m too lazy to look for it, but there was a year when the Senate changed hands three or four times due to election, deaths, and resignations. That’s bizarre.
We don’t have a choice. It is pretty clear that the Republican plan is to thwart any action to improve the economy, deal with climate change, reform our broken immigration system-etc.
I see 2014 as our big chance. This is it. We will have two years to get anything done so ready or not we have to do whatever it takes to win the House and Senate–big!
Damn straight. Forward!
No, 2012 was our big chance. Mid-terms don’t bring out the big crowds that a Presidential does. But the wingnuts will be out in force. They always are.
It is easy to be pessimistic about these things. It is harder to be optimistic, to get off your butt, to fight and to try. So many improbable things have happened in American history. A black President named Barack Hussein Obama is just one of the more recent ones.
Past performance is not always a good predictor of future results. We’re conditioned to believe it is, and it often blinds us to the fact that individual people taking action are what changes history, not human beings walking mindlessly to a prescribed fate.
Don’t let the numbers get you down. Fight.
But fight what? Do we have to take on both parties at once? Harry Reid and a bunch of other Dem cowards have proven to be as much our enemies as the GOP.
I know that this is what has almost always been but what I am saying is to hell with that. I’ve got kids so I have no choice but to fight.
I’m not saying that we shouldn’t fight. I’m saying this isn’t a good chance. We have to fight just to stay even.
Wish I had your enthusiasm, Booman, but just looking at how gerrymandered the map is, I think getting another 18 seats is going to be a really tough path just given how tricky it is.
To be honest, the only way House Democrats will have any real say in what goes on is if there are 20-25 sane House GOP who get tired of absolutely nothing getting done and ally with Democrats to elect a ‘moderate’ Republican as Speaker and work to at least get stuff like VAWA passed without a hassle.
The next realistic chance is in 2016 if we get Hillary to run and we get a landslide map. Otherwise, we need to do well in 2020.
I see that the senate has passed a continuing resolution with supposedly minimal changes from the house version.
Does that mean that the house is going to pass the senate’s version? Or are they going to be as intractable as they’ve been?
IIRC, Booman you made the projection that the tea party caucus isn’t going to stand for end-runs around the Hastert rule. Would that be required to get a CR to the president’s desk next week?
what can they do about it?
I don’t know — I suppose Boehner could back off and decide to shut the government down if there’s enough opposition among tea partiers.
Yeah, well, as of 2008 55 of 55 presidential elections had been won by white men.
Yes we did!!
A wiser man than me once said that the future ain’t what it used to be.
I suppose I’ll take a look at how the numbers are shaking out a bit closer to the actual election day. Right now, these armchair predictions by these pundits just seem like one big circle jerk.
Yes at this point in 2005 Rove was busy running the permanent GOP majority and in 2009 it was “Happy Days Are Here Again” for the coming decade.
Chained CPI.
The whole “Grand Bargain” is just negotiating with terrorists. Why not support the Progressive Budget and make the Republican Party own every last line item of Ryan’s granny-starving love letter to the rich?
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/03/20/wednesday-morning-open-thread-choices/
The GOP will pick up seats in the House, pretty sure.
There doesn’t have to be a specific failure of the second term President (Iran-Contra, for example, didn’t become known until shortly after the 1986 elections). There are always going to be people who are angry about something the President has done, and people who are angry are the ones who are most likely to show up and vote.
The Congressional map is far from neutral, and there are very few genuine swing districts. And, the Democrats picked up most of the close House races in 2012. It seems to me a lot more likely that the Democrats lose the Senate than that they take the House.
I remember when the Democrats were going to lose the Senate in the 2012 elections.
No despair!