I hope it isn’t true that the Democrats would need a +13 advantage on the generic ballot in order to win back the House of Representatives in 2014. Alan I. Abramowitz’s analysis is solid and it’s based on a model which looks at all 17 midterm elections since the end of World War Two. The problem is that so many of those midterms had individualized factors that should outweigh any effort to generalize. I’m just going to off the top of my head here:
1946: the shock of the post-war economy.
1950: the beginning of the Korean War.
1954: nothing in particular stands out for me.
1958: economic recession.
1962: Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis.
1966: backlash against Civil Rights, Vietnam War.
1970: backlash against expansion of Vietnam War.
1974: Watergate.
1978: struggling economy.
1982: economic recession.
1986: Iran-Contra.
1990: Persian Gulf War
1994: GINGRICH REVOLUTION
1998: L’affaire Lewinsky/impeachment
2002: post 9/11 era.
2006: Iraq War fatigue.
2010: The Great Recession.
Only in 1998 and 2002 did the president’s party make gains in the House. And the impeachment of the president and the 9/11 attacks were highly anomalous events. But it’s pretty easy to see that there were usually good reasons for the citizens of this country to be pissed off at the administration. In some cases, the anger was somewhat amorphous and based in a generalized economic anxiety, but more often people were outraged by scandal or feeling war-weary.
As I look forward to 2014, I cannot fit it into any of these 17 previous examples. The closest I can get is 1998, because that is the only example that matches up with the congressional overreach we are seeing from Republicans. But the president was badly damaged by scandal and the economy was booming, which doesn’t align with our present situation at all. Congressional approval is at 13%, which is historically low. Depending on the polling outfit, the Democrats’ generic ballot advantage is currently somewhere between four and eight percent. The president’s approval rating is narrowly positive, albeit with more strongly disapproving than strongly approving. The Democrats look to be in good shape to win seats, but not enough to win the House.
DCCC chairman Steve Israel appears to be pursuing a modified Ramn Emanuel approach to winning back the House. He’s more focused on suburban seats than the rural or southern seats that Emanuel targeted, but he’s seeking non-ideological candidates who he hopes will match the ambivalent attitudes seen in the socially moderate tax-averse communities that ring our cities.
That may work in districts where the voters preferred Mitt Romney but I think it’s a dangerous strategy if it means that the party isn’t going to run on the GOP being the biggest obstacle to addressing the problems the country is facing. Obviously, we have to look at each district individually. In some places, the electorate is just hostile to the president, but not necessarily his party. In other places, the electorate is with the Democrats on social issues but against them on fiscal issues. In still other places, the electorate is pretty solidly with the Republicans on social issues but potentially receptive to the Democrats on fiscal issues. I think Rep. Israel is hoping to fit candidates to their districts and run against a very unpopular Congress. For that strategy to be successful, it kind of precludes a national message or an effort to go all out to win the fiscal argument. Instead, the DCCC will emphasize that their candidates are non-ideological and above partisan bickering. They are problem-solvers. They’ll go to Washington to end the gridlock.
The persuadable voters in this country may like the sound of that (they did as recently as 2008), but it’s basically bullshit. And it cuts off any effort to make a populist pitch for more progressive economic policies. That doesn’t mean it can’t work. If the GOP is too pinned down on social issues, making affluent voters comfortable with the Democratic Party’s tax policies, for example, can deliver a bunch of suburban seats. I would prefer, however, a more honest and directly partisan approach that paints the GOP as a radical southern party that is grossly out of touch with the values of the people living outside of New York, Philly, DC, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, Milwaukee, etc. Focusing on their refusal to compromise and the damage they are doing to the economy through multiple hostage crises and forced austerity is a better way to go, and it can play even in the South, where the social issues don’t cut our way. We’re basically using the same argument that Reagan did when he said the Democratic Party is no longer your father’s Democratic Party.
I’m a partisan, so naturally I am uncomfortable with post-partisan strategies. But I am also highly pragmatic and results-oriented. I can see why the DCCC is pursuing this strategy and also how it might work. But I think they are playing small ball. “Small ball” is a baseball term that refers to a strategy that emphasizes bunting, stealing bases, and moving runners along the bases with the intent of scoring a single run, rather than sitting back and waiting for the three-run homer. The result is that you have more innings in which you score but fewer innings in which you score a lot. Another baseball analogy is “swinging for the fences.” If you do that, you hit more home runs but you also strike out a lot.
In this case, there are two things to consider. One is scoring. We want to win back the House. But the other is governing. On the governing side, we have two further considerations. First, what kind of representatives will we have elected? Are they going to vote with us on the tough issues or vote against us to cover their backsides? Second, will we have won the argument and changed the electorate so that the people we elect won’t have to worry so much about their backsides?
It’s these latter two considerations that worry me. Since our odds of winning the House are not good in the first place, I’d rather swing for the fences than try to scratch out the narrowest of victories.
What do you think?
This is one of those times I’m completely with you, Boo. Not only is the DCCC approach one that promulgates bullshit, it’s also craven and cynical. It’s what everyone hates about politics and leads to the “both sides are to blame” narrative.
Let’s stand for something, for Christ sakes, and let’s stand for it from cycle to cycle; not just when it’s strategically advantageous. This is why so many of us loved Howard Dean. He may have been out of touch in many ways, but he said what he meant and meant what he said.
Also ask yourself, why were people like Justin Amash elected to Congress? Or why was the DCCC reluctant to fund David Gill in IL-13? If you think Steve Israel has the Democrats best interests at heart, you’re nuts. He’s a corporate tool, just like Rahmbo was/is.
The last thing I want to see is a new pack of blue dogs yapping around The Village, pissing on all the fire hydrants. They may look cute in the beginning, but after a while, the neighborhood just gets too smelly.
Yeah, it’s not a time for caution. In between cataloging all the trees and running statistical analyses to determine which are going to grow the tallest, the DCCC should take a step back and look at the goddamn forest. We’re sleepwalking into several massive crises right now–climate and energy are always the first two that come to my mind–and it’s going to take a collective effort on a monumental scale to deal with them. Only the federal government can lead that effort.
Of course, speaking of boys crying wolf, we’ve been hearing the Republicans going on and on since forever about how things like gay marriage and morning after pills imperil the very fabric of the universe, so you do have to figure out how to get people’s attention.
But what the hell, make some noise. There are all kinds of progressive Democratic policies that have huge public support, so fight for those policies. You either get your way or you highlight for everyone to see how insane the Republicans really are. I think the more people turn out to vote in 2014, the better the Democrats’ chances will be. So give them something to vote for.
DW-NOMINATE, for what it’s worth, says the House Democratic caucus is roughly as liberal as it has been at any time since 1920 — over 80 years.
If it’s as liberal as it has been any time in the last 80 years, and isn’t as large as it has been at any number of points during that time, there’s an argument to be made that there isn’t a lot of low-hanging fruit remaining to be picked with the left hand, so to speak.
If you want a whole lot lefter than that, you need a revolution.
FWIW, 1954 was the year that the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education decision came down. I don’t know how much that decision or race relations generally were part of the political atmosphere at the time — or even which way it would cut if they were — but I’ll toss that into the mix.
that was the year of the Army-McCarthy hearings, when McCarthy was slowly self-destructing.
The Democratic establishment does not want to win because then they would be totally responsible for events. The strategy seems to be to piss this one away just like they did in 2010.
The Congress is doing exactly what its major funders want, the people be damned. That is why Congressional Democrats have not moved to use Republican obstruction and the sequester to their advantage. It might disrupt their future careers in lobbying.
Progressives should not wait for Steve Israel to find candidates; they should force candidates on the DCCC, putting up strong progressive candidates to provide real choices for voters in GOP strongholds. And starting the groundwork now; really, for 2014 if you are not moving you are already behind the curve.
Voters will have to force the parties out of business as usual and will at the same time have to beware of efforts to co-opt reform efforts back into business as usual.
It’s not a spectator sport, Champ.
“they should force candidates on the DCCC”
We tried that last year. Had a great candidate who burst out of a primary field of five like a 4th of July skyrocket and worked her heart out campaigning. She was good enough to make the Dean Dozen. Guess how much help her campaign got from the DCCC? A whoppin’ in-kind of $2,500. Neither the DCCC nor the DSCC will ever see a penny from me again – ever.
What candidate is this? And don’t forget, the DCCC/DSCC isn’t above sabotaging Progressive candidates.
Shelli Yoder, IN-9th Congressional District. She lost to the rubber-stamp republican. She wound up taking a spot to fill a vacancy on the Monroe County Council a couple of months ago. Probably won’t see her name on a ballot for congress anytime soon, if ever.
As far as the historical perspective, I don’t know if there ever has been an ordinary time in the United States. At any rate, I’m always skeptical of efforts to find patterns in such a small sample. That’s 17 midterm elections since WWII, and in all of US history we’ve only had 56 of them.
Which isn’t a bad number to work with, actually, but then you also have to reckon with all kinds of other anomalies, the Civil War being just the most obvious of them. And then, too, if you look at the whole set, it isn’t just a question of parties gaining or losing control of Congress any more, you also have a could of occasions on which parties have totally collapsed.
Which isn’t to say that you can’t find patterns, just that you can’t be too quick to draw conclusions. In another sense, the issue isn’t that there’s too little data to work with, but too much. There are so many factors that determine the outcome of elections, it’s hard to know if you’ve identified them all, and assigned them all their proper weight. As to whether the Democrats can retake the House in 2014, the historical evidence is ambiguous at best.
Second, will we have won the argument and changed the electorate so that the people we elect won’t have to worry so much about their backsides?
If polls are to be believed, we are winning the argument. If you think Steve Israel kissing the ass of corporations is the key to taking back the House, why were Blue Dogs decimated in ’10? Acting like GOPers didn’t prevent them from suffering the massive blowout, did it? So why do you think GOP-lite is going to take the gavel from The Tan Man?
I don’t think anyone can judge what the mood of the country is going to be in 2014 yet. All the strategy in the world is moot if the voters who would normally vote for Dems stay home. I think looking at past mid-terms is a waste of time. There are too many unpredictable factors that will influence that election.
What I look for are the trends and one of the trends I’m seeing is that the Democrats totally get how important voting in 2014 will be and that is the strategy I want to see. Plus I think because the President is actively involved in recruiting and fund-raising this time, that will make a difference. I think an activated Dem base can turn out the vote and make elections that Conventional Wisdom writes off not only close, but winnable. I honestly believe we can take back the House. I don’t see anything right now to undermine my optimism on that score. I really think we’re better positioned to do the hard work than the Republicans are.
Except recruiting empty candidates(see the Kaplan Test Prep Post article Boo linked to above) like Steve Israel is doing isn’t going to help turn out one bit.
I miss the 50 state strategy. What happened to it?
Also if the presidents Social Security cuts go through the base is not going to come out.
That was a renegade policy the the official Democratic Party jettisoned as soon as it worked to put Democrats in control of Congress and the WH. They longed for the days when destroying the New Deal could be done quietly while rank-and-file Democrats were obsessed with the impeachment of Clinton. As it now is, will be easier for Democrats to assert that it’s House Republicans that are forcing Obama to gut Social Security and hope that the Democratic base doesn’t wake up and smell the coffee.
This is bizarre, and frankly embarrassing, unempirical thinking. There’s a reason why data is viewed in the aggregate.
A trend plainly exists in the data, but it’s one you’re dogmatically rejecting because it makes you feel bad. And so you’re finding excuses as to why the individual points are uncorrelated, even though they so plainly statistically are.
I will not be the slightest bit disappointed if Democrats don’t win back the House. The trend is not 100% determinitive, but it is relevant context for future events.