Plunging Towards Gomorrah
Posts tagged November
November Elections Loom Large
Apr 28th
It’s only a few months until November and it’s not likely that any kind of economic rebound is going to save the Democrats in the Fall. The American public’s view of ObamaCare hasn’t gotten better (worse, if anything) and the Democrats do not have anything popular to offer. In fact, the two major pieces of their agenda, climate change and immigration, are political kryptonite. Some political observers are predicting an election tsunami:
That’s the projection of Republican new media maven Patrick Ruffini. Lest you write off his projection that a 70-seat Republican gain (which would leave Republicans with a 248-187 majority, larger than any they have won since 1928) keep in mind that Ruffini was one of the very first to predict that Marco Rubio could become the leader in the Florida Senate race and that Scott Brown had a very real chance to win in Massachusetts. Here I should add the usual caveats about how opinion can change and the balance of enthusiasm could change even faster. But the Democrats’ current tactic of prioritizing legislation to weaken Republicans’ standings (among all voters on financial regulation, among Hispanics on immigration, among young voters on cap-and-trade and the environment) doesn’t really address their current problem, which is that the Democrats’ standing among voters is at a record low and that they’re getting pasted in polls despite the fact that the Republicans’ standing among voters is not particularly high.
The question is what happens if this takes place? The Republicans don’t really have strong voice right now and I’m not sure what their prepared to offer if they’re ushered back into power. I know what the conservative/libertarian ideas are, but what does the GOP have to offer? Supposedly the GOP is small government, but what are they going to do?
Obama would have to meet in the middle to accomplish anything, but what would that mean? If the GOP wants to cash in on the current electoral landscape they need to come up with some populist ideas. Otherwise the White House is going to have a Saul Alinsky field day picking on various leaders in Congress. President Obama isn’t prepared for an ideological debate about fiscal issues.
