Losing Faith in the Democratic Majority Materializing
Back in January, I made predictions for this fall's Senate, House, and gubernatorial races, predicting some very impressive gains for Democrats. Three months later, the Bush administration has endured an unending barrage of negative publicity, the corruption scandals related to Jack Abramoff have tainted the entire Republican and led to the resignation of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and a string of policy failures have made Congress look even weaker now that it did at the end of 2005. Yet even with all this negative mojo plaguing majority Republicans, I can state without reservation that the Democrats are in a weaker position to pull off the kind of electoral wide that is necessary to return to the majority.
So what's going wrong?
For starters, the outlook for individual races has not improved for Democrats as the campaign season has proceeded. In the Senate races, pressure by party leaders prompted a disillusioned Paul Hackett out of the race in Ohio. Hackett was the kind of charismatic straight-shooter who would have been able to win over voters who didn't personally agree with him on all or even most issues. He was a loose cannon prone to bombastic statements that could have easily been his Achille's heel, but he was nonetheless the candidate better positioned to take out Republican incumbent Mike DeWine. Sherrod Brown, the northeast Ohio Congressman who Democratic party leaders preferred, has a nice progressive voting record, but is short on charisma and long on arrogance all too often. In the southern region of the state where Hackett would have been able to still thousands of Republican votes, Brown most likely will get skunked.....and lose the race. The odds for picking up the Ohio Senate seat got a lot longer with the withdrawal of Hackett from the race.....and Brown's lackluster campaign is pulling it further out of reach with each passing day.
Little has significantly changed in the other battleground Senate races since January, but all kinds of things have changed in the House. Unfortunately, I don't believe any of these changes have produced a net gain for Democrats. On the positive side, senior Republicans Jim Kolbe and Sherwood Boehlert are retiring, turning their swing districts into top-tier battlegrounds; former Democratic Congressman Ken Lucas is coming out of retirement to try to take back his conservative northern Kentucky district; and Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth won her hotly-contested primary in the open IL-06 district, upping Democratic chances of swiping Henry Hyde's vacated seat.
On the other hand, "Fighting Dem" Tim Dunn, the only Democrat who could win North Carolina's conservative 8th district, has changed his mind about running; easy target Tom DeLay is resigning, decreasing the chances of Nick Lampson to turn that district blue (and robbing Dems of a key bogeyman for their "culture of corruption" theme); and Democrat Charlie Wilson of OH-06 screwed up his ballot petition and will now have to see if he squeak by in next month's primary as a write-in candidate against two token contenders who apparently were smart enough to turn in a sufficient ballot petition.
But the most disheartening event of recent months was last week's special election for California's 50th district, where the open seat vacated by prison-bound Randy "Crook" Cunningham. Here was a case where an exposed Republican crook had just left his Republican-leaning seat in an ultimate act of disgrace. The Democrats had a candidate in Francine Busby with strong name recognition (she ran against Cunningham in 2004), a generous bank account, and a divided field of Republican candidates. Few suspected Busby would pull in the necessary 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff in June, but the existing situation in the country left Democrats optimistic for a 47% or 48% showing that would position her well for the runoff. But when the time came, Busby could only muster 44%, barely overperforming John Kerry's performance in 2004. Her eventual Republican challenger, Brian Bilbray, only pulled in 15% in the crowded GOP field, but it's now an extreme longshot for Busby to improve her performance by 6% in the runoff considering nearly all of the 56% of voters who didn't cast a ballot for her last Tuesday voted for a Republican of some stripe.
The post-mortem in this race is troubling for a number of reasons. Busby couldn't seal the deal even in the current political environment where we're told Republicans are in such deep trouble. In fact, she barely did better in this district than Kerry did, indicating the partisan needle may not have moved as far as many Dems have thought. Even worse is that turnout was an abysmal 36%. While turnout is always low in special elections, lackluster turnout here is indicative of an electorate that is not yet outraged to the point of "needing change"....and the Democrats need voters, particularly independents, at that point come November 7. If Busby had consolidated the independent vote and Democrats in the district, she would have won....but if she can't even motivate the independents to come to the polls, it's a moot point.
The lack of motivation of independent voters is a troubling sign heading into this fall's midterms. Current conventional wisdom suggests that it's disillusioned Republican voters who will be too angry or disappointed with the President to head to the polls this November, but I'm not buying it. This is the post-Karl Rove era, where one stray comment by Nancy Pelosi or one well-timed exploitation of a mindless wedge issue will compel the GOP true believers to the polls in one fell swoop. And Republicans know they're in trouble, as opposed to Democrats at this time in 1994 when they thought the upcoming November midterms would essentially be business as usual. That will give them ample opportunity to formulate a Rovian strategy to minimize losses and fuel Republican turnout. Assuming Republican turnout is comparable to what it was in 2002 and 2004, the Dems will be completely dependent upon a near-sweep of independent voters, and the preliminary CA-50 results indicate the Dems have a long way to go in making that sale.
Alot can happen in the next 6 1/2 months, but the Democrats had better have a strategy that rises above "we're not them" if they plan to be taken seriously. I'm torn over whether a Democratic alternative of Newt Gingrich's Contract with America is the right strategy or not, but they need some sort of affirmative message to bring to this campaign beyond the "culture of corruption" tagline for Republicans. If they do, they can still win the 15 seats they need to take back the House of Representatives. If they don't, they'll almost assuredly have two more years to drift further into the political wilderness.
So what's going wrong?
For starters, the outlook for individual races has not improved for Democrats as the campaign season has proceeded. In the Senate races, pressure by party leaders prompted a disillusioned Paul Hackett out of the race in Ohio. Hackett was the kind of charismatic straight-shooter who would have been able to win over voters who didn't personally agree with him on all or even most issues. He was a loose cannon prone to bombastic statements that could have easily been his Achille's heel, but he was nonetheless the candidate better positioned to take out Republican incumbent Mike DeWine. Sherrod Brown, the northeast Ohio Congressman who Democratic party leaders preferred, has a nice progressive voting record, but is short on charisma and long on arrogance all too often. In the southern region of the state where Hackett would have been able to still thousands of Republican votes, Brown most likely will get skunked.....and lose the race. The odds for picking up the Ohio Senate seat got a lot longer with the withdrawal of Hackett from the race.....and Brown's lackluster campaign is pulling it further out of reach with each passing day.
Little has significantly changed in the other battleground Senate races since January, but all kinds of things have changed in the House. Unfortunately, I don't believe any of these changes have produced a net gain for Democrats. On the positive side, senior Republicans Jim Kolbe and Sherwood Boehlert are retiring, turning their swing districts into top-tier battlegrounds; former Democratic Congressman Ken Lucas is coming out of retirement to try to take back his conservative northern Kentucky district; and Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth won her hotly-contested primary in the open IL-06 district, upping Democratic chances of swiping Henry Hyde's vacated seat.
On the other hand, "Fighting Dem" Tim Dunn, the only Democrat who could win North Carolina's conservative 8th district, has changed his mind about running; easy target Tom DeLay is resigning, decreasing the chances of Nick Lampson to turn that district blue (and robbing Dems of a key bogeyman for their "culture of corruption" theme); and Democrat Charlie Wilson of OH-06 screwed up his ballot petition and will now have to see if he squeak by in next month's primary as a write-in candidate against two token contenders who apparently were smart enough to turn in a sufficient ballot petition.
But the most disheartening event of recent months was last week's special election for California's 50th district, where the open seat vacated by prison-bound Randy "Crook" Cunningham. Here was a case where an exposed Republican crook had just left his Republican-leaning seat in an ultimate act of disgrace. The Democrats had a candidate in Francine Busby with strong name recognition (she ran against Cunningham in 2004), a generous bank account, and a divided field of Republican candidates. Few suspected Busby would pull in the necessary 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff in June, but the existing situation in the country left Democrats optimistic for a 47% or 48% showing that would position her well for the runoff. But when the time came, Busby could only muster 44%, barely overperforming John Kerry's performance in 2004. Her eventual Republican challenger, Brian Bilbray, only pulled in 15% in the crowded GOP field, but it's now an extreme longshot for Busby to improve her performance by 6% in the runoff considering nearly all of the 56% of voters who didn't cast a ballot for her last Tuesday voted for a Republican of some stripe.
The post-mortem in this race is troubling for a number of reasons. Busby couldn't seal the deal even in the current political environment where we're told Republicans are in such deep trouble. In fact, she barely did better in this district than Kerry did, indicating the partisan needle may not have moved as far as many Dems have thought. Even worse is that turnout was an abysmal 36%. While turnout is always low in special elections, lackluster turnout here is indicative of an electorate that is not yet outraged to the point of "needing change"....and the Democrats need voters, particularly independents, at that point come November 7. If Busby had consolidated the independent vote and Democrats in the district, she would have won....but if she can't even motivate the independents to come to the polls, it's a moot point.
The lack of motivation of independent voters is a troubling sign heading into this fall's midterms. Current conventional wisdom suggests that it's disillusioned Republican voters who will be too angry or disappointed with the President to head to the polls this November, but I'm not buying it. This is the post-Karl Rove era, where one stray comment by Nancy Pelosi or one well-timed exploitation of a mindless wedge issue will compel the GOP true believers to the polls in one fell swoop. And Republicans know they're in trouble, as opposed to Democrats at this time in 1994 when they thought the upcoming November midterms would essentially be business as usual. That will give them ample opportunity to formulate a Rovian strategy to minimize losses and fuel Republican turnout. Assuming Republican turnout is comparable to what it was in 2002 and 2004, the Dems will be completely dependent upon a near-sweep of independent voters, and the preliminary CA-50 results indicate the Dems have a long way to go in making that sale.
Alot can happen in the next 6 1/2 months, but the Democrats had better have a strategy that rises above "we're not them" if they plan to be taken seriously. I'm torn over whether a Democratic alternative of Newt Gingrich's Contract with America is the right strategy or not, but they need some sort of affirmative message to bring to this campaign beyond the "culture of corruption" tagline for Republicans. If they do, they can still win the 15 seats they need to take back the House of Representatives. If they don't, they'll almost assuredly have two more years to drift further into the political wilderness.
posted by Mark at 6:24 PM
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