Was it all so simple then, or has time rewritten every line? Barbara Streisand The Way We Were
That classic Streisand torch song may well go down as the GOP’s funeral dirge for the 2022 midterms. 6-8 months ago, life was good if you were a GOPasaur. They had a simple 2 prong strategy, and the path was wide open.
First, make the midterms a referendum on Biden’s tanking popularity, rising gas prices, and rampant inflation. And the second, since they lack any substantive programs of agenda, was to fight an endless series of culture wars to fire up their base to show up and propel them back into power.
And they would still love to run the midterms on that map, but in the last few months, they have literally fallen through Alice’s mythical looking glass, where up is down, and left is right, and nothing makes any sense any more. And they don’t know what to do about it.
On the first part of their master plan, suddenly Biden’s star is ascendent. Gas prices are still falling, unemployment is still at record lows, the economy is still creating jobs at numbers above expectations, and inflation appears to possibly be beginning to recede. A personal aside. At our local Smith’s grocery store yesterday, the price for an 18 pack of large eggs dropped $0.80 in one fell swoop.
Due to a series of mid and late summer legislative accomplishments, Biden’s polling numbers are also on the rise, basically back in the same ballpark of most 1st term Presidents in the midterms. As a result, he’s becoming a potent campaign force on the road, in select locations. And worst of all, he’s coming right out and calling the MAGA GOP what they are, anti democratic, quasi-fascist lunatics.
And then there’s the second prong of the GOP’s midterm carving fork, their vaunted culture wars. But the GOP envisioned running on a culture war platform of critical race theory, indoctrination in schools, so called voter integrity, anti LGBTQ laws, and the ever popular brown invasion. But it isn’t working out that way.
Instead the Democrats told them, You clowns want a culture war? We’ll give you a culture war!, and have presented them with a Golden Corral buffet of culture war issues. But they’re culture war issues that people actually care about. Things like voting rights, racial equality, abortion rights, non indoctrination education, gun control and global climate change. And a look at recent polls shows that the majority of the Democrats culture war issues come in much higher than the GOP’s.
And now the GOP has to deal with a joker-in-the-deck. Traitor Tot. To be sure, nothing motivates the MAGA base like when Trump sticks his fat, stubby fingers into an election cycle. Which only tends to lead to entire slates of insaniac Trombies on the ballot that can’t win in a general election. And it’s also true that nothing motivates Democratic base voters like the specter of a Trump 2024 run. Now throw in the fact that almost the entire GOP and RNC are stony broke because Trump has a teat lock on small money GOP donors, and it’s a recipe for disaster.
My advice? Take nothing for granted this year. Traditions are traditions for a reason. But they’re based on a stable set of circumstances. The only 2 modern times a President gained seats in his 1st midterm were anomalies. Voters in 1998 didn’t like Gingrich’s overreach in trying to impeach Clinton, and spanked the GOP. And in 2002, George W Bush rode post 9/11 national fervor to House gains. The post Roe v Wade fervor to right the ship, both nationally as well as in states themselves, could be another flash in the pan. Don’t touch that dial.
Mad Hatter: “why is a raven like a writing desk? Have you guessed the riddle yet?” The Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
” No. I give up”, Alice replied. “What’s the answer?”
” I haven’t the slightest idea.” said the Hatter
This is the gop discussing midterm strategy.
The final track of the Eagles’ classic concept album had it right for this crowd:
“The Queen of Diamonds let you down/She was just an empty fable,/The Queen of Hearts, you say you never met. Now your twisted fate has found you out/And it’s finally turned the table,/Stole your dream and paid you with regret.”
The bill’s coming due, GOP. And the collector on it don’t take IOUs.
Just to clarify, 1998 was Clinton’s second midterm. but the gist is that midterms do not always go against the incumbent, so conventional wisdom does not always work. trump has upset the apple cart, conventional wisdom only works when parties are closely divided. US voters have tended to vote to keep a balance somewhere around some middle ground. That doesn’t exist, trump has tipped the supreme court into ground that most voters are not comfortable with. With one branch crazy hard right, voters will look to balance that out by leaving the legislature in Democratic control. The worst for Mcturtle is that the senate will stay in Democratic hands meaning Biden will continue the unwind the chaos in the judiciary that was enabled by mcturtle under trump. I may not see another republican president in my lifetime until the balance is restored.
And 2002 was Bush’s first midterm. What’s your point? The TIMING of the midterm isn’t key; it’s the surrounding events that lead to it. In Clinton’s first midterm, the GOP regained control of Congress for the first time since the late 1940s; in Bush’s second midterm, the Democrats regained control of Congress for the first time since 1994 (they got brief control of the Senate thanks to Dubya’s decision to snub Jim Jeffords so that he switched from GOP to IND and chose to caucus with the Dems, breaking the GOP control of the Senate–but only for a year and change but the House was still firmly in GOP hands).
And you really fall into a trap by relying on the “voters” and that “balance.” That “balance” thing is a myth. The GOP got the Senate in 1980 because of Reagan’s coattails but lost that control in 1986 when those GOP incumbents didn’t have Reagan at the top of the ticket (there were some other issues in play but Reagan’s coattails just weren’t there; in 1980, the GOP picked up 12 seats and in 1986, they lost 8). In 1994, there wasn’t any need for “balance” since Congressional Dems were Clinton’s bigger foes than any GOPer was. And in 2010, what “balance” was needed? People saw how the GOP was obstructing (through lies, of course) Obama’s health care plan–something that would’ve benefited the voters–but, again, Obama’s bigger problem was with voters who’d voted for that “hope and change” in 2008 without paying any attention to *reality* and the need for compromise and working together (and they’d completely ignored–thanks in no small part to the “we must be balanced” media that gave far more face time to GOPers–all of McConnell’s machinations to obstruct Obama at every turn). Because Obama didn’t give Democratic voters everything he’d promised in 2008, the GOP was able to turn out their voters with all the scary talk about the “Marxist socialist in the White House.”
The real problem for midterms is that while most Americans nationally don’t like the GOP stance, midterms are for state reps, and red states disagree on culture war issues. Unless women get out the vote over Roe, we will still.lose the House.
Guess we’ll find out whether the women in the US are paying attention to what the old white geezers & religious hypocrites are doing to them. Nothing survives in this world without someone paying attention & nurturing it, including YOUR RIGHTS ladies. You didn’t get to vote until the early part of the 20th century. TIME TO USE IT!!!!