I’ve been saying for some time that the Democrats are in trouble. In fact, I’ve pointed out that it’s very, very likely the Democrats will lose the House and come very close to losing the Senate. Now the Democrats are starting to admit this as well.
In the past couple days, we’ve been hit with interesting poll results:
This should shake the Democrats up, right? Probably, but they’ve been so shaken up by internal polls for some time now that this is old news. Consider this quote from one Washington Democrat:• 48% of Americans think Obama’s views are extreme (42% don’t).
• Voters now trust the GOP more than the Democrats on all 10 of the most important issues identified by voters: education, health care, Iraq, the economy, social security, government ethics, national security, Afghanistan, taxes and immigration.
• Unelectable Colorado Tea Party Extremist Loser Ken Buck is leading Democrat Michael Bennet 48% to 40%.
• Unelectable Nevada Tea Party Nutjob Sharon Angle and Saint Harry Reid are tied 47% to 47%.
• Unelectable Corrupt Washington Insider Roy Blunt is leading Robin Carnahan 51% to 40% in bellwether Missouri.
• Unelectable freak Marco Rubio is winning his three way race against shoe-in Charlie Crist and also-ran Kendrick Meek 40% to 32% to 17%. And Crist’s numbers keep falling now that the Democrats have chosen a candidate.
• 60% of Americans still want ObamaCare repealed.
Who is saying this? Well, listen to one Democratic pollster who is working on several key races: “The reality is that the House majority is probably gone.” What’s worse, his data shows that the Democrats’ problems are “spreading.”“Democrats kept thinking: ‘We’re going to get better. We’re going to get well before the election.’ But as of this week, you now have people saying that Republicans are going to win the House, and now it’s starting to look like the Senate is going to be a lot closer than people thought.”
Democrats are in a panic. They’ve noted for example that House seats they considered “safe” are suddenly up for grabs. In a tacit admission of this, they've begun running ads in many of these safe districts, and even in districts where historically the GOP has never been competitive. Moreover, some Democrats have become so panicky that they’re running ads attacking their own leadership, and there is a sudden exodus of House committee staffers looking for lobbyist jobs before the election. Also, 15.4 million voters came out for Republicans in the primaries so far, but only 12 million came out for Democrats, evidence of a massive enthusiasm gap (polls show 46% of Republicans report being “very enthusiastic” compared to only 23% of Democrats).
As always, the Democrats are looking for a scapegoat. They seem to have chosen Obama. Indeed, they’re bitter that the “summer recovery” they were promised never came. . . waaaah, I never got my unicorn!! And they’re furious at the White House for “keeping the debate over a New York mosque in play for two weeks” and now trying to talk about Iraq when they should be talking about the economy.
But isn’t the economy Bush’s fault, you ask? Well, said one former party chairman: “the problem is that a lot of the message talks to the base, and we’ve got to talk to the middle. You can only blame Bush for so long.” You don’t say?
Speaking of the public, last week we learned a little bit about one of their key problems when information was released about polling and focus group work done on ObamaCare. It turns out that no one believes that ObamaCare will reduce costs, lower the national debt, or improve services. In fact, the public isn't buying any of the talking points put together by the Democrats (debunked here many times). In the end, the marketing gurus recommended that Democrats stop talking about it and instead talk about the future. . . including “fixing ObamaCare.”
Does this mean the Democrats are doomed? Not necessarily, but the evidence is getting pretty overwhelming that a disaster is coming. And even if the evidence doesn’t actually add up to a tidal wave yet, this type of pessimism often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Also, when I hear that the new plan is to demonize John Boehner, a man known by less than 1/3 of the electorate, I begin to suspect that the Democrats just might be on the wrong track.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of skunks.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Democrats Acknowledge Disaster
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22 comments:
Andrew: The Obamists should be rewriting the words to Home on the Range. "I know I just heard a discouraging word, and the skies are now cloudy all day."
The Democrats seem to have settled on Obama as the scapegoat. Actually, that seems incredibly logical to me. He is the leader of the party isn't he? Now admittedly, one could argue that the Democratic Congress polls even poorer than Obama.
I think he probably is the biggest reason, but Pelosi and Reid deserve just as much scorn, don't you think?
Lawhawk, From the sound of it, they're beyond discouraging and into despondent, trending toward angry. It should be fun to watch!
Jed, They blame Obama for (1) a lack of leadership, (2) for mishandling the public relations front, and (3) (as strange as it may sound) because his promises didn't turn out the way he promised them.
I find the last one very fascinating because you would think that if they believed in his policies, then they shouldn't be blaming him for how it turned out because they themselves thought it would work too. I suspect this really means that they don't believe in much except keeping their own jobs and they were assuming that Obama and his team were on the ball. Whoops.
Andrew,
The Democrats are panicking but aren't in full-panic mode yet.
They are casting for things to point to, but haven't settled on any thing specific. And the usual MSM cover is evaporating.
When they start frothing at the mouth is when it gets interesting. Do you have the popcorn ready?
it's like an earthquake hit way out in the ocean, is gaining speed and strength, and a voter tsunami is due to hit nov. 2nd.
my advice to dems: RUN FOR THE HILLS!
my captcha: hicks!
lol!
Joel, You can already see some of them panicking, but not the whole herd yet. I think full-on panic is only one or two more pieces of bad news away. And the way this administration works, I expect more bad news very soon.
Patti, It does feel that way.
In a related note, one of the things I find very interesting is that the new town halls (when they hold them) aren't as angry as last year, and the Democrats are seeing this as a good thing. I think the better interpretation is that this is a sign that it's too late to win people back. In other words, if people were still considering voting for the Democrats, they would show up and argue with them. But they've written them off and now aren't even bothering to show up.
Joel, Let me add that I agree with you that they haven't settled on a scapegoat yet, just as they haven't got a real strategy for approaching voters.
They've gone through almost 10 different sales pitches now and they've all fallen. At the same time, they've tried blaming Bush, obstructionist Republicans, the economy, right-wing sneakies who created the Tea Party movement, moderate Democrats, Pelosi, and now Obama. At some point, all this anger will blow up into something very nasty.
Andrew, the thing that has amazed me about Democrats over the past few years is that they seem to actually believe in the “everybody knows” mindset. Like “everybody knows” higher tax rates don’t dissuade economic growth. And “everybody knows” that the President has little influence on the economy. Or “everybody knows” that recessions end within nine months on their own, despite whatever the Government does.
Yet these things that “everybody knows” are only true as long as Government and the President show some restraint in their exercise of power, or as long tax rates are not raised beyond what the market will bear. Once Government signaled to Americans that it has no intentions of restraining itself, Americans did what they do best: hunker down to ride out the storm.
Right now, Americans rightly perceive unlimited risk from Government intervention with no commensurate reward on the horizon. There is no point in investing in such a climate. So capital is being removed from the system, both from the stock market and from the credit markets. The Democrats are unable to attract this capital back into the economy because they have shown no intentions to limit the risk of Government intervention.
Even if they did announce plans to scale back the Government before the elections in the hopes of attracting investment capital back into the markets, there would be no practical means to accomplish this. The majority of Democrats’ insane government policies have not been enacted through legislation, but are instead being dictated through fiat by unaccountable czars and department heads appointed by Obama. These tinpot dictators are not beholden to anyone but themselves, and define their success in their jobs through their ability to obstruct productive activity.
Until the executive branch is thoroughly flushed of Obama’s appointees, investment capital is going to stay away from the markets, and the economy won’t recover. Most voters are going to look at the economy when they cast their votes in November.
Thanks for the uplifting article, Andrew! :D
And goooooo Ken Buck! Woohooo!
Wasatchmo, You're absolutely right on all points. First, no one is going to invest money or hire people if they don't know what new rules are going to be heaped on them or what the tax rates will be. And the problem with how the Democrats have done what they've done (policy matters aside) is that everything they've done has brought more and more uncertainty.
That's the real scandal when you hear Pelosi say "we need to pass the bill to know what's in it." What she really meant was that until the bill gets implemented, we won't know how it will work. But that's the problem. If you don't know how it's going to work, then no one is going to invest or hire in that sort of climate.
I also agree with you that the Democrats have really fallen in love with the "everyone knows" idea. I attribute this to a total failure of ideology on their part. Basically, the left has stopped thinking and is now creating policy through knee-jerk reactions. "Hey, I don't like that, we should oppose it. Hey that sounds good, we should do that."
That doesn't lead to a lot of good ideas and usually leads to chaos.
You're welcome Crispy. And I agree, go Buck!
The Democrats running for election shouldn't blame barack hussein obama (leader of their Party). They need to tell the American people how it's all George Bush's fault.
LL, I think they've been trying that, but no one's buying it anymore. It's time to find a new scapegoat to explain their behavior over the past two years.
Love the Photoshop, LOL! I also believe the democrats are going to get a real thumping on 11/2. There is generally a lose of seats in an off year, for the party that holds the White House exception 2002, Bush actually made small gains. My worry is 11/12-14-16… and creeping conservative apathy, too flip this country around will require several election cycles.
Stan, Thanks! I often have to make my own pictures because there just isn't anything good out there. This is one of those moments.
I agree with you. My concern is that we will win the house and everyone will assume that everything is now ok and they'll stop paying attention. Hopefully, this time everything has changed, but history and human nature is against us on this.
Nice picture! It's very appropriate. Thanks for the good news. We need more of this since we spend our days working to pay off the debt these jackasses have run up in this past year. Every time I look at my paycheck and I see all those little dollars I earned disappearing to Uncle Sam, it just pisses me off so much, and these guys are the cause of that. We should cap income tax at 10%.
Ed, They have done incredible harm to our country in the last two years -- more economic harm that any prior President and Congress I would say. It's going to take a long, long time to undo this.
You're telling me. You should see my paycheck, or what's left of it.
Andrew
"As always, the Democrats are looking for a scapegoat. They seem to have chosen Obama"
Well those racists, how dare they!
It will be fun to see whether Nancy P takes one for the the team to save the Obamasaiah or goes on the attack if the dems lose the house.
I see that Barney Frank now thinks that maybe Fannae and Freddie should go away. OF course they are still going to have another government agency to give loans to the underpriviledged.
Typical Washitonian Orwellianism, just change the agencies name and the bad news goes away........
Individualist, I can't see Pelosi taking one for the team. Her past behavior shows that she thinks she IS the team, and she's willing to sacrifice the whole team if it gets her what she wants. I don't see that changing.
But it should be fun to see the feud that happens when they lose and she goes up for re-election as party Grand Pooba.
I haven't heard much about Frank's plan yet, but I'll believe they actually disassemble something when I see it.
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