Narrative Failure
There’s nothing more annoying that excessive crowing over an election, but I can’t help taking just a moment to observe that there’s something which doesn’t quite fit about the idea that the GOP (and in a number of cases, the Tea Party wing of the GOP) did so well yesterday because the electorate was outraged that Obama and congress didn’t tack harder left in the last two years. Yes, it’s true that it was moderate Democrats, in many cases, who lost, but that’s mainly because those moderate Democrats were elected in 2010 in districts which were to the right of them, districts which had previously been held by the GOP. But the fact that Pelosi was reelected while Driehaus lost doesn’t mean that the electorate as a whole wants people on the hard left — it’s because Pelosi’s district is in San Francisco while Driehaus’s was in Cincinnati.
What both rightists and leftists should keep in mind after elections like this one and 2008 as well is that elections in the US are decided by a swing bloc which might charitably be described as pragmatic/a-political (or uncharitably as generally ignorant of political ideology and policy.) Continue reading
No Final Victories, No Final Defeats
The Republican party had a very good election last night, and the Democrats had a very bad election. The Republicans took control of the House and have gained approximately 60 seats with around 13 still to be decided. The House will be more pro-life than at any time in our nation’s history since Roe v. Wade in 1973. In the Senate the Republicans have gained approximately 6 seats with around 3 still to be decided. The Republicans have gained at least seven governorships with a few to be decided, and at least 17 state legislative chambers have flipped to the GOP. By any standards it was a great night for the GOP, and a vote of no confidence in both the Obama administration and the Democrat Congress. It would be tempting to predict only triumph now for the Republicans and only doom for the Democrats in the future, but it is a temptation to be resisted. Continue reading
The Super Secret, Mystical Recession Cure
For some reason, I found myself reading through Paul Krugman’s recent NY Times material. Perhaps it was a desire for a little mental vaunting, what with the direction the elections seem to be taking, and if so I should have come away quite satisfied as Mr. Krugman is in full Chicken Little mode. A GOP takeover of congress will be a disaster, and we should all be very afraid. Stupid people are allowing their emotions to run away with them and will destroy the world economy through getting all moralistic about debt. And of course, the reason why the entire world doesn’t see things Krugman’s way is because macroeconomics is too hard for them to understand.
Well, I’m certainly prepared to admit that Krugman’s expertise in macroeconomics is greater than my own — and I’ll even stretch and say that my understanding probably goes farther than that of the average bear. Continue reading
TAC College Football Rankings
This week is Bama week for the rest of LSU, but it’s also Baby Denton week for me. TCU & Boise have their toughest conference tests so far this week.
In an interesting stat note, the SEC West has as many bowl-eligible teams as any other conference. If any SEC West team gets through with just one loss, they have to get in (though I expect LSU will have a harder time b/c of reputation than Bama or Auburn). All in all, the tests for the top teams are dwindling; most have only one or two tough games between them. Continue reading
TAC Election Night Live Blog
The live blog will start tonight at 6:00 PM Central Time. I will be listening to Fox due to Michael Barone who is the chief Fox election analyst, and who knows more about each Congressional District than anyone else alive, and browsing the internet to bring you the latest information. I ask TAC commenters and contributors to chime in with information and observations. The picture at the top of this blog will help you keep track of when polls close in each state. The image is from 2008, but I believe it is still accurate.
Nate Silver over at 538 has put together a handy sheet listing the crucial seats that the GOP needs to win to take the House. Go here to view it. This will be an indispensable aid as we watch the returns coming in.
I will attempt to stay with the liveblogging until control of the House is called. I am stocking up on pizza and pop to stay awake! The Senate may not be determined for a few days, as it may come down to what happens in California and Washington, and those races may be close.
Feel free to comment during the day in regard to any rumors that you hear. Detailed reports as to elections in the areas in which you live are welcome. I view this as a group project, and all assistance I receive from our TAC community will be welcome.
Oh, and political passions will doubtless be running high today and tonight, but let us remember that it is only politics and keep a sense of perspective about it. The issues in contention are important, but politics, and politicians, often go hand in hand with great absurdity.
Healthcare Plan Likely to Include Free Contraception
Another pertinent reason for Catholics to oppose the Democrats and their health care bill at the polls tomorrow:
WASHINGTON (AP) – Fifty years after the pill, another birth control revolution may be on the horizon: free contraception for women in the U.S., thanks to the new health care law.That could start a shift toward more reliable – and expensive – forms of birth control that are gaining acceptance in other developed countries.
As Nancy Pelosi said,
“Well, the family planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.”
It’s a cost cutting measure. It’s also a grave sin! But if you’re Nancy Pelosi, or most of the rest of the American Catholic population, you say, “Who cares! We need to have this!”
Where They Stand: House Races
I am certainly not ambitious enough to forecast all 435 House races, but Jim Geraghty of National Review is. Here is his roundup of all 435 races. He is predicting 76 Republican pickups, with 6 seats switching from Democrat to Republican, for a net Republican pickup of 70 seats.
I think the Republicans should net at least 60, though it’s really hard to pinpoint exactly how many seats the Republicans will have when all is said and done. The Gallup generic ballot puts the Republicans up double digits, which is just unprecedented. Alan Ambromowitz, a professor of mine at Emory, translates how many seats to expect the GOP to win based on the generic ballot total. A GOP margin of +10 would give them a net gain of 62 seats, and a 68-seat pickup if the margin is 12.
It’s also interesting to note that the highest number of seats the GOP held during the twelve years they recently had control of Congress was 231, and that was after the 2004 election (they held 230 after 1994). Therefore if the Republicans gain a net total of 54, they would have more seats than they’ve held at any point since 1946. They would have basically erased two elections worth of Democratic gains in one night. Amazing.
The Incredible Hulk and the 2010 election
Last week in a post here, I quoted Jay Cost of the Weekly Standard as follows:
Allocating the undecided voters proportionally, Bruce Banner gets a two-party vote of 54.5 to 45.5. That’s a nine-point GOP win, in line with a prediction of a historically high Republican caucus, say 240 seats (which is what I actually did predict last week).
Incredible Hulk. The Hulk has problems with this analysis. It tosses out what has historically been the best estimator of midterm congressional results, the Gallup generic ballot likely model. This year Gallup is calling it the “traditional” model, but in every midterm before this, it was the only likely voter model.
Only once in 60 years has the Gallup generic ballot underestimated Democratic strength by a significant amount – by 2% in 2006. On average, it slightly overestimates the Democrats, by 0.7%.
Here is what he is seeing this morning based upon Gallup showing a 15 point GOP likely voter advantage:
My internal conflict between “Bruce Banner,” who predicts a 1994-style scenario, and “The Incredible Hulk,” who thinks 2010 will be as Republican as anything since the 1920s, has been resolved.
Hulk wins. Here’s why. Continue reading
The November 2 Election and Joe Biden
Assuming the polls are correct, obviously a big assumption, the Democrats are in for a very long election night tomorrow. In the face of devastating election losses, the Dems can rely upon Veep and beloved national clown Joe Biden! First, we should understand why the Democrats are looking at the electoral equivalent of a wheat farm in Death Valley. My favorite living historian Victor Davis Hanson explains what went wrong:
Barack Obama entered office; nationalized health care; ran up record $1 trillion deficits; promised to hike taxes on the rich; pushed cap and trade through the House; took over large chunks of banks, insurance companies, and auto corporations; made hard-left appointments from Van Jones to Sonia Sotomayor — and in 21 months saw his positives crash from near 70% in January 2009 to little above 40%, with the specter of near record Democratic losses in the Congress just two years after the anti-Bush/anti-Iraq sweep of 2008.
All the polls of independents and moderates show radical shifts and express unhappiness with higher taxes, larger deficits, a poor economy, and too much government. In other words, the electorate is not angry that Obama has moved too far to the right or stayed in the center or borrowed too little money. A Barney Frank or Dennis Kucinich is looking at an unusually tight race in a very liberal district not because liberals have had it with them, but because large numbers of moderates and independents most surely have.
Yet if one were to read mainstream Democratic analysis, there is almost no acknowledgment that the party has become far too liberal. Indeed, they fault Obama for not being liberal enough, or, in the case of the Paul Krugman school, for not borrowing another trillion dollars for even more stimulus, despite the failure of the earlier borrowing. In fact, Obamaites offer three unhinged exegeses for the looming defeat: a) there is no looming defeat: the Democrats will still keep the House; or b) Obama did not prove to be the radical as promised; or c) the American people are clueless and can’t follow science and logic and therefore do not know what is good for them.
Do liberals really believe that had they rammed down cap and trade, borrowed $6 trillion instead of $3 trillion the last 21 months, and obtained blanket amnesty their candidates would be posed to ward off Republican attacks this election year? The problem right now with Greece is that it borrows too little, hires too few, and spends not enough? Continue reading
Yes on 19? Californians Vote On Marijuana Legalization
by Joe Hargrave
Readers of this blog know I am as socially-conservative as they come. But I am also libertarian-minded on a number of issues, and I have to admit, the legalization of marijuana is one of them. I’m going to be taking a much closer look at all of the ballot propositions before I head to the polls on Tuesday, but right now I am inclined to vote yes on prop. 19, which would legalize marijuana in California and subject it to regulation and taxation by the state. I will give a few reasons why.
![](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_YqM_zH1K7Uw/TOK1hLlt3BI/AAAAAAAAA1o/HCzoksN1-ME/s1600/email+icon+32x32.png")
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