> On 11/3/2010 5:07 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> On Nov 3, 2010, at 4:55 PM, SA wrote:
>>
>>> The bottom line is that *the TP has already succeeded*. You have to put your head in the sand not to see it . On the one hand, they've elected scores of people to Congress (though not some of the fringiest ones).
>> But this was an entirely predictable midterm result: normal losses plus premium for shitty economy. The TP extremists mostly lost. How is this so extraordinary?
>
> First of all, no, it's not a predictable midterm result:
>
> http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/11/two-lessons-election
>
>> Live by the model, die by the model. Lots of Democrats, including me, have been pointing out that structural factors alone predicted a 45-seat loss in the House this year. In other words, the bulk of the expected Democratic losses weren't due to healthcare reform or Obama's remoteness or liberal overreach or anything like that. It was baked into the cake all along.
>>
>> But the model I wrote about, which comes from Douglas Hibbs, only predicted a 45-seat loss, and it looks like Dems are likely to lose at least 60 seats. That means Democrats underperformed the Hibbs model by 15 seats or so, which is a record for them. (See chart below.) They've underperformed by ten seats a couple of times in the postwar era, but never by more than that.
Drum sez: "I think it might be fair to say that the economy is so epically bad that Hibbs's model might not account for it entirely, but that's mostly special pleading." It's not at all special pleading. We're in the midst of the worst economy in 80 years. When FDR took office, it was bottoming and by the midterms it was turning around; when BHO took office, it hadn't finished declining yet. They'd promised 8% unemployment by now, remember?
> But the point is, you're confusing two totally different things - the number of seats picked up and the ideological profile of the victorious opposition. Okay, the GOP picked up ~60 seats in a bad economy. But they conceivably could have done that *either* by playing it safe and running to the center *or* by running to the right.
There hasn't been a center to the Republican party in 20 years.
> On the TP "extremists," I really think you're defining extremism down here. Okay, the mentally ill candidates who denounce water fluoridation and witchcraft are the "extremists." That makes Rand Paul, Marc Rubio, and Pat Toomey "moderates"? Sounds sort of like clutching at straws. The GOP was extremely right-wing this year.
The GOP *is* extremely right wing. But still, what are they going to do now? Cut Medicare more than notionally? It takes a Dem to do that!
>>> Go back and read what the pundits were saying. The centrist Broder types believed Obamism was the wave of the future.
>> Every election is the wave of the future - until the next one.
>
> Except the ones that really are the wave of the future, like Reagan '80 or Gingrich '94.
Gingrich '94? Clinton got re-elected two years later and left office with a high approval rating. The Reps overplayed their hand, shut down the gov, and ended up rather unpopular. I doubt the public will applaud the lunacy the Reps are going to start in on.
> In early '09, people were saying Obama fell in that category. The TP helped make it not so.
Gee, I could have sworn that Obama helped by being such a lame-ass piece of crap.
Doug