On 11/3/2010 6:02 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> 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?
What Drum says doesn't make any sense. Hibbs' model already takes the economy into account. It's a model of how many seats are lost *given* the state of the economy. Note that it perfectly predicted the GOP seat loss in 1982, when unemployment was higher than it is today.
>> 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.
You don't think GWB ran to the center(-right) in 2000? Compassionate conservatism, Medicare drug benefit, humble foreign policy? Why wasn't that kind of thing the GOP message in 2010?
SA