Friday, March 29, AD 2024 3:31am

Electoral Tsunami Coming

Three recent polls indicate what a wipeout the Democrats are facing in November:

1.  The Republicans have a 12 point lead on the latest Rasmussen Congressional Generic ballot, the highest lead they have ever had in that poll:

Republican candidates have jumped out to a record-setting 12-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, August 15, 2010. This is the biggest lead the GOP has held in over a decade of Rasmussen Reports surveying.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Likely Voters would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate, while 36% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent.  Support for Republicans is up two points from the previous week, while support for Democrats dropped three points.Republicans have led on the Generic Congressional Ballot since June of last year, and their lead hasn’t fallen below five points since the beginning of December.  Three times this year, they’ve posted a 10-point lead. Prior to this survey, GOP support since June 2009 has ranged from 41% to 47%. Support for Democrats in the same period has run from 35% to 40%.

2.  In the Gallup poll, President Obama’s approval rating is now 42%, his lowest approval rating yet.

3.  Public Policy Polling is showing Pat Toomey 45-36 in Pennsylvania.

Toomey’s winning for the same reasons most Republican candidates across the country are doing well in key races right now:

-He has a 50-23 lead with independent voters.

-He’s benefiting from a much more unified party, as he leads 74-9 with Republicans while Sestak is currently up only 64-15 with Democrats.

-This is our first poll of the race explicitly surveying likely voters and given the considerably greater enthusiasm on the Republican side we’re seeing an electorate in the state that voted for John McCain by a point in 2008, in contrast to Barack Obama’s actual 10 point victory in the state.

The biggest key to the race is probably Obama’s considerably fallen popularity. His approval rating stands at only 40% with 55% of voters disapproving of him, one of the biggest declines from 2008 performance we’ve seen for him anywhere in the country. Part of Obama’s low numbers is a reflection of the Republican trending voter pool in the state this year, but there are also more people who voted for Obama but disapprove of him now in Pennsylvania than there are most places. Our national poll last week found only 7% of Obama voters are now unhappy with the job he’s doing but in Pennsylvania the figure is 15%. Toomey has a 14 point lead with those disaffected Obama voters, showing the extent to which those voters moving away from Obama are moving away from the Democratic Party in general.

An economy in the tank, an unpopular President and a public opposed to virtually every major domestic initiative of this administration.  The 2010 midterms may be the most devastating since 1894.

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Todd
Wednesday, August 18, AD 2010 8:09am

If we had a third party alternative, you might be right. But let’s remember we’re talking about Republicans. They ride elephants, not white horses. They bumbled two wars, Katrina, and the economy in the living memory of everybody who’s out of diapers. I wouldn’t discount the Dem’s abiities to play politics when their survival instinct kicks in.

This election looks a lot more like a hockey game between the Yankees and the Cowboys. Two fine traditions totally out of their element. A team of teenagers could have thrashed either one of them.

No Man
No Man
Wednesday, August 18, AD 2010 9:16am

Todd and all,

Yes!! That ought to distract people from the economy/unemployment as they worsen; the wars the libs did not end; the gulf oil spill they made more devastating; the first victims of rationing of health care, . . .

They had to pass the bill so they’d know what was in it.

They stifle the economy and scare employers into not hiring. Then people give up looking for jobs, and are not counted in the unemployment rate. Problem solved!

Mort Zuckerman (erstwhile Obama-zombie now awakened), “There is a widespread feeling that the government doesn’t work, that it is incapable of solving America’s problems. Americans are fed up with Washington, fed up with Wall Street, fed up with the necessary but ill-conceived stimulus program, fed up with the misdirected healthcare program, and with pretty much everything else. They are outraged and feel that the system is not a level playing field, but is tilted against them. The millions of unemployed feel abandoned by the president, by the Democratic Congress, and by the Republicans. The American people wanted change, and who could blame them? But now there is no change they can believe in.”

“The devil is come unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” Revelation 12

Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, August 18, AD 2010 10:29am

They bumbled two wars, Katrina, and the economy in the living memory of everybody who’s out of diapers.

Public perceptions are what they are. It should be noted, however, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency employs only about 6,500 people to cover the whole country. Absent the imposition of martial law, the legwork of order maintenance and relief will be the work of local agencies for the most part. Those in New Orleans and Louisiana have their deficiencies. It might also be noted that the salient event in New Orleans (which distinguishes it from Mississippi) was the failure of a piece of public works. Capital expenditures are undertaken over periods of decades (and in this case were joint ventures of federal and local authorities).

With regard to ‘the economy’, the argument that the Federal Reserve was responsible for generating an asset bubble is a dubious one promoted by purveyors of Austrian economics. That is something most unusual for a Democratic partisan to be seconding. Of course, the President and Congress might have erected legislation prohibiting (or requiring exchange trading) of credit default swaps and derivatives (a project Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers torpedoed during the Clinton Administration), containing the use of leverage (which Robert Rubin was advocating more of while being paid $119 million as chief guru at Citigroup), or inducing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to improve their accounting and underwriting standards. Actually, Mr. Bush did recommend legislation with the last object (co-sponsored by John McCain). It ran aground when Barney Frank rallied the opposition. On the staff of Freddie Mac was his boy toy Herb Moses. In charge of these enterprises was (among others) Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick, and James Johnson. Now in what context might one recognize those names???

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Wednesday, August 18, AD 2010 12:50pm

Yet another sign of things to come: in Illinois, pollsters including Rasmussen and PPP place Republican Bill Brady anywhere from 9 to 13 points ahead of Democratic incumbent Pat Quinn.

Moreover, despite heavy advertising in the Chicago media market by the Democratic Governors Association hammering Brady for his allegedly “extreme” pro life and other social/fiscal conservative views, when asked which candidate they believe has “extreme” views, more voters say Quinn does.

The bottom line is that the DGA campaign is at the very least, failing to make any impression. I rather suspect it’s backfiring in Brady’s favor because — surprise, surprise! — not all women, even in Chicago and its suburbs, think abortion on demand and big government liberalism are great things.

Of course the never-ending Blago saga (for non Illinois residents just joining us, he was found guilty of one count of lying to the feds yesterday, and the jury deadlocked on 23 — that’s right, 23 — other counts, which are likely to be retried) probably won’t help the Dems any either.

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Wednesday, August 18, AD 2010 12:54pm

Oops, bad sentence structure there. I should have said “he was found guilty YESTERDAY of one count of lying to the feds.” Although Blago probably did lie to the feds and everyone else yesterday (and the day before and every day before that as well).

Mike Petrik
Mike Petrik
Wednesday, August 18, AD 2010 3:14pm

Art,
Count me among those who hold the Fed accountable at least in part. Unlike some so-called Austrians, I think bubbles are inevitable precisely because markets don’t act perfectly. Markets act perfectly only in laboratories that assume perfect information and perfect rational behavior — two circumstances that never occur. Given this practical limitation, business cycles occur, and every expansion part of the cycle involves some type of bubble or other. Always. The Fed has nothing to do with that. But this time the Fed acted repeatedly and aggressively to prevent any organic contraction. Throughout the last decade the Fed dropped the discount rate at the moment it caught even a whiff of a contraction. I suppose part of this was hubris — the idea that they were skilled enough to manage the money supply to allow expansions to last forever. Pretty silly in retrospect. But I suspect part of it was driven, perhaps unconsciously, by foreign policy. The attack on 9/11 occurred at about the time an organic contraction was developing, and Fed members (being human beings and Americal patriots) did not want our enemies to think they caused it. As the War on Terror dragged on the Fed probably felt some (self-imposed) pressure to keep the economy humming. They allowed cheap money to flow and while this deferred the inevitable correction it permitted the bad behavior (stupid lending and borrowing) to continue much longer than a free market would have permitted since the market’s natural medicinal contraction was not allowed to occur to correct it. Indeed, the artificially-gotten profits just induced ever more bad behavior until the inevitable happened. By that time he Fed had reduced the rates to the point where a liquidity trap robbed it of any ability to continue its well-intended but misguided policy. As in most things in life — plenty of blame to go around — a little greed here, a little hubris there, add a touch of common error and pour on some good intentions and you have the human condition, I’m afraid.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, August 18, AD 2010 4:55pm

If I understand correctly, the Federal Reserve gradually raised the discount rate during the period running from 2002 to 2006. This was insufficient to contain the asset bubbles.

The rate of increase in consumer prices during the period running from 2001 to 2008 was modest, so I think your critique would be more appropriately applied to the administration and Congress, which damaged public finances with a discretionary tax cut.

Karl
Karl
Wednesday, August 18, AD 2010 5:07pm

I certainly hope things improve but political solutions are too transient in the context of a fickle electorate. As the attachment to traditional christian traditions wane, in an ever increasingly culturally, ethnically and religiously diverse society, as it is and for a long time shall be in America, predictability
is likely an uncertain hope.

Don, I pray that this country finds the cohesiveness to remain a country rather than devolving into chaos. I have become a stranger in the place I was born and raised. It is amazing, really, but very disconcerting as well.

Mike Petrik
Mike Petrik
Wednesday, August 18, AD 2010 5:15pm

Fair point, Art. I concede that my recollection of the discount rate history was incorrect. Certainly fiscal policy was poor. Bush granted Congress a free hand in spending (no vetos) in exchange for a free hand to prosecute the War on Terror. Whether one wants to blame the resulting fiscal mess on the rise in domestic spending or the discretionary tax cut depends on where you sit, but no question the behavior was irresponsible.

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Thursday, August 19, AD 2010 11:04am

Whoa Nellie… check out this tidbit from Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed today:

“We’re screwed.”

“Sneed hears rumbles that was the private reaction of Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine upon learning former Gov. Blago’s case was going to be retried … and was the reason Kaine kept a low media profile after the verdict. (Kaine was at an event in Iowa City when he learned about the verdict.)

• The flip side: ”This simply isn’t true,” said DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan. ”I’m not subject to every conversation . . . and the chairman wasn’t even made aware of the verdict until after he finished his event last night. He has not addressed the issue.”

What?

• Translation: Dems are already facing difficult races this November because of President Obama’s plummeting poll numbers and the nation’s economy. Top Dems had hoped a verdict — not a mistrial — would have been the end to the Blago debacle.”

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