For Dems "Much Deeper Trouble" Than in '94
Posted in Elections by Julie Ponzi
This is what
Michael Barone is saying the numbers currently suggest about the Democrats and their prospects in 2010. Moreover, he points out that in '94 he wrote his first column suggesting the
possibility of huge Republican gains in July. In case you haven't noticed . . . this is January. Of course, what makes politics so interesting is that anything can happen. Scott Brown climbed 30 points in December, after all. But, as Barone--an analyst not given to hyperbole--puts it: "I have not seen a party's fortunes collapse so suddenly since Richard
Nixon got caught up in the Watergate scandal and a president who
carried 49 states was threatened with impeachment and removal from
office."
2:09 PM / January 27, 2010
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Mickey Kaus often speaks of the "Feiler Faster thesis," according to which modern information technology has accelerated the news cycle, and, at the same time, we process news more quickly. If true, then it might be that there is much more room for the Democrats to recover between now and November, than was the case in the 1994 election cycle.
Yea, I'm with Richard. It looks like it will be a good year for the GOP, but we should not get carried away. I don't see how Republicans pick up the nine seats they would need to get to 50 in the Senate(and then hope to get Lieberman on their side.
I don't think that Obama is cooked. He is smart and tough. The fact that he is more principled liberal than Clinton makes him more vulnerable in one sense (I doubt he will make many meaningul centrist gestures like signing something like welfare reform), but also more dangerous. Much of his weakness is dependent on the continuing bad economy. Even a weak recovery would give Obama a powerful (though I would believe mistaken) argument that his spending policies were the cause of the recovery. And I would not bet against such a recovery before 2012.