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Barone: 2012 elections tell a story that should leave Dimocrats uneasy

by Bob in Breckenridge ( 163 Comments › )
Filed under Democratic Party, Elections 2012, History, Politics, Polls, Republican Party at February 2nd, 2011 - 6:30 pm

Good article by Michael Barone, who is undoubtedly the most knowledgeable person when it comes to politics in America.

Barone goes over the numbers for both the Senate and the White House, based upon the results from last November, and suffice it to say, things ain’t looking rosy for the libs.

What a shame!

Of course, a lot can change over the next 18 or so months, but if we can get the right people to run against the vunerable libs (no more Sharron Angle or Christine O’Donnell types, please!), we have an excellent chance to win the triumvirate- Keep and increase our majority in the House, take control of the Senate, and take back the White House from the socialists who now occupy it.

Politics By the Numbers: Good Omens For the GOP in 2012

Numbers can tell a story. Looking back on Barack Obama’s second State of the Union message, and looking forward to the congressional session and the 2012 elections, they tell a story that should leave Democrats uneasy.

Start off with the audience in the House chamber. Not all members of Congress attended; Obama briefly and Paul Ryan at greater length in his otherwise brief rebuttal both appropriately noted the absence of Gabrielle Giffords.

But the contrast between the audience at Obama’s first State of the Union last year and the audience this year is remarkable. Then there were 316 Democrats and 218 Republicans in Congress. This year there are 289 Republicans and 246 Democrats. No president has seen such a large change in the partisan composition of his State of the Union audience since Harry Truman.

That obviously will have legislative consequences. Obama told Republicans to give up on all but the most minor changes to Obamacare. They’re not going to follow this advice.

As for spending, Obama reiterated his call for a limited freeze on domestic discretionary spending and cuts in defense. Again, as Ryan made clear, this Congress has different ideas.

The political incentive for Obama is to sound consensual, not confrontational. The current uptick in his job approval, putting him just over 50 percent, began when he agreed with Republicans to continue current income tax rates rather than raise taxes on high earners.

But on Tuesday night, he continued to call for higher taxes on the greedy rich in a time of sluggish economic recovery. Not as consensual as one might expect.

House Democrats, almost all elected from safe districts, won’t mind that. But they’re not going to have much to say about legislative outcomes. House Republicans will take it as a poke in the eye and perhaps as an attempt to renege on a deal. Not helpful in reaching other agreements.

In the Senate, where Democrats have a 53-47 majority, but not iron control, the situation is different. In the 2012 cycle, 23 Democrats come up for re-election and only 10 Republicans. You can get a good idea of their political incentives by looking at the 2010 popular vote for the House in their states. Since the mid-1990s, when partisan percentages in presidential and House elections converged, the popular vote for the House has been a pretty good gauge of partisan balance.

Of the 10 Republican senators up for re-election, only two represent states where Democrats won the House vote — Olympia Snowe of Maine and Scott Brown of Massachusetts. They’re both well ahead in local polls.

For the 23 Democrats up for re-election, the picture is different. Eight represent states where the House vote was 53 percent to 65 percent Democratic and where Barack Obama got more than 60 percent in 2008. Count them all as safe.

But 12 represent states where Republicans got a majority of the House vote in 2010. These include big states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Virginia, and states like Montana and Nebraska, where Republican House candidates topped 60 percent. Missouri, New Jersey, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wisconsin round out the list.

In another three states — New Mexico, Washington, Minnesota — Republicans won between 46 percent and 48 percent of the House popular vote. These were solid Obama states in 2008. They don’t look like solid Democratic states now.

The point is that Democratic senators from all or most of these 15 states have a political incentive to reach agreements with Republicans that go a lot further than Obama did at the State of the Union.

Finally, what about the portents for the 2012 presidential race? Well, start off with the fact that Democrats won the House popular vote in only two of the 17 states that do not have Senate elections next cycle. The other 15 went Republican.

Click here to read the rest…

Tags: Michael Barone, Politics
Posted in Democratic Party, Elections 2012, History, Politics, Polls, Republican Party | 163 Comments »

Obama (sadly) still looking good for 2012

by Mojambo ( 234 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Elections, Elections 2012, George W. Bush, Politics, Republican Party at December 29th, 2010 - 8:30 am

Anyone who thought that Obama was a shoo in for defeat in 2012 is whistling past the grave yard. The man is still the darling of the media, academia, Hollywood (the popular culture) and of the clueless college students. Also the Republican Party still appears not to have learned anything from the 2008 and 2010 elections. We waste our time getting sidetracked on social issues (which turns off urbanites, suburbanites and Independents) all the while ignoring the fact that people are afraid for their economic futures – something which makes Obama extremely vulnerable. Too many people have invested too much of themselves in Barack Obama to admit that they were dead wrong in 2008. I am not saying he cannot be beaten, but he should never have risen to the position that he currently occupies. He is a far better campaigner then he will ever be an administrator.

by Michael Barone

On the day after Boxing Day, it’s worth noting that Barack Obama is down but not out.

You could tell as much from the contrast between his petulant post-election press conference and his peppy pre-Christmas press conference. In the former, he was crabby about accepting Republicans’ demands that income tax rates on all taxpayers not be raised. In the latter, he was celebrating the lame-duck Congress’s acceptance of his stands on the New START treaty, repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell, and even the previously reviled tax deal.

Obama has obviously figured out that Americans prefer to see their president describe the glass as half full rather than half empty. That’s a good lesson for him, and for Republicans as well, especially those who believe that the Obama Democrats’ shellacking in the midterms means that Obama himself will definitely lose in 2012.

History should provide some caution for these folks. Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush saw their parties fare pretty well in their midterm elections. But they were defeated for re-election anyway.

In contrast, pundits thought that Ronald Reagan’s Republicans took a shellacking in 1982 (actually, about half their losses resulted from redistricting), and Bill Clinton’s Democrats definitely did in 1994. But both the 40th and 42nd presidents were resoundingly re-elected, carrying 49 and 31 states.

Several factors will likely work less strongly against Obama in 2012 than against the Obama Democrats in 2010. Turnout will be different, for one thing. We may see again the record turnout of blacks we saw in 2008. Young people who pretty much shunned the polls in the midterms may turn out and vote–though the 34-point margin they gave to Obama was halved to 17 points for congressional Democrats in 2010.

The balance of enthusiasm favored Republicans and conservatives in 2010, as it had favored Democrats in 2006 and 2008. It could conceivably shift and favor the Democrats once again.

Another factor is that polls show that most Americans have favorable personal feelings toward the president. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both happened to have personal characteristics that people on the other side of the cultural divide absolutely loathed. Obama doesn’t.

His reliance on his teleprompter, his secret smoking, his irritability when not adored — these are pretty minor failings. People like his family and his obvious devotion to them. They don’t mind that he likes to get away and play golf or shoot hoops from time to time.

Then there is the powerful desire Americans have to see their presidents succeed. That worked for Bill Clinton in 1996 and George W. Bush in 2004. Polls and focus groups showed that voters in the middle of the political spectrum were ready to overlook their weaknesses and appreciated their strengths in those years. That could be the case with Obama in 2012.

[….]

American voters are not seething with envy over income inequality and are not convinced that we’ll all do better if the government takes away more of Bill Gates’ money. Obama, like the academics in whose neighborhoods he has always chosen to live, think they should be seething and that if the message is just delivered the right way they can be convinced.

That’s a big difference on some fundamental issues. Enough to make the difference in 2012? Not clear.

Read the rest: Even after shellacking, Obama looks OK in 2012

Tags: Bill Clinton, Michael Barone
Posted in Barack Obama, Elections, Elections 2012, George W. Bush, Politics, Republican Party | 234 Comments »

The Mattress Economy

by Mojambo ( 221 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Economy, Politics at July 12th, 2010 - 7:00 pm

Obama’s socialistic polices are sending us all to the mattresses! What that means is that we are afraid to hire, to spend or to invest. We prefer the safety of (figuratively) doing what our grand or great grand parents did in the 1930’s, stuffing our money into the mattress (actually we are leaving it in a 1% interest bearing savings account which is almost the same thing as stuffing it into a mattress) because even though it earns zero interest, it is safe and the government cannot get at it. Why would an employer want to hire a teen when the Democrats want to pay a 17 year old kid in High School “a livable wage” (maybe $25 an hour to flip burgers at Wendy’s)? We are all hunkering down waiting for the storm to pass (which might take years).

by Michael Barone

Home mortgage interest rates are the lowest in history, but house sales are plunging. Banks can make money easily because of the Federal Reserve’s low interest rates, but they’re not making many loans. Major corporations are sitting on something like $2 trillion in cash, but they’re not investing.

Unemployment is running at 10 percent, rounded off, for the 11th straight month, but few employers are hiring and a million people have stopped looking for work in the last year. Small-business hiring is at a nine-month low, and retail sales are tailing off.

Government policies designed to stimulate the economy seem to be having the opposite effect. Consumers aren’t buying, businesses aren’t hiring, and those fortunate enough to have some cash on hand don’t seem to be investing.

I call it the mattress economy. People seem to be following this investment strategy: 1) Go to Mattress Discounters and buy the biggest mattress you can find. 2) Take it home, and stuff all your money in it. 3) Lie down, and get some rest.

This hurts the economy, but it’s a rational response to the Obama Democrats’ public policies. And that’s not just the view of their political opponents.

[..]

Instead of stimulating the economy, the Democrats’ policies have shocked it into immobility. People are lying on their mattresses, waiting for the next shock. At least one is definitely coming: The Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year, which means that high earners can be sure they’ll soon keep less of what they make.

[…]

America has seen this before. In the late 1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt raised taxes on high earners, encouraged lawless sit-in strikes by labor unions and took over utility businesses, the response was a “capital strike.”

Instead of creating jobs, businesses and investors put their money in mattresses. The result was a stagnant economy and double-digit unemployment — and a 75-seat Republican gain in the 1938 off-year elections.

Back then, the economy eventually perked up thanks to mobilization for World War II. No such mobilization appears on the horizon today. You may need to get a bigger mattress.

Read the rest Stalled by stimulus

Tags: Michael Barone
Posted in Barack Obama, Economy, Politics | 221 Comments »

Americans do not relate to Progressives

by Mojambo ( 113 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Healthcare, Progressives at June 29th, 2010 - 11:30 am

Michael Barone points out that as the Obama administration for the zillionth time tries to sell “Obamacare” to an increasingly skeptical public, polls and election results show that average Americans are less then enthusiastic about it, and people with modest incomes are trending heavily Republican. The only enthusiasm for the Obama’s policies comes from David Brooks’ “educated class” – people who are or identify with the progressive experts anointed by the Obama Democrats. The very same educated classes who helped bring on the Wall Street collapse of 2008.

by Michael Barone

Democrats are reportedly planning to raise $125 million for a campaign to sell Obamacare to the voting public. Apparently, the idea is that what 50-plus presidential speeches and statements and months of congressional debate could not do can be done by $125 million spent on everything from TV ads to community organizers.

Maybe. But there seems to be a more fundamental problem here. The Obama Democrats didn’t set out to produce an unpopular stimulus package, an unpopular health care bill and an unpopular cap-and-trade scheme.

They thought these initiatives would be popular. In their view, history is a story of progress from small government to big government, and as historians of the New Deal wrote, that progress is especially welcome in times of economic distress.

The massive unpopularity of the Obama Democrats’ programs suggests that view of history is defective. Let me propose another, starting with the Founding Fathers

The Founders believed there was a tension between representative government and the right to life, liberty and property. So they wrote the Fifth Amendment to ensure that no citizen was deprived of those rights without due process of law.

In Britain, that tension had been limited by allowing only property-owners to vote. That way, those without property could not elect representatives who would steal from the rich and give to the poor.

[…]

One hundred years ago, most urban Americans rented rather than owned their homes. Many had no bank accounts, and few had significant financial assets. Elites worried that this proletariat might rise in revolution.

In this America, the Progressives argued that the Founders’ vision was obsolete. Property rights should be subordinate to human rights. Government should regulate economic activity and “spread the wealth around,” as Barack Obama told Joe the Plumber

[…]

Their problem is that the America of the Progressives and New Dealers no longer exists. Government home-finance programs helped make us a nation of homeowners. Technological progress and deregulation squeezed out transportation and communications, and made the necessities of life less costly, enabling citizens to accumulate significant wealth in their working years.