Centerfield

I think you are correct Mathew. The problem is, corruption might be a winning issue if people thought that Democrats were immune from it and obviously they aren't. It frustrates me to no end that liberals in the party just assume that because things are going badly, the Democrats will naturally win even without having a coherent story. And, of course, everyone knows that all right minded people (the only ones that vote apparently) think like Kos. The liberals want to believe that the ONLY reason the Republicans have been winning is their mastery of political mechanics and electoral chicanery; they simply refuse to believe that the cornerstone of the GOP's success was their ability to deliver a coherent message starting with Reagan--even if it wasn't one that I and other Democrats accepted. It was ideas not politics that won originally and the liberals simply cannot accept the fact that those ideas, which are so abhorent to them, actually appeal to a lot of people. It's sad. I think the Dems are going to be sorely disappointed in November.

In 1994, before the fall election, there was at least one special election which presaged the results, in Kentucky, where an unheralded GOP won a seat that had always been Democratic. This entry in wikipedia conforms with my recollection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Lewis

The results in CA suggests that the Dems may just fall a bit short this fall.

corruption as an issue, rarely will work. because most people think most politicians are corrupt. the partisan attacks onthe other party as "the corrupt party" only works on their base.

Is 2006 all over? No, but the Republicans obviously have a tool in their political arsenal with which to defend themselves from anti-incumbent attack: Immigration.

CA-50 was close (Bilbray, 49.5 to Busby, 45%), but if this were the year the Democrats would reclaim Congress it should not have been.

If the OH-2 congressional race last year (Republican Jean Schmidt 52% over Paul Hackett at 48%) showed the GOP was vulnerable, this one in CA shows they still have life in them. But they have to remain true on this issue.

If the House folds or compromises on the Senate bill they could still lose and make no mistake about it this election year will be a referedum on the GOP, but in many ways the Dems have simply become the choice Americans can't make to stop Republicans. I think the Dems will fall short of control by about a-half dozen seats in the House and 1 or 2 in the Senate.

Both parties are going to have an identity crisis in '08. Who and what do they stand for? This country is heading for a great political crack-up.

Once the voters are given a new alternative GOP political currency in this country is going to take a nose-dive.

Busby's now famous "you don't need papers" blunder did her in, plain and simple. Most people weren't overly ecstatic at either candidate and I think she had the edge before she inserted her foot squarely into her mouth.

When confronted with two inept candidates with one a little less inept than the other, they will tend to sway toward the less incompetent one. Any candidate that says that you do not need papers to vote, will lose mine instantly. I don't care how you spin it, how many times you try to clarify it, it still comes out the same.

The Dems want everyone to believe that this was a moral victory for them. This was theirs to lose and they blew it. I see the victory going to the GOP on this one. Much of it by default.

The President is quite possibly competing to be the most unpopular Commander in Chief in the history of this country, next to possibly Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon.

No one has ever touched Harry Truman's low-water mark of 22% in February of 1952. Not even Nixon. Nixon's low was 24% the day he resigned, after hanging around 25-30% for most of a year as Watergate unfolded. They didn't do approval polls in Andrew Johnson's time, of course (except for the ones called "elections") and Johnson did not run for re-election. And let's not forget how beloved Herbert Hoover was in 1932, although once again no wide polling was done--that began in 1938--but as an incumbent he lost by 17+%, indicating they were low indeed. Also in the list for low approval ratings are Bush I (29% after he announced tax hikes), Gerald Ford (32% after pardoning Nixon) and Jimmy Carter (28% after the seizure of the Tehran embassy). Have we forgotten them so soon?

A bit early to be making the call for history, methinks. For an interesting contrast, Clinton's ratings peaked at 73% when he was impeached. His best moment in public approval ever was when he was on the hot seat for his "on-duty stress relief."

I'm reluctant to generalize nationally based on local results. It may indeed be true that nationally the democrats will continue to fail to take advantage of GOP mis-steps because they choose to accentuate the negative instead of providing a viable attractive alternative.But is that manifest here?

In any given local race, I always suspect first that the results are due to the nature and preference of local voters and the quality and recent actions of the candidates in question. National trends controlling local elections? Count me as agnostic on that.

People are prone to seeing patterns, which is why they do things like bump into two friends or co-workers one morning who are sick and then say "everyone's sick." I like to think of this as the "two is a trend" fallacy. Just think, if every data set in the world consisted on only two items, we'd think all data was linear. :-)

So my guess is that the democrat lost because she was ultimately less appealing to voters at the time the election was held. And I've lived through more than one election where someone seemed to have lost because of one or two blunders that shifted the direction of public opinion...where candidate A was winning until he said x, and then never recovered. On that basis I find Lasunsett's explanation credible.

A more useful barometer of the usefulness of the anti-corruption tactic may be the CA-11 primary. The incumbent (Pombo) is a strongly conservative congressman in a strongly conservative district. He rolled out endorsement phone calls from a lot of Republican big guns (I personally got them from McCain and Gingrich, among others). His opponent (McCloskey) is both an _extremely_ liberal Republican and someone who admittedly moved into the district mainly to run against Pombo on account of his corruption.

And after all that, the incumbent managed to lose a third of the Republican votes. That's 1/3 who were willing to vote for a carpetbagger (McCloskey's word, actually), and someone that they don't agree with on a lot of issues. Some of those people may go back to Pombo in November, although his opponent is a lot more conservative than McCloskey and so a better fit for the district. But he would be a fool to expect his usual walk in the park to re-election. And any resources that go to support him are resources that won't be available to some other, more marginal, Republican.

What Brian said. I don't think you can quote Tip O'Neill too often here.

While I'm not at all prepared to cede the whole thing to the GOP yet, you have to admit that this was a bad omen. Democrats can win by capitalizing on GOP failures (God knows there's a lot of them), but unless they give voters a reason to pick them, they won't.

I still say at the end of the day, the Dems take the House by a slim majority, and pick up a few in the Senate.

Democrats can win by capitalizing on GOP failures (God knows there's a lot of them), but unless they give voters a reason to pick them, they won't.

You can switch the labels and it still applies.

I think you're wrong about the Dems taking the House, as they're fighting uphill in almost all those districts. I expect them to take a few seats in the House, maybe one or two in the Senate. But from the current numbers and having researched the competitive districts, if the election were held today and they got all the breaks, they couldn't pick up better than nine seats in the House and one in the Senate. No controlling majority.

Of course, it's a long time until November, and only a fool bets races more than a month out. Ask me in mid-October--as if I won't be posting my detailed analysis then anyway. :-)

It's a tough battle, no doubt about it. As you said, things can change before November.

obviously GWB needs a better sex life.

As for CA50 - the GOP had to spend a LOT of money to maintian a 4% plurality. They will ahve to spend that amount or more just to maintain that seat in November. I think a neglected but major factor was at work here- primary race for governor - the neg campaigning turned a LOT of dem voters off and many stayed home - CA had the lowest voter turnout ever.
I think this means of course that to hang on to other seats the GOP will be emptying the coffers, running more negative ads (although how they can get more nasty than what happened between Angelides and Westly is beyond me), humping for more money from corporate contributors and of course passing yet more coprorate friendly laws as payback. Meanwhile I think the Democrats just learned a valuable but horrible lesson from the primary. Vicious nasty negative campaigning can really work. Pre neg, Angelides was running well behind Westly (whom I voted for). Then came the negative campaigning and it was vicious. I was glad to be working in CO last week. It was a blissful escape.

I'm not looking forward to October.

The thing is Marcus, thanks to Howard Dean, the GOP has money to do just that, and win.

Prediction: Arnold trounces Angelides by a margin a lot wider than is now expected. The Dems effed up that one, big time. Wrong nominee, wrong time.

I think if the Dems take back either chamber this year it will be a minor miracle. The numers are just not there. They should pick up seats though.

You just gotta know that when the Dems are referencing Jimmy Carter's COS, they are really desperate for a leadership voice. As such, the GOP holds both chambers and hold the WH in '08.

Dems aren't gonna win anything of value again until they stop bringing out failed retreads to put behind the microphone. It's kinda like Jim Fassel being hired, fired and rehired throughout the NFL coaches ranks...someone has just gotta say "the guy doesn't win".

In 1980, Reagan won despite majorities siding with the Dems on nearly every big issue. In part, he was lucky -- the oil shock of the late 70's would have killed any incumbent president. But in large part he won (and then won again in a landslide) because the GOP played it smart. They began with the assumption that they were the underdog -- that a majority would side with the Dems, unless they could frame the issues to bite off large chunks of the Dem electorate for Reagan. So, they went wedging. They got rust belt whites with "are you better off now," westerners with the Marlboro Man act, and cold warriors with the bear in the woods.

Now, the Dems are likewise playing from behind -- if a completely fair national election played out strictly on issues, it'd be close, but they'd lose. But they cannot face this. Instead, they whine about stolen elections (as if JFK didn't swipe the presidency from Nixon) and about the GOP trumping the economic interests of lower class white with the Morality Card (forgetting that the Dems did the same thing to middle class whites with welfare and The Great Society).

The Dems have to learn to fight like an underdog. Instead, they act like a favorite who keeps getting screwed by the ref.