The US elections in November, 2010.

[Ian]

For the House in particular, I think it all depends on what happens with the economy between now and then. And even if things keep chugging along like they currently are, there's plenty of facts boths sides can spin to their advantage. Hell, the cover of Time magazine this week is "The Economy is Back/The Economy Stinks", with the main article making very good points that both arguments can be made.

But I'm not going to make any predictions about the House yet. There's too much fundraising to still be done, too much campaigning that has barely begun, too much news that hasn't happened yet, too many issues that are still gestating. I refuse to make electoral predictions in July, at least about the House.

As for the Senate, only conservative dreamers are predicting a GOP takeover at this point. Even John Cornyn, chairman of the NRSC, has admitted that there's little reason to think the Democrats will lose it. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39999.html
But Coito already made a bet with me about the Senate, so I'll graciuosly accept his conciliation in November.

[Robert_S]

For the House in particular, I think it all depends on what happens with the economy between now and then. And even if things keep chugging along like they currently are, there's plenty of facts boths sides can spin to their advantage. Hell, the cover of Time magazine this week is "The Economy is Back/The Economy Stinks", with the main article making very good points that both arguments can be made.

But I'm not going to make any predictions about the House yet. There's too much fundraising to still be done, too much campaigning that has barely begun, too much news that hasn't happened yet, too many issues that are still gestating. I refuse to make electoral predictions in July, at least about the House.

As for the Senate, only conservative dreamers are predicting a GOP takeover at this point. Even John Cornyn, chairman of the NRSC, has admitted that there's little reason to think the Democrats will lose it. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39999.html
But Coito already made a bet with me about the Senate, so I'll graciuosly accept his conciliation in November.

Speaking of bets... What's the status on your bet with Gawd?

[Coito ergo sum]

For the House in particular, I think it all depends on what happens with the economy between now and then. And even if things keep chugging along like they currently are,

Things are "chugging along?"

there's plenty of facts boths sides can spin to their advantage. Hell, the cover of Time magazine this week is "The Economy is Back/The Economy Stinks", with the main article making very good points that both arguments can be made.

No argument can be made that the economy is back. An argument can be made that the economy bottomed out and is turning around. But, to suggest that it is "back" is just ludicrous.

But I'm not going to make any predictions about the House yet. There's too much fundraising to still be done, too much campaigning that has barely begun, too much news that hasn't happened yet, too many issues that are still gestating. I refuse to make electoral predictions in July, at least about the House.

Well, the whole point is to make predictions early. Grow a pair! Make a prediction!

As for the Senate, only conservative dreamers are predicting a GOP takeover at this point. Even John Cornyn, chairman of the NRSC, has admitted that there's little reason to think the Democrats will lose it. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39999.html
But Coito already made a bet with me about the Senate, so I'll graciuosly accept his conciliation in November.

That's cuz I have the sack to ante-up and take a daring bet!

Sure, it's an uphill climb, but if I win it will be all the sweeter!

[Coito ergo sum]

How is 11% actually, genuinely possible?

89% of the population has no confidence in the Congress. I think they've merited that number.

Any individual voter is not voting for the Congress as a whole, but for their own representative.

Well, of course that's true, which is why the 11% confidence rating in Congress in general does not translate into each Congressperson having an 11% job approval rating, or a projected vote of 11%. They may also be surveying everyone, and not merely "likely voters" and such. The stat doesn't mean much in terms of an individual congressman's chance of reelection, but it does say what the people think of what this Congress has done as a whole. They don't like it. To the tune of 89%. That's staggering.

[Ian]

there's plenty of facts boths sides can spin to their advantage. Hell, the cover of Time magazine this week is "The Economy is Back/The Economy Stinks", with the main article making very good points that both arguments can be made.

No argument can be made that the economy is back. An argument can be made that the economy bottomed out and is turning around. But, to suggest that it is "back" is just ludicrous.

Semantics: that was just the title. Complain to Time magazine. It's really the same difference - reviving and improving sounds good to me, as it does to plenty of voters.

A couple selling points: manufacturing is up, the private sector has added jobs for six straight months, corporate earnings are up and CEOs are reporting greater confidence, home mortgage loans are way up, interest rates are low, inflation is almost zero, the Dow is back to pre-recession levels, and new jobs are even coming to Wall Street in anticipation of recovery. Coito: please don't itemize these and discuss them individually. I'll save you the trouble by happily admitting that there are plenty of reasons to second-guess everything and feel grumpy about the economy (and you've got a whole thread dedicated to that already), but my point is that Democrats can at least point to plenty of these things and say "See, we've turned a big corner. Do you really want to go back to Republican policies?" Polling also overwhelmingly indicates that the public feels if one party is to be blamed for the economy of the last two years, it's the GOP.

So if I'm going to make an early prediction, I'll say that standard Midterm logic will hold and that the Democrats will lose a good number of seats, but the "Republican blowout" will be nothing of the sort.

[Ian]

Speaking of bets... What's the status on your bet with Gawd?

Unless Israel starts bombing Iran in the next 27 hours, he'll soon be sporting an Israeli flag avatar for a week.

[Randydeluxe]

As of the current polling (that is, polling that seeks to be as accurate as possible, as opposed to polling that hopes to be quoted on Fox News), Republicans are picking up 5-6 seats in the Senate and 18-20 in the House. That 18-20 in the House is really, really close to the tipping point.

The Republicans are already at the tipping point in the Senate, where they hold an incredibly powerful super-majority with only 41 votes. But they wont be getting a numerical majority in the Senate this year.

As for that +20th seat-change in the House... it's just hard to know this far out. So many things can happen in the next three months.

[Posse Comitatus]

What I've never understood looking from this side of the pond is how the Republicans can do so well whilst being ludicrously shit. It's strange to think that what would be counted as political extremism in the UK- think BNP at least- in the US is almost standard, and not just within the Republican party either. Even Thatcher in America's political context (look at how she voted even upon entering Parliament on homosexuality and abortion) would be likely considered unpalatably socially liberal.

I genuinely don't know how anyone can stand it and I personally revel in the fact that even the leader of our most right-wing credible party and current PM is by US standards virtually communist.

PS: The Democrats are all fucking horrendous as well.

[rachelbean]

All I know is I'd be more than happy to be singing this again instead of having Meg Whitman in office.

[Ian]

What I've never understood looking from this side of the pond is how the Republicans can do so well whilst being ludicrously shit. It's strange to think that what would be counted as political extremism in the UK- think BNP at least- in the US is almost standard, and not just within the Republican party either. Even Thatcher in America's political context (look at how she voted even upon entering Parliament on homosexuality and abortion) would be likely considered unpalatably socially liberal.

I genuinely don't know how anyone can stand it and I personally revel in the fact that even the leader of our most right-wing credible party and current PM is by US standards virtually communist.

PS: The Democrats are all fucking horrendous as well.

Simple. Because a great number of Americans are ludicrously shit.

And because they've generally gotten shittier. Ronald Reagan is practically immortalized by republicans these days as a stick-to-your-guns ideological conservative (for all the "Obama has established a personality cult" whining the GOP does, they're the party trying to get Reagan on the $50 bill), yet the actual President Reagan was much, much more pragmatic.

And because our primary elections are mostly fucked, especially with respect to conservative voters. Middle-of-the-road voters don't show up as much, so candidates of either party tend to be further left or further right than the rest of their district. Then centrist voters are shocked when the general elections end up being ridiculously partisan.

[Robert_S]

All I know is I'd be more than happy to be singing this again instead of having Meg Whitman in office.

Sorry, I compulsively post this video on the slightest provocation.



Carry on.

[Posse Comitatus]

Makes me feel lucky to live in a country where party policy is virtually interchangeable (the main difference when one exists being language used to frame policy decisions rather than the actual policy itself) and all elections are fought on the centreground, the party staking the most convincing claim to it being, as a general rule, the one that wins.

It's not exciting, not very glamourous and there's very rarely a clear choice, (the last truly decisive election that genuinely did change the direction of British political history forever IMO being 1979, and before that 1945), but by (figurative) god it's comforting.

[Ian]

Makes me feel lucky to live in a country where party policy is virtually interchangeable (the main difference when one exists being language used to frame policy decisions rather than the actual policy itself) and all elections are fought on the centreground, the party staking the most convincing claim to it being, as a general rule, the one that wins.

It used to be that way here, for the most part. 2008 was arguably something of a return to the older ways, but 2000 and 2004 were not too much about the middle ground. I lay the blame squarely at Karl Rove's* feet, who went for a "rally the base" strategy over a "win the middle" strategy.

(Karl Rove, aka "the Architect" aka "Turd Blossom" aka "Bush's Brain", was George W. Bush's chief demographer and political strategist)

[Posse Comitatus]

It used to be that way here, for the most part. 2008 was arguably something of a return to the older ways, but 2000 and 2004 were not too much about the middle ground. I lay the blame squarely at Karl Rove's* feet, who went for a "rally the bas

Perhaps. Even so, the US understanding of middle-ground bares little relation to UK middle-ground, either seeming to the other probably really rather extreme. I look over there and feel an undeniable surge of pride because it's just that they all look so insane.

You have Sarah Palin, we get, at very worst, Widdecombe (who incidentally could never, ever have come even close to a leadership contender). They have Beck and Limbaugh, we have umm... Adam Boulton.

It sounds like I'm being horribly dismissive of the US. I probably am. I'm sure however the feeling is (or at least would be) mutual, though I do doubt that most US voters have no idea where our parties stand in relation to theirs, (Conervapedia for example during the election was singing the praises of David Cameron, and in the process of doing so demonstrated a utter inability to grasp exactly what he stands for- which in most cases are far to the left of Obama or the mainstream democratic party, who Conservapedia and others regularly denounce as anathema to everything they stand for).

[Coito ergo sum]

Obama - not helping: http://www.gallup.com/Home.aspx

52% now disapprove of his job performance.

Voter enthusiasm highest among conservative Republicans: http://www.gallup.com/video/142211/Vote ... icans.aspx

Republicans continue to lead Democrats in midterm voting preferences for the U.S. House, and the GOP's current 50% to 43% advantage among registered voters is the largest Gallup has measured to date in its weekly tracking of the 2010 vote.

Independent voters favoring GOP: http://www.gallup.com/poll/141086/Indep ... cking.aspx