On November 2, Americans will elect 435 members of the House of Representatives and 36 members of the Senate (as well as 37 state governors). Traditionally, the party out of power gains seats in these mid-term elections as marginal candidates who owe their election to the enthusiasm and mobilization of supporters of the president are defeated. In the present Congress, the Democrats control the Senate by a margin of 57 (plus 2 independents) to 41, while they dominate the House with 255 seats to 178. Although they will certainly lose some of their dominance in the Senate (and with it, the 60 votes needed to block a filibuster), the Democrats will retain control. In the House, a loss of 39 seats would transfer control to the Republicans.
Recent polls suggest the very real possibility of Republican victories in November. President Obama’s popularity is hovering just below the 50% range, with only 43% approval for his economic policies (and 54% disapproval, including one third of Democrats polled). More generally, 6 of 10 persons say that they lack faith in his ability to make the right decisions (inverting the number who expressed such faith at the beginning of his term in office). These statistics recall those of Bill Clinton just prior to the 1994 mid-term elections in which the Democrats lost an astounding 54 seats in the House and 8 in the Senate ! The climate and prospects for Democrats are ugly, and they know it.
Of course, Barack Obama will not be on the ballot in November ; and local circumstances will play a different role in each separate election. Nonetheless, the comparison to 1994 remains relevant. In both cases, some 60% of the public declare that they are looking for “new candidates” while only 26% express their support for the incumbent. What is more, the youth vote that was strongly mobilized in favor of Obama will likely show massive abstentions in 2010. And among white voters (who supported Obama more strongly than they had the Democratic candidate in 2004, John Kerry), Obama has also lost favor. What the political scientists call voter “intensity” has left the Democratic party. On the other hand, 51% of the population say that they will vote for a Republican in order to put an end to Democratic dominance.
There is a further factor to be considered, whose negative electoral implications could carry positive political ones. In addition to the Democrats who owe their victory to the coat-tails of Barack Obama, there are others who were recruited as candidates in spite of their ideological preferences. These representatives are sometimes called DINOS (“Democrats in Name Only”)—an allusion to the now-extinct cold-blooded reptile.
The decision to support these center-right leaning candidates was a pragmatic choice made by the Obama presidential campaign which was eager to gain support in potentially unfriendly places. Their price of their pact with electoral pragmatism became evident when many of these representatives refused to support the “public option” for health care reform ; it is becoming evident again in the stress on reducing the deficit rather than financing unemployment benefits, and rejecting progressive policies for immigration reform and climate change legislation, for example. As a result, the politics of compromise that candidate Obama promised in 2008 has taken place not with the Republican party but within the Democratic party itself ! If these DINOs are lost in 2010, the party itself would be more coherent and more capable of realizing its political goals.
But what are the political goals of the Democrats ? Since the month of May, the president has become more actively involved in political campaigning. He recognizes that he cannot stand above the political fray. He warns voters that Republican victories in November would have dire consequences, including repeal of the health care reform and a return to the economic policies “that got us into this mess.” The cool and cerebral style that made him appear to many as an elitist unconcerned with their everyday problems has been replaced by the pugnacious prose of the campaign platform. That is well and good ; and some of the audacious claims by the Republicans lend themselves nicely to this kind of partisan rhetoric (for example, when the Republican leader of the House, John Boehner, compared the fiscal recovery proposals to “killing an ant with a nuclear weapon” in the same speech in which he proposed raising the retirement age to 70, or when deputy Minority leader of the Senate, John Kyl, affirmed the republican faith that tax cuts, like those of George Bush, increased government revenue and paid for themselves). But the question remains : can a political party win election solely by negativity ? George Bush used the politics of fear to paint the Democrats as weak ; should the Democrats use that tactic too ? Is the sole function of politics is to get re-elected ? That is the conclusion that many voters will draw—by abstaining !
A partisan Democrat would reply to this criticism by pointing out just how much has been accomplished by this government. The primary illustrations would be the health care reform and the stimulus package which, the White House claims, has created (or saved) over three million jobs. Secondary examples of achievements are visible throughout the administration for the simple reason that free-market, anti-state Republicans have been replaced by Democrats who know that government can help citizens in need. These Democrats would also point out that the compromises and half-steps that have marred these victories in the eyes of formerly enthusiastic supporters of Obama are comparable to those that took place in the early phases of the New Deal of FDR and the Great Society of LBJ. In both cases, a first step was taken, a marker was laid down, for future generations to build upon. But the analogy breaks down, since the New Deal reforms were pushed forward by the new forces of trade unions, those of the Great Society by the civil rights movement. It seemed for a moment, in 2008, that the Obama election would call forth such a new movement. But, alas, it has not, or not yet.
The new movement that has appeared is of course the Tea Party. There is little need to discuss it further here. It is hardly a unified force, and more than likely will present many avatars in the months leading to the November elections. One illustration will suffice here. In mid-July, in the center of the small town of Mason, Iowa, the local Tea Party erected a giant billboard on which photos of Hitler and Lenin stand to the left and the right of a picture of Barack Obama. Below each image stands the word “change,” and above each is written “National Socialism,” “Marxist Socialism” and “Democrat Socialism.” Below this gallery, in larger letters, stands the warning : “Radical Leaders Prey on the Fearful and Naïve.” Although the billboard was immediately criticized by other Tea Partiers, and the billboard removed, the images became part of the national news. Many, I think, are no doubt wondering, just who are “the Fearful and Naïve” ?
