Could It Happen Again? GOP Aims For 2010 To Be '94 Repeat

The GOP is always mired in the past, and every new situation is hammered into the frames that worked before. Thus, Reagan's policies are held up as some sort of permanent gospel, despite having little to do with today's economy or geopolitical environment (nothing left to deregulate, taxes low, no more communism). Every adversary is either the Soviet Union or Hitler. And for the next 50 years, every minor blip that favors them -- like the usual one that comes in midterms for the losing party -- will be "1994 all over again".

The GOP reminds me of that middle-aged guy with long hair still driving the camaro and listening to classic rock who thinks he's still in high school.

"...voters head to the ballot box next November to choose all 435 members of Congress."
Ouch. Welcome to eighth grade civics. Yes, all 435 members of the House will be chosen in 2010, but the term "Congress" includes the Senate, and only one third of those seats will be chosen then.

Does it matter? One employs an elephant and the other a jackass to symbolize a particular brand of crookedness.

All are cut from the same cloth.

They only have two ways to win: Economy and narrative.

The economy is (mostly) the GOP's fault, but they've been trying to pin it on Dems and ACORN for awhile.

Therefore, the narrative is the bigger factor. It's played out in the media, which tilts toward right-wing memes.

So, IMO, if the Dems keep strong and clear messaging, it will go a long way toward defeating anything the wingnuts and teabaggers cannibalizing the GOP can muster.

I can't imagine anyone in their right mind, voting for the thugs after their behavior over just the past year alone, setting aside the past 9 years. Other than the 27-28% crazies, I can't imagine

"Imagine it. The TEA party is installing new people on the Repub ticket as we speak. Do you know who these candidates represent? Small business."

Yet strangely, they support exactly the same policies as big business.

Of course, I wouldn't expect logical coherence logical rigor from someone who sounds like Stephen Colbert at this most ironic. I mean seriously:

"I was once asked how small business can possibly compete against the Goliaths of industry. The answer is simple. The small business doesn't know it can't be done, so it just goes ahead and does it. Type "A" personalities. The most dangerous personalities in the world."

Comedy gold.

For the GOP to retake control of Congress with public support several things need to happen:
* They need real, logically consistent ideas on ways to reform the government and improve upon its operations
* They need a smart, integrated marketing campaign to sell those ideas
* They need to limit the ability of the Tea Party movement to play spoiler
* They need to accept and embrace moderates among their ranks
* They need the public to believe that they would be better at governing than the Democrats.

None of those things are happening. And given the genuinely uninspired leadership of Steele, Boehner and McConnell, I don't expect any of them to happen this year.

So the only way for the GOP to retake either house is if the Dems are too demotivated to go to the polls.

I'd say one commercial with a variety of statements from Boehner and pointing out that this man could end up speaker of the house... would be enough to make people do what they have to do to prevent it.

talk about a nightmare...

If you think things are bad... well they could be so much worse...

just imagine another seriously stupid member of the GOP, Rep. John Boehner, become Speaker of the House.

Glad to the see the people here have more election and political forecasting expertise than pretty much every expert there is. PPP recently stated that the 8 most vulnerable Senate seats ALL favor Republicans, but not to worry, because the Republicans lost NY-23. And the clown from the DCCC accused someone else of being in la la land? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

The Republicans don't need to do anything. They only have to sit back and watch the Democratic Party screw up, which they are doing nicely. And the assertion in this piece that the Dems might actually pick up Senate seats is a total joke.

Here's my prediction: Democrats pick up or lose 5-10 seats in the House, keep everything they have in the Senate and also pick up Florida and Ohio. Maybe even the diaper seat in Louisiana. Possibly even Missouri. For sure New Hampshire.

This is certainly what the GOP is going to try and accomplish. Midterm elections (without a Prez on the ticket) have much lower turnout than those elections where a Prez is on the ticket. If a state is able to include issues on the ballot, either the GOP base or the Democratic Party base can be energized to turn out and vote. Miscalculations are still possible.

Take the Missouri 2006 election for US Senate--an incumbent was "unelected" and McCaskill went to Washington. On the ballot was the ending of stem cell research--something the GOP thought would energize their base. It certainly did that. But it also energized the educational and medical folks--including some well-known state Republicans to gasp in horror. The Democrats and independents did turn out and McCaskill was elected.

I believe that the addition of an "opt out of federal health care" on the ballot would energize both sides. So I believe Missouri is safe--we'll have folks working the election and turning out to vote because healthcare is a real problem.

All of this is erased if the Congressional Democrats stumble and fall on healthcare or tie up our government processes in any way. But Rove and his ability to turn out and to depress various voting groups is still in play. The "left" struggles now with declining unions (who can certainly turn out their members to work on campaigns and to turn out voters) and their impact on elections--especially midterm elections.

Bottom line? I do view those carping on the "left" to take the issue picture to heart and not the election result picture. We are still in danger of tying up Congress. The danger is not in the House, but in the Senate.

Just sayin'.

It's not going to happen. With what demographic are the GOP weakest? Young voters. My kids HATE these assholes, and they are engaged and will vote.

Funny. The repubs = the party of no, no, no.

The Dems, on the other hand, are the party of go, go, go. The problem with go, go, go, is that without a coherent plan, it often leads to a nasty collision with a wall.

Just a thought.

GOP is hellbent on nominating Teabagger approved candidates. Candidates the lunatic fringe love, but the center doesn't. They are making the mistake that enraged out-parties always make: they nominate rabid foamy-lipped polemics, then lose.

"The GOP reminds me of that middle-aged guy with long hair still driving the camaro and listening to classic rock who thinks he's still in high school."

It's not a Camaro, you idiot, it's a Firebird, and all the chicks dig it.

I'd be worried if the GOP actually had good candidates and a coherent positive message. They don't. They also don't have money. Amazingly, Dems have raised significantly more than Repubs. This will be more like 2002, when we thought we Dems would take over. That went well, didn't it.

We'll be OK in the House IF the base turns out in those districts where the Repubs may have a chance. There's one near me and I intend to do what I can, in terms of money and driving a short distance, to help the incumbent (McNerney) with registration and especially GOTV.

Who know where independents will come down because they aren't a homogenous group by any means. But underscoring the paucity of ideas of the GOP, reminding voters that the people that run the party are the same ones that ran it under Bush, and letting the extremist label be applied should help us there.

But it does come down to the base. And that's less a question of "firing them up" than in getting them out and telling why it's important to them.

The could easily lose the mid-terms. The typical Dem supporter does not understand anything about our govt. Obama is a wealthy king or sorts. He's already in the White House. So, why vote?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ojd13kZlCA

Nobody advocated giving Wall Street a free hand, and nobody claimed that you advocated it. But here's where *you're* the one being a useful idiot.

Even *without* a public-private partnership of some sort, the perpetrators of the economic meltdown are already going without legal consequences and penalties. The investment bankers, bond-rating agencies, mortgage-writers and eager-beaver traders who built a financial house of cards have largely gotten away with it. So what, exactly, is the imperative for them to partner with the government for anything? They got their profits and they got away with it. No need to get in bed with the government, unless perhaps more TARP money is forthcoming. And you saw how fast they gave it back once the pay caps were announced. Business is perfectly happy to take government assistance or to dictate government policy, but not interested at all in helping support government or to go along with governmental policies that help individuals more than they help business. And who, exactly, is it that votes?

Furthermore, though you may not realize it, public-private partnership is, more often than not, code for 'business dictating to government what it will and will not stand for.' The only significant instance of industry approaching government and *asking* to be regulated in the last century happened in the 1920s. Bonus points if you can name and describe it, and more bonus points if you can come up with another instance, which I don't believe you will.

In short, when you talk about government and business working together, I don't have the least bit of faith that it will work as you describe, or even as you hope. History quite simply proves otherwise.

About Independents: except those (maybe a third of the group) who are outright fiscal conservatives, and who left the GOP, my hope is that they'll be the ones to stay home in districts where neither candidate excites them.

Don't come here often, mostly on HuffPo but the anger really got to me. A contributing factor to a repub take over may be the progressives who keep threatening to vote every, and I mean every incumbent, instead of the Blue Dogs or the ones who clearly should be sent packing.

Honestly, they sound like Teabaggers. They're so pissed off, they're willing to "cut off your nose to spite your face". I'm a progressive, but if this catches on - it's the end of the progressive movement. I may take a lot of heat for this here but aren't we a bit smarter than that?

Every time the Republicans get into office the katrina the nation.

It's just a matter of how badly they katrina it.

Reagan had black friday. Nixon gave us watergate. Eisenhower the military industrial complex. Hoover/Coolidge gave us the great depression, paving the way for the rise of Hitler, WWII and the holocaust.

Bush Jr gave us 9/11, Katrina, and an economic melt down so severe it nearly destroyed global civilization, he left lower Manhattan, New Orleans and Detroit all lying in ruins.

To vote them back into office is to invite another Katrina. Who will it be this time? The northwest? The south? California? The economy (again)? The middle class? The entire country? The entire world?

Why trust these people? They turned Katrina from a proper noun into a verb.

We need a conservative opposition party, but we need one that doesn't specialize in destroying things.

1994 was very different and it seems like nobody paid attention then and still hasn't got it.

There was a huge convergence on the parapolitical right (non-elective political actions outside the parties.) These included a surge in anti-abortion violence (murders and clinic attacks), an explosion in organizing by the so-called "Christian Patriots" (aka Militia Movement), an absolute paroxysm by the anti-environmentalist "Wise Use Movement" accompanied by county secession movements throughout the West, and a huge increase in activity by anti-gun control groups.

One indicator of the size of this movement was the militia organizing meetings that in some cases drew several thousand people to a single event. Ignored by the media and Democratic party operatives, but politically very significant.

The triggers were the FBI-created disaster at Waco, the passage of the Brady Bill, the link-up between white supremacists, anti-abortion terrorists and Posse Comitatus "common law / constitutionalist / tax resisters" and the passage at in several western states of environmental laws.

There was a huge right-wing backlash that started in 1993 and drew a large number of new voter registrations, nearly all of which were coming from people who previously had sat out elections as the non-voting extreme right. This was when the Republican "big tent" started gathering in some of the most extreme elements out on the fringe.

Most of this activity went under the radar and was not reported in the mainstream media. For instance, the militia organizing drive of 1993-1994 went completely unreported until late 1994 and then it was presented as mostly a joke. All this got rewritten after the Oklahoma City bombing, but the fact is the media did not report the surge in activity that peaked around August-September 1994. There were a series of attacks on the White House including a suicide plane crash, an armed attack by a fence jumper and a shooting incident with no suspect and no arrest.

This was strongly reflected in many local elections in 1993 going over to extreme right-wing candidates. In Washington State, House Majority leader Tom Foley was defeated by mostly soft-money anti-gun control groups.

Leaders of the far right, including Council for National Policy members were interviewed several times and flatly stated there was going to be a push from outside the Republican party.

All of this was ignored and continues to be disregarded as a factor in the 1994 elections. The fact is there was a huge convergence on the far right; it mobilized a large number of people who would not have voted otherwise and the widespread violence and agitation depressed Democratic turnouts. It was under the radar, but that only means they were able to make great gains without significant opposition.

I don't see the same sort of things happening now (at least not to that extent, though the extremist base is definitely upset), but the "structural" argument being put forward (lots of open seats) doesn't explain why the 1994 election swung so far to the right.

It starts for me with restoring integrity to our financial system. Justice for what amounts to Biblical Fraud. No guillotines, just Clawback.

From this perspective, 2006 and 2008 might just have well been 1994. No progressive movement on a single substantial issue whatsoever. Most important of these, Wall Street.

There they stood, CEOs with pants at their respective ankles, ripe to be sanctioned by a surging Democratic Majority working at long last to fulfill its historical mission to protect the Working and Middle Class against the predatory and cheating ways of Big Business.

But instead of Sanction we got Surrender. A once in a generation moment to restore faith in goverment as a partner and protector of hard work is lost. A chance to bury Reaganism and its unbalanced reliance of deregulation is ignored.

Worse still, non-progressive corporate policies are labeled as Socialism, Nazism, and Communism by rabid, anti-lectual Randians who make GWB look like Fidel Castro. The DLC is now the new Left. Progressives aren't even on the spectrum anymore.

So, what does it matter to me if Chris Dodd loses to a Republican? Shouldn't I just take my Corporatism pure and without the "base alloy of hypocrisy"?

If we could corner the men's hairspray market, these guys would be out of business. For good measure we might also want to corner the fluorescent tie market too - with no hairspray and no shiny loud ties, they would not come out in public anymore. Problem solved.

Oh yeah, let's get right back in the car with the driver's who put us in the ditch.