Thinking About Childers

This business of Travis Childers winning an extremely Republican district on the heels of two other Democratic special election wins drives home how infuriating the idea of even having an extended "electability" argument about "who can win" is at this point. The reality is that given current conditions, either Clinton or Obama is very likely to win. That, I assume, is why Clinton is fighting so hard. There's no need to join David Corn in reaching for esoteric explanations, she's fighting hard for the prize of the nomination because it's a very good prize to have.

Objective conditions could, of course, change. Maybe some kind of spate of unexpected good news from Iraq or the economic picture will save John McCain. But unless that happens, he's looking to be in terrible shape. The GOP brand is so terrible that it's dragging candidates down in solid red districts, and McCain is currently doing not-so-hot in polling matchups even though Americans are now inundated in unflattering information about Clinton and Obama while most people have never heard sustained from-the-left criticism of McCain.

On the House side, NRCC chair Tom Coles seems to be heavily leaning on the notion that it's somehow underhanded of Democrats to nominate culturally conservative candidates to run in culturally conservative districts. Needless to say, the GOP does the same thing in culturally liberal districts because this is just common sense. But more to the point, the idea that the GOP can turn the ship around by November by "revealing" this strategy is going to be of little comfort to the large number of Republicans defending more culturally moderate districts outside of the South. Democrats aren't going to pick up many more seats in places like the MS-1 but they hardly need to.

Comments

The GOP brand is so terrible that it's dragging candidates down in solid red districts, and McCain is currently doing not-so-hot in polling matchups even though Americans are now inundated in unflattering information about Clinton and Obama while most people have never heard sustained from-the-left criticism of McCain.

Memo To Fat Karl: A one-party America, eh? Republican rule for fifty years? How'd that work out?

Posted by Jemand von Niemand | May 14, 2008 9:59 AM

I couldn't agree more about Hillary's reasons for staying in the race. I'm an Obama supporter but I can certainly empathize with her. One assumes any competitive person in her position would be hard pressed to leave the race, at least up until now. Even if the numbers don't add up for her, they are still extremely close. She has raised millions of dollars from people who believe in her and are emotionally invested in her candidacy. One can imagine tha she at least feels a responsibility to them to go out with some dignity. As Matt says, the fundamentals are still strongly in the Dems favor and it is not apparent that Hillary is doing irreconcilable damage.

Posted by jj | May 14, 2008 10:02 AM

Well, I've been convinced by Petey's unassailable rhetorical strategy of calling you names that you are wrong. The "trust fund scumbag" bit wins every argument!

Besides, this proves Petey's theory that you're a Republican double agent:

...the GOP does the same thing in culturally liberal districts because this is just common sense.

I can tell that you really want the GOP to win with my new Petey colored glasses!

Posted by DMonteith | May 14, 2008 10:05 AM

Obviously. This is what stings her the most. The fact that winning the Democratic nomination is tantamount to winning the Presidency for all intents and purposes and she let it slip through her fingers.

But what she doesn't understand is that she never fully realized how poorly the republicans would be received at this stage of the game. The very things she did to shore up her bona fides for a general election were no longer needed.

Posted by Marcus | May 14, 2008 10:13 AM

Obviously. This is what stings her the most. The fact that winning the Democratic nomination is tantamount to winning the Presidency for all intents and purposes and she let it slip through her fingers.

But what she doesn't understand is that she never fully realized how poorly the republicans would be received at this stage of the game. The very things she did to shore up her bona fides for a general election were no longer needed.

Posted by Marcus | May 14, 2008 10:14 AM

Ok, so the Republicans are angry because the Democrats are fielding good candidates?

What else are they going to be mad about, the fact that rain is wet?

Posted by JRVJ | May 14, 2008 10:15 AM

Maybe some kind of spate of unexpected good news from Iraq or the economic picture will save John McCain. But unless that happens, he's looking to be in terrible shape. The GOP brand is so terrible that it's dragging candidates down in solid red districts,

Sorry to burst your optimism, but the Dem. brand ain't doin' so hot either. And remember, the MSM is gonna present the election as scary non-white-male Dem vs. St. John McCain the Maverick.

Moreover, I'm gonna earn some "pundit making counter-intuitive argument" derisive label here (if only I'd earn the salary from it as well), but I actually think that the Dems. will actually benefit from a better economy and good news from Iraq. If things are doing better, it neutralizes the "do nothing Dem. Congress" argument the GOP is gonna use. It also makes people think "well, we dodged the bullet this time, how do we prevent this from happening again?" and they'll vote Dem.

OTOH, as FDR said "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself". If we are in a recession ("your neighbor has lost his job"), then people will be afraid and want to hold on to what they have: which is per force a conservative state of mind and the GOP will be able to capitalize on this. Moreover, the GOP will blame the "do nothing Dem. congress", run against "interventionist and actually liberal GWB" and start insinuating that "well, the Dems. wanted this recession because they figured it would help them win in 2008".

Of course if we are in Hashem forbid a depression ("you are out of a job"), then the Dems. win: people with nothing to loose ('cause they've already lost it) are not as afraid as people who very much feel on the verge of loosing everything.

Posted by DAS | May 14, 2008 10:20 AM

Indeed. I'm feeling foolishly confident about an Obama presidency these days. Structurally, this election is looking like a trainwreck for Republicans. Anything can happen, long time 'til November, yada yada. It's looking good.

Posted by Adam | May 14, 2008 10:20 AM

Eventually, the NRCC -- and the rest of the party nationally -- will recognize it's time they realigned their priorities in light of the new political realities. Greg Davis's Get out the Vote Rally with special guest Dick Cheney (pdf) the night before the special election is an indication of the party's stubborn unwilligness to cast aside Bush-era movement conservatism and its relentless, no-compromises, rank-and-file politics. They'll keep losing if they don't start promoting smarter candidates, that can compete in this political climate.

McCain, I think, will be burdened with the same albatross. His electoral success -- as many have already noted -- likely depends on his willingness and ability to cast aside the Bush legacy. This strategy doesn't seem likely to succeed.

Posted by seanh | May 14, 2008 10:26 AM

Ok, so the Republicans are angry because the Democrats are fielding good candidates?

What else are they going to be mad about, the fact that rain is wet?

Cut them a little slack; the Democrats haven't always done that-- not by a long shot!

Posted by Persia | May 14, 2008 10:30 AM

Shorter Tom Cole: My advice to Republican candidates is to not run as Republicans.

Posted by Hogan | May 14, 2008 10:32 AM

It's pretty remarkable how fast things can change over a couple cycles. The 2002 elections and their supposed establishment of long-term Republican majorities seems pretty laughable at this point.

Given the macro-environment for the GOP it seems like any reasonably solid Democratic nominee for President will win in the fall. That's why I've shrugged off most of the criticism directed at Obama recently. The Dems have the money, manpower and momentum.

Childers should win in November. I'm more amazed by the 8-point margin of victory. I think a good parallel to Childers is Stephanie Herseth Sandlin's narrow special election against Larry Diedrich in June 2004 which was followed up with a more comfortable victory in the general that November.

Posted by Ben | May 14, 2008 10:36 AM

The chances of an epic 1930-32 style realignment is probably the only good thing about Bush winning in 2004. The country is in vastly worse shape then it could have been, thanks to his (mis)governance... but at least it might result in having a shot at solving some long standing issues like health care.

Posted by J.W. Hamner | May 14, 2008 10:36 AM

Well, Childers ran a "Pro-Life, Pro-Gun" campaign. I suspect that many who voted for him will vote McCain in November.

That said, I agree that Obama really has nothing to worry about.

Posted by MoonRooster | May 14, 2008 10:37 AM

Even shorter Tom Cole: We're f***ed.

Posted by Dave | May 14, 2008 10:52 AM

Tom Cole, politically correct shortest version for children:

"F**k!"

Posted by morzer | May 14, 2008 11:06 AM

Re: If we are in a recession ("your neighbor has lost his job"), then people will be afraid and want to hold on to what they have: which is per force a conservative state of mind and the GOP will be able to capitalize on this.

Except that the GOP is no longer the conservative party in the true meaning of that word. The GOP has become the radical party, the party of foreign crusades, of upsetting stable apple carts, of fixing what isn't broken (so that it ends up broken), of throwing monkey-wrenches into the works, and of loosing bulls in china shops.

Posted by JonF | May 14, 2008 11:16 AM

I was proved f*$king right!

Posted by Judy Miller | May 14, 2008 11:20 AM

Well, the recent results in Basra and, to a lesser extent, Baghdad were pretty unexpected and also pretty good (though of course, we'll have to see if it lasts) and they don't appear to have resulted in a McCain surge in the polls, so I'm not so sure that'd really have that much impact. The economy is also defying Soros-like "this is 1929 all over again" predictions, which, again, hasn't done anything to help McCain.

Posted by Sancho | May 14, 2008 11:22 AM

Where is the evidence that Republicans run socially moderate candidates in socially moderate districts. It seems like almost all the moderate Republicans are incumbents that were in office before the Republicans became ideologically pure.

The problem for the Republicans is that Democrats are more pragmatic in terms of the candidates they run while Republicans have increasingly required purity.

McCain is the exception, but the base hates him and the chaos of the Republican delegate allocation rules played a role in his emergence.

Posted by Kineslaw | May 14, 2008 11:37 AM

If she quits prior to the convention and there's some terrible piano-falling-on-Obama type incident she would be tainted goods. She would be branded a quitter, much like Gore was for giving up on Florida. (Gore was doomed either way. The right divies up its yakking points. Some cried "quitter". Some cried "spoil sport". So it goes.) She needn't run maximally and nastily, but she can't quit either. She's Plan B.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 14, 2008 11:40 AM

"The reality is that given current conditions, either Clinton or Obama is very likely to win."

Really? Clinton isn't "very likely to win" if she secures the nomination by having the super-delegates override the outcome of the primaries. And since that's the ONLY WAY for her to get the nod, there is NO WAY for her to get the nomination without a huge rupture in the Democratic Party, potentially devastating her chances in November.

Posted by Claudius | May 14, 2008 11:57 AM

Except that the GOP is no longer the conservative party in the true meaning of that word. - JonF

The thing about "conservatism" is what you mean by that ideology depends on what you want to conserve. You can be a conservative and what you want to conserve is the momentum of progress -- and such progressives are often very, very moonbat liberal Democrats as are Vierick (sp) style conservatives (e.g. Susan Eisenhower's been making noises about supporting Obama).

Of course, the GOP is already starting to run away from the Bush legacy by painting him as (for the reasons you point out) not conservative -- BushCO neo-conservativism will be blamed on the Dems (and "liberal elite" and other code words for Jews). Certainly, this'll be harder with Mr. Neo-Con McCain running than it would have been with, e.g., Romney, but the GOP'll try it anyway -- because they have to both repudiate BushCO and rehabilitate the conservative brand. So how better to do so than point out "Bush conservative? what did he want to conserve?"

That being said, current GOP "conservatism" is conservative in its desire to maintain raw social hierarchies. And when people are afraid of loosing everything, they'll cling to what they have. Of course, a politico can't point this out (look what they did to Obama when he pointed out the obvious about this), but as MLK pointed out about poor, white Southrons: "the aristocracy took the world and fed the poor whites Jim Crow". Similarly, the GOP is the conservative party in that they want to maintain certain privaleges in the face of upity people and they are in favor of going to war to kill "those people", etc.

As such, when people are afraid, the GOP is still conservative enough in the right way (which, IMHO, is frightening -- I'm a Jew and I know history) to get their votes.

Posted by DAS | May 14, 2008 12:01 PM

If she quits prior to the convention and there's some terrible piano-falling-on-Obama type incident she would be tainted goods.

Tainted goods? If a piano falls on Obama after she concedes his victory, she would be the no-brainer choice to succeed him because she came in a very close second in the primary races. That doesn't seem very tainted to me. The fact that she had dropped out of the race would also fail to "taint" her because she would have demonstrated her loyalty to the party by ending her hopeless and mathematically impossible bid to come from behind. Also, it's pretty obvious that she'd be conceding to Obama, not saying that she renounces the nomination in favor of anyone and everyone else who could conceivably be considered in the event of Obama's demise.

In other words, she's plan B whether she quits or not.

Posted by DMonteith | May 14, 2008 12:02 PM

First, no fair tricking me into clicking on an Ambinder post (I am trying to avoid him ever since he cut off comments).

Second, yes the GOP looks pretty well screwed at this point. Part of the problem is that DAS is wrong in the premise: the American people aren't afraid, they are angry. So sure, fear might well benefit the "conservative" party, as arguably happened in 2002 and 2004. But by 2006 the American people had switched to anger, and anger is unlikely to benefit the party with the Presidency.

Posted by DTM | May 14, 2008 12:18 PM

Matt is dead on here with explaining Clinton's behavior, I think. She sees that a dead Norwegian blue parrot with a D after its name would be very likely to win this year of all years. And she is determined to take that place.

This ties in with an argument Schumer made early on regarding FL and MI--that the wind was at Democrats backs this year, that random Democrat beat random Republican in polls for all sorts of seats, and so the MI/FL solution wouldn't impact that much. I thought he was naive--having actual candidates rather than just party affiliations always changes things. But if you believe it, then it could follow that tearing at the party, no matter how desperate and divisive it seems, no matter how nutso the supers overthrowing the pledged delegates is, no matter how that would play for Republicans in terms of what democracy means to Democrats--if any Democrat will win, regardless of what that candidate does in December through November, then any means would justify the end of getting a Clinton on the ticket.

I also agree that her chances of being the post-piano-falling candidate were far higher back in February or even March.

Posted by Deborah | May 14, 2008 6:05 PM

This business of Travis Childers winning an extremely Republican district on the heels of two other Democratic special election wins.

Err. The Democrats only won three out of four special elections.

Or are you not aware that Louisiana had two special elections on May 3.

Democrat Don Cazayoux won the 6th Congressional district race.

Republican Steve Scalise won the 1st Congressional district race.

All the liberals are omitting Scalise's victory, and portraying their successes as 3 out of 3.

Wrong.

Posted by Zowie | May 14, 2008 7:58 PM

"The Change You Deserve"

CLINICAL TRIALS HAVE SHOWN:

The new and improved Republican Platform XR produces side effects including but not limited to generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, nervousness, yawning, and/or sweating.
Studies have shown a propensity for abnormal vision, impotence, nausea (31%) and constipation (10%). Flatulence tends to be a problem as well.
Also revealed were increased instances of depression, decreased libido, agitation, nightmares, delirium, blurred vision and difficulty focusing.
Known to cause loss of appetite, cold feet, postural hypotension and hemorrhoids. Less common side effects include acne, pustular rash, taste perversion, prostate irritability and vaginitis.
Not a controlled substance and has not been studied in clinical trials regarding potential for abuse.

Posted by MsSwin | May 15, 2008 12:55 AM

From "Head of State"

http://headofstate.blogspot.com/2008/05/change-that-you-deserve.html


Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The Change That You Deserve

From the Chicago Tribune:

"The slogan unveiled this week by House Republicans - "Change you deserve" - is already a trademark used by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals to market its antidepressant Effexor XR."

Black Screen.

Fade into:

Scene of a thin grey haired man standing in a green field. Behind him we can see the sun is rising.

"I got the change I deserved with GOP."

Cut to a small child, in a sun dress, who looks up at him and smiles.

"I was tired, listless. I had lost interest in my usual activities--creating false attacks, acting as if I had been unfairly attacked about issues created out of whole cloth, drawing specious historical parallels, fawning over ideologically bankrupt manufactured father figures. Sure, I sent emails claiming that Obama was a Muslim, but somehow...it had lost the spark, the enjoyment of everyday life."

Cut to a child who rides by on a bicycle, and throws a newspaper on the front porch.

"That's when I found GOP."

Cut to man rowing in a scull across a still river. He turns to the camera, smiles.

"In clinical studies, GOP has been found to increase aggressiveness in the absence of actual provocation in 8 out of 10 users. In most users, the desire to gleefully attack returns in 1 week. Full enthusiasm for invented ideas in two. "

Cut to image of porch swing.

"With GOP, my attention to minor distractions fully returned, until I was again building them into major accusations of flawed character. Once again, my intense focus on pins, buttons, sentences fragments and remote relationships as absolute indications of personal virtue and ability was at its peak. For an entire weekend, I could one again choose the right moment to accuse a candidate of treason without cause--when I was ready, when the time felt right".

Cut to a series of blurred images: long, stringy haired teens in torn jeans and ironic 80's t-shirts lounging by the Washington Monument; picture of John Kerry in a Swift Boat during Vietnam;
Eiffel Tower. Arugula on plate. During these images, rapid voiceover in female voice:

"GOP may cause monosyllabism, inability to consider two differing concepts at the same time, memory loss or inaccurate recall of recently and repeatedly presented intelligence information, focus on size of automobiles or koro, sequential nicknaming, knowing mischaracterization, hooting. If you have a desire to read the collected works of Ann Coulter that lasts longer than four hours, this may be a sign of a dangerous condition and you should contact your physician immediately."

Cut back to man standing in field. American flag waving in the distance behind him, below a risen sun. A woman walks up beside him, puts her arm around him, and smiles.

Man:

"So get the change that you deserve. Talk to your Doctor about GOP. Soon, you'll be walking by the homeless on the street again and saying "Let them get a job!"

Or better yet--let them get GOP."

Woman smiles.

Fade.

Cite:

Head of State

http://headofstate.blogspot.com/2008/05/change-that-you-deserve.html

Posted by Robert Hewson | May 15, 2008 7:23 AM

A small number of patients have shown rapid onset of geriatric profanity disorder. See your doctor if your discourse starts to become uncivil.

Posted by Hogan | May 15, 2008 10:23 AM

Not that I'm happy about this, but I'm going to go against the grain here and assert that either Obama will lose in November, or he will win by a much smaller margin than most people are expecting (now, anyway).

Yes, the country is very anti-GOP now. But I think there's depths and breadth of racism that people aren't accounting for now. People don't like to think of themselves as racists and they will answer poling questions accordingly. But when push comes to shove on Election Day, they will be much more likely to vote their prejudices. And I don't think the situation is much different with regard to sexism and Clinton.

Either candidate has a weakness that few are willing to acknowledge or even are aware of. A lot of us live in places and are in socioeconomic classes where it's easy to think that the barriers of sexism and racism are no longer a big factor in American politics. But that's naive.

In my opinion, we Democrats are taking a big risk this election year. We could have easily won with a traditional candidate. (Regardless of what I'm saying, I'm among those willing to take the risk: I wouldn't have voted for Edwards for the Dem nominee simply because I've had my fill of white, Southern, Presidents.) But, given the opportunity, by putting forth a female or a black candidate we have the opportunity of changing American politics in a good way a number of years before we would have otherwise. So, maybe it's a good gamble.

But don't for a moment fool yourself into believing that it's not a gamble. If I'm wrong come November, feel free to email me then and tell me you told me so. But I think posts like this and the comments within it are very unrealistically optimistic.

Posted by Keith M Ellis | May 15, 2008 6:27 PM