I watched a show on MSNBC, and they have all but given the house to the GOP (I would remind you that it's still 7 months away). However they were squabbling over whether the Senate would stay in Democratic hands. They even put Nevada, home of the Majority Leader, as a likely GOP take over. I've seen those polls. Reid is down by 9 points to either challenger, but again, lets be frank, he's been busy. He hasn't rolled out a robust re-election campaign yet, so lets assume when he does that he picks up 5 points. that makes a a 4 point game, which is most polls falls just shy of the margin of error. The real question becomes can the democrats change the message in time to make up those 4 points and then grab some extras to spare. I say, yes, they will. and here is why:
(1) In the past 7 months the economy has gone from bad to worse and then from worse to still bad but not spirally out of control. Taking my cues from the most recent economic news, everyone was bummed out that we lost 20,000 jobs instead of the 5,000 we expected. come on! 20,000 is still better than 700,000 losses. At the same time we went from 10.2% unemployment to 9.7%, a drop of half a percent. Not bad, huh? well don't expect the media to catch onto that.
The reality is that the economy is poised for a rebound. The Dow is on solid ground compared to where it was last year, the employment numbers suggest we are on the brink of job growth, and every economist worth their expensive degrees is saying the worst is behind us. Me prediction: Unemployment will drop slowly until May/June, when it will fall sharply (if most companies are like my university than that will mark the end of their current hiring freeze, and they will begin to take some chances). I tentatively suggest that by August we are at 7.5 to 8.0% unemployment. Guess who is going to get the credit for that? And don't forget the president's new job plan.
(2) Health care will be yesterday's news. Assuming the democrats take care of health care immediately, by the time the elections role around people wont be as angry about it. The Republicans will still try to use it as a weapon, but it wont make a lot of sense since most of it wont take effect until 2011, well after the elections. So the facts wont support the republican position and lets all remember that the public ha about a 3 month memory when it comes to politics. Prediction: Health care won't be a big issue on election night 2010. Exit polls will say that the economy, jobs, and social issues will be the big issues, because that is always what people say, despite the fact that statistics show Republicans often vote against their economic interests.
(3) Incumbent democrats haven't started "running" yet. Republicans have been running for 2010 since November 5, 2008. Democrats have been trying to govern. Just as Reid will pick up points when he kicks his campaign into high gear, so too will other democrats. Between now and the summer, I would expect some small changes in the numbers with republican leads shrinking but staying solidly outside the margin of error, but starting in June I would be very surprised if those leads don't disappear with at least a few Democrats pulling into the lead.
So here is my over-all predictions:
(1) Democrats will hold both houses
(2) Republicans will pick up 2 seats in the senate (57-43)
(3) Republicans will pick up between 10 and 20 seats on the house (246/236-188/198)
This election is NOT 1994. Will the republicans win back some seats, yes of course. The only reason the congress swung so far to the left was because Democrats were VERY motivated in 2008. That and Obama managed to pull a lot of informed moderates and uninformed fair-weather voters toward the democrats who were seen as the inevitable victors. The Republicans will pick up seats because the congress will be working it's way back toward a comfortable equilibrium, not because their policies win over any credibility. How could they?
Common Sense
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