Quaid,

So if my scenario comes to pass, that should work out better for the gop, right? Because they will have made inroads but dems will still "own"the problems?

I think that the economy will improve by 2012 (at least I hope so). The american economy is pretty resilient and can resurrect itself in spire of governmental tomfoolery. I don't know if that alone will be enough to keep dems in power. I guess it depends on improvements in the employment rate.

Regarding message, this is what I'm talking about: linK. The person linking this today show vid thinks that it points out problems w the dem message (and jon stewart seems to think so too), but I think the "stay the course, we're for the little guy, look at what we've done for you, let's not give them back the keys , getting out of the ditch, give us more time" message might just work, if applied consistently.

I saw that interview a few days ago (it was linked on one of my favorite sites - after The Thinklings, of course - RealClearPolitics.com).

Jon Stewart has to be one of the most liberal, conservative-bashing people on any network and even he was tearing Kaine apart because they have no message. When the people who are designed to be the source of the message are upset about not having the message 7 weeks out, it isn't going to happen. Frankly, it's just too late to craft a cogent, coherent message, absent anyone from the GOP doing something overtly stupid. (If a Republican Senate Candidate comes out and says something outrageous or if Palin gives the media some material - it could galvanize the Dems leading into November.) Ceteris paribus, the Dems aren't going to make it when it comes to message.

If their hope is to champion the little guy, they lose - because the little guy feels like junk right now due to the economy. They basically have no message that will GOTV. "Give us more time" went out of style about Jan 20, 2010 - one year into Obama's presidency.

The reason the GOP will own the problem in two months is that they will be trumpeted as the victors even if they end up not securing control of Congress. So, the nation will look to them to lead when they simply don't have the power to do so. The worst-case scenario is to barely win the house so there is no more Nancy Pelosi. Frankly, John Boehner doesn't do it for me (or for most of the country, I'd imagine).

I suppose we'll see, but unless the GOP can start pushing legislation through that Obama starts vetoing, 2012 will be a hard sell for the GOP, unless the economy remains in the toilet.

I think that the GOP would be put in a hard spot if the outcome is as we suspect ("an almost, but not quite victory"). It is a spot where they won't receive credit if things start to turn around - Obama will take that politically, but they have an expectation (similar to that expectation we had for Obama in early 2009) to make strong progress that if it doesn't occur, will give us another 2002. I realize it sounds strange, but in a funny way - they can only do poorly if they don't win out.

So what do they hope for? Politically speaking, they are to hope that Obama keeps making political gaffes and that the economy doesn't improve. The GOP, of course, cannot say that they hope the economy doesn't improve. If the economy starts an upswing by July/August of election year, Obama can pull off the win.

Their other hope is to win both the House and the Senate - because this changes everything. They need to be sending bill after bill to the White House and force Obama to become the new "party of NO". If things improve, they can start taking credit for it. If the Dems still control the Congress, they have a larger claim to things improving. If the GOP does not have the majority, the Dems will turn it around on them and say - you won 40+ seats in the House and you gained back much in the Senate - WHERE IS THE IMPROVEMENT??? The reply of "we're still not in the majority" won't fly with voters, I don't think.

So - yes - this is a lose-lose for the RNC. Assuming that our predictions come true and I were in charge, I would say to the GOP leadership in Congress - your best bet is to Chris Christie the heck out of this. Start talking tough, get radical and make an absolute crystal clear line in the sand that shows exactly what America needs to do and then force Obama to accept or reject the idea(s). For all of the problems that the Dems have with message, it's not as if the GOP's message is really all that clear, either. They're just capitalizing on everyone's frustration with the status quo. They win in November by saying nothing more than "What's going on right now isn't working" and then stating typical Republican platform items such as low taxation, less govt., etc.

And just like Obama wins by losing (something I posited in the Spring), the GOP can lose by winning - unless they win big. They better hope for some serious gains in the polls in the next weeks. They need to win Nevada, California and Wisconsin Senate seats. They need to win the Senate - it's their only hope for building a strong momentum going into election year.

I think it is an unreal scenario. The video you linked to was created and promoted by a dentist, if memory serves - no one politically connected to anything.

The only way Hillary runs is if Obama steps aside. She will not run against him unless he does something amazingly stupid.

Also - you wrote that "she will quitely [sic] begin her campaign for 2012 . . ." I don't think it's possible for someone of her stature to vacate her post and do anything quietly. If she does leave her post as SOS, then it's automatic that she's running, and the game is on - despite her lack of declaration of candidacy. Her leaving is tantamount to her running.

Lastly, I don't think a big GOP win in two months equates to Dems abandoning Obama. And certainly not in droves. To be frank, he has the African American vote, regardless of anything he says or does. He also is the most liberal President in our history and the far left contingent will vote for no one else. I would guess that's around 25% of the general electorate right there and close to 45% of the Democrat electorate.

I'm not certain of the last time a party abandoned their President mid-term since, possibly, LBJ - and I'm not even certain if that happened at all and/or to what extent with him.

House sets the budget. If the GOP controls the House, they can de-fund any agency and effectively cut spending and kill expanded regulation.

Also, under current policies, the economy is NOT turning about, unless you believe magical economic fairies will come to the rescue. The economy is laboring under massive deficits and debts, massively expanded government and deflation, all while practically standing on matchsticks.

Obama is not Clinton. He doesn't make gaffes. He's utterly deaf and blind to reality, while living in a parallel universe. He is an ideologue to his core and has already publicly said that he is willing to be a one-term president. That he's no signs of backing away from his agenda this late in the game is a solid indicator of what he plans to do.

I've seen enough poll numbers to make my head spin. Voter anger is at historic levels. They don't particularly like the GOP, but they hate Democrats and they hate O-care. They're electing the GOP to be "the party of no" for now and block any more stuff from being rammed through. Whether they'll expect something much beyond that before 2012 is an open question, but if they control the House, they can threaten a government shutdown and twist arms in the Senate to get legislation through.

Paragraphs like this are why Republicans have virtually no chance of retaking the Presidency in 2012.

And sentences like this leave me scratching my head. Think you could be a little more vague?

Andrew - you can't assume that the GOP candidates (by one recent count, almost 20 of them) will take the same position on Obama that DM has, here.

To say that the Republicans don't have a chance is simply wrong - especially in our current economic situation. Still, I know where you're coming from. If the GOP approaches Obama without any respect for his mind ("he is living in a parallel universe") or his candidacy ("he is utterly blind and deaf to reality") they will have underestimated him and his ability to campaign and, therefore, will have left themselves vulnerable to defeat.

I feel that Kerry and the Dems took such an approach to W in 2004 and we all know how that turned out.

I don't know where I stand on predictions, other than to say that 2 years is a long, long, long time in politics. How many of you had heard of Barak Obama in September of 2006?

In my experience, the closest I've seen to what's happening now is the Carter model. A public, disgusted with Washington and with Republicans in general vote a Democrat into office on a wave of hope. He proved to be a disappointment. So he was voted out after one term.

Of course, there's a big missing piece. Ronald Reagan. The Republicans have not found their leader yet. I think there is still time. It always seems like a viable leader won't emerge, but one always does. But it's very hard to unseat a sitting President.

For my part, I was never that impressed with Obama (I even went to one of his rallies - he made the most implausible promises and people ate it up). But he did run an extremely impressive campaign. He can do it again, although it will have to be different in that he can't really run on Hope and Change anymore. He has to run on a record.

I don't think that today's conservative movement can be summed up so dismissively as "screaming about liberty and tyranny". Certainly, there's a lot of that out there. And time will tell if that can sustain itself. But this does have the feeling of 1979-ish again. There may be a revolution underway.

I wish I trusted the GOP more to actually sieze the moment. They can be so sand-poundingly stupid, politically.

(I'm voting against every math-challenged statist I can this November but I'm also half-inclined to just vote against every incumbent regardless of party).

Andrew,

I think you're pretty much right on in your commentary. I'll take one issue (and I may be nitpicking)

You're right to say that they have time, but right now, it looks pretty bleak

If it looks bleak for the Republicans, it looks absolutely black-holish for the Democrats. They had a chance to prove that they could run a budget and fix the economy, and they have (in my opinion) blown it. They have made "trillion" the new standard for "a lot of money".

I still struggle with the idea that a Republican win will be a bad thing for Republicans. Winning is always better than losing (imo).

Back to the Democrats: I remember when I used to think a deficit bigger than 200Billion was large. We'd love to have a deficit that "small" now. I think there are a number of people in this country just looking at that one issue right now, and thinking that, for all their faults, Republicans by nature can't spend as much as Democrats. And if the government is divided, even better.

Things are bleak for Obama as well, but - to your point and Quaid's - if the Republicans gain power I think the economy will start to do better and Obama will, by definition, get credit for it. He can survive 2012 if he's smart, campaigns well, etc. One area that we've disagreed on in the past (and I may be proven wrong here, certainly) is our assessment of Obama's political skills. I thought he was a good campaigner, but was never convinced he was that good of a politician. Certainly nowhere near as good as Clinton was. I have an even lower view of his political skills now. I think he's been really terrible at messaging, needlessly getting himself into issues that just hurt him or make him look weak (Chicago Olympics, GZMosque, Cambridge police, to name a few). Now, generally you would call a politician that has accomplished as much of his agenda as Obama has a great politician, but it doesn't feel that way. It feels more like brute force and backroom deals, and more like the heavy lifting has been done by others.

I may be wrong. Though not a supporter of his, I had higher hopes for him when this all started. It's been disappointing.

Bill: "But he did run an extremely impressive campaign. He can do it again"

I don't think he can do it again. The media will have to do a full court press for him and the message will still be "I know we can't govern, but please give us another chance, because the GOP will eat your children." I don't think he can win with that--unless the GOP runs an elitist campaign and conservatives and libertarians vote mostly for a small government hopeful. But you know, liberals stand a chance of insanity like that too.

Hyperbole aside, I don't underestimate Obama for what he can do--which is put on a good show and make people feel at ease while he unrelenting persists in grasping more power--but I've also watched him re-enact the same pattern over and over again while his numbers have steadily declined for the better part of a year, with very little recovery. I've watched him lurch from one policy disaster to the next. I've watched him make a hash of international relations that make Bush's mistakes minor by comparison. I've watched him sign economic bills he supported that have left our economy on the verge of collapse. I've watched him insert himself into situations where no president belonged.

He doesn't know how to lead. Most of the heavy lifting done on his signature policies were by Reid and Pelosi. They, along with a cadre of Congressman, wrote the damn bills with barely any input from the administration. The policies that he's otherwise actively pushed for without their heavy lifting he hasn't gotten.

It seems to me an irony that, after my comment, everyone talked underestimating Obama's mind, yet no one asked what precisely I meant by my comments (they were brief) or what basis I had for my opinion. I would call that an underestimation. To be clear, I don't underestimate his mind or what I think his skills are, but I think he views the world through a filter of ideology and hubris that blinds him to reality. I think he's out of his depth, where his specific talents will do him no good. Clinton was far more adaptable.

Most of the heavy lifting done on his signature policies were by Reid and Pelosi. They, along with a cadre of Congressman, wrote the damn bills with barely any input from the administration.

Well, isn't that what constitutional governance is supposed to look like? What on earth is the legislative branch for if not for doing the heavy lifting on legislation?

Andrew - I'm glad this conversation isn't adding to your frustration, because I find this interesting and helpful to talk about. Sorry you're frustrated and apathetic about politics in general, but you're not alone - and there are worse things to be than apathetic about the tomfoolery we call national politics!

One interesting comment you made that I have to address:

"The deficit, the debt - these things are unsustainable. They have to do something. The American people cannot overcome those things by themselves."

I disagree . . . profoundly :-) - the deficit and the debt we are facing is - in large, large part, due to this congress and past congresses "doing things". Now, it's not all their fault - our system is based upon them bringing back pork to a voter population with an insatiable appetite for federal largesse. You know the saying - "in a democracy, the wh_res are us"

To really, really explode the debt, you need a congress doing exactly what this one has been doing. The ironic thing is this: The private sector has money right now to invest, to hire, etc. But in large part it's not. Because it's evil? No. Because we have a Government right now that is doing wild things and is very hard to track. It's impossible to plan for a new employee if you don't have a clear idea what new mandated financial burdens will be placed on you per each employee you hire.

If Congress would slow down, let private industry catch its breath, and if congress would exude a sense of prudence and responsibility - promise no new taxes, for instance, businesses would up their investments, hiring, etc and things would get better. More people employed would mean more tax revenue coming into the federal government, which would mean lower deficits, etc.

I'm not saying Congress should never do anything. As I mentioned earlier, during the peak of the credit crisis in late 2008 something probably needed to be done (there was bipartisan agreement on that). But the minute the Government started buying businesses, or bailing out companies that should have been left to follow the tried and true bankruptcy path to recovery, and began their Keynesian targeted stimulus policies, etc, they were doing too much. It seems clear (to me, at least) that that's why unemployment is still high. A small business owner (or should I say "fat cat"? I think that's the new term :-) looks at this and says "I think I'll defer that hiring decision and opening that new location until I see what's going to happen.

That's why I believe, if we get a divided Government in 2011 that does a LOT LESS than this one, things will get better. There are few recovery engines stronger than the American people.

Your mileage may vary/I could be wrong/etc. But that's my prediction. If Obama is smart, he'll take the credit for the recovery. If he's not, he'll continue submitting to the far left portion of his base and if he does that, I think he's gone in 2012.

Time will tell.

There's a difference between letting Congress write the legislation and giving next to no input on its form--on his signature policies--while the Speaker and President pro tempore negotiate among various factions to create sprawling mountains of new regulation.

It probably doesn't make much sense to keep talking about this, since we're obviously coming from different angles, but wasn't it the Obama administration that never allowed single-payer - the real liberal dream - onto the table, and wasn't it the Obama administration that killed the public option before most people believed it was dead? Personally, had he done the heavy-lifting, I would have considered it an abuse of power, since the one legislative duty given to the executive branch by the Constitution is to either sign or veto bills given by the Congress.

If the proceedings of this Congress are examples of "constitutional governance," then I'm not sure we have a constitution. The "Slaughter Solution" to deem legislation passed without a floor vote, the abuse of the reconciliation process to pass non-budget bills, the passage of legislation that no one has read (legislators or the public), and the voting of bills before they're being done written are all indicators of a runaway Congress where the President is no longer acting as a check.

That's not what I said. Obviously, I don't support every single action of this Congress as being constitutional, only the idea of legislators legislating and the President being more or less a statesman. There hasn't been a Congress above this kind of sleaze for, well, forever. There never will be, either.

Andrew

You've made a good point. I guess I have to revise my hopes for Congress to include not just "doing nothing" but also "reducing spending". If they have those two accomplishments, I'm good :-)

Below I've pasted a comment of something I wrote just over a year ago (Sep. 10, 2009), and I pretty much stand by it. While it took a little longer to hit the low 40's, I think we'll see Obama rebound in February, or so. Here's the link to the original post.

"[Obama is] all vision and no execution. I'm okay with presenting a vision of something that doesn't necessarily seem possible if we can all agree to work together to chip away at the problem. (Caring for the poor was mentioned above, albeit in a different context) But presenting a vision and then saying let's get to work while offering no details of what getting to work should look like is all bark and no bite. Obama can't be a saint simply by avoiding the devil that exists in the details. Leadership is more than talk, it's mostly walk. We need to have the talk, but talk is worthless without the walk. Less talking, more walking - please.

So his numbers have dropped deeply over the last six months. If they continue on the pace they've taken over the last ninety days, he'll be lower than Bush II by the time election season hits, but we know that the numbers won't get that low. He's still the savior to too many for him to be in Bushland. But sinking to 40% is not out of the question, and I expect him to dip that low by early 2010. He'll likely rebound after the Republicans take control over the Congress next year."

To clarify, Andrew, do you doubt just Republicans' ability to govern, or everyone in DC's ability to govern? Just the GOP leadership? Where do Pelosi and Reid fit on that spectrum?

Do you feel the same way about Chris Christie in New Jersey, someone who has gotten amazing pub for his handling of his state's governmental issues?

Lastly, are you basing this opinion on the last two years, or the first two years of Bush's Presidency when the GOP last had control of Congress? (Or another time frame?)

In George Will's column today:

For Obama, the worst result next month might be for Democrats to retain control of both houses of Congress. If they do, their majorities will be paralyzingly small. And their remaining moderates will be more resistant to the liberal leadership: The moderates will have survived not because of, but in spite of, those leaders.

If Democrats retain control of Congress, Obama will seek re-election while being perceived as responsible for everything in Washington, where everything is perceived to be dysfunctional. And anti-Washington fever may be worse than it is today, because the 2010 elections will not seem to have changed very much.

If Democrats lose both houses, Obama will seem repudiated. If they lose neither, he will seem impotent. So, if Democrats lose big, he loses big. If they lose smaller, he loses.

Although mostly affirming the earlier position I have taken, I differ with the greatness that is George Will on one part; if the GOP gains both houses, I do not believe that Obama "loses big." I think that if the GOP controls Congress after November, Obama finally has a "bully" on which to pin all of his problems (America has to have someone to blame for anything that goes wrong). If this happens and the GOP puts up a less than strong candidate for the Presidency, we'll have four more years of audacious hope . . . or audacious something.

Quaid,

You have a lot more going on than I do in the area of political acumen, but I don't want to wait 2 years to get things fixed. This is bigger than just getting the Republicans back in power (a pox on both political parties). I can't understand why it's a good thing to keep the current power structures going just to get some kind of political advantage in 2012 because by then everything will be completely in the tank.

Regarding what's best for the Democrats/Obama, I'm not saying you're wrong (although I think you are overestimating Obama's political ability to triangulate, but we've debated that before so this is probably an agree to disagree kind of thing :-) because I can't see the future. But I want the current power structures (in both parties) to get a very, very loud message next month. If the message is received and acted upon, I don't really care who wins in 2012.

Really I don't have faith in any political Party.