| For the fist time the President has a higher disapproval rating than approval. The generic Congressional ballot is giving the Republicans a slight advantage of 1.8%. The unemployment rate is persistently in the high 9% range and nothing, even a massive jobs bill (which is not going to happen) is going chance that before election day. All of these things are conditions that could lead to a rout like we saw in 1994.
However, the Republicans have a gigantic problem. They are ugly. I am not talking about their personal appearance, but the face of what they represent. One of the knocks (and the knocks are legion) against the Republican Party is that they are mean and heartless. They were able to move this meme to being strong and tough during the early days of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The thinking was that we needed warriors, and warriors are hard men and women, they aren't always going to take the time to be nice, they are defending the country after all.
It worked for a while, but now that our nation is fatigued from 9 years of war in two countries the love of warriors is fading and the inherent ugliness and mean spiritedness of the Republican Party is come back into focus. The successful filibustering of extending unemployment benefits for nearly around 1 million Americans is a prime example of this. We have seen Republican Senator Orin Hatch assume that those of us (like me) who are depending on the meager benefits of unemployment to keep our households going are sitting around sucking on a bong. We have seen Republican Representatives asking if the safety net has become a safety hammock, as if the 7 million plus people who are desperately looking for work in an economy that has 6 applicants for every single job available are just lounging around on their paltry $200 to $400 a week of compensation, a number that can never exceed 60% of their former income in any case.
Worse for the Republicans is the face of their candidates, the new blood they are going to argue is needed in Washington. Rand Paul has said told folks to quit complaining and take a job with a pay cut. As if doing just that, taking a lower paying job, was not the goal of millions of unemployed, just to have work. Nevada Senatorial Candidate Sharon Angle has said the unemployed in this country are spoiled and it is not her job as a Senator to create jobs.
Then there is the Republican siding with BP and Big Oil of late. Rep. Joe Barton, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee has famously apologized to BP for the President forcing the creation of a fund to pay claims from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. While the Republican leadership made him walk it back (not because they disagreed but because it was stunningly bad optics) they have not repudiated the Republican Study Committee's same assertion that demanding the creation of the fund was a shakedown.
The meme that Republicans do not care for the common people is poised for a come back and in a big way. The facts are out there on a daily basis as they filibuster aid for the unemployed and argue for the extension of the Bush era tax breaks for the top 2% of wage earners (who are in fact .5% of all citizens by number). They are clearly siding with the interests of a heavily subsidized industry that is continuing to poison our largest fishery and has lied to the Interior Department on a regular basis merely to increase profits. They are taking the line that it is the fault of the people and not the deregulatory orgy and lax enforcement that is the cornerstone of their political philosophy for their economic troubles.
The Republicans are counting on their image as tough guys and the anger of a nation that has endured two years of bad news after bad news to carry them to electoral victory. It is a risky thing. Americans are not going to cuddle up to the idea of massive cuts in social programs and possibly rolling back of civil rights protections that the new crop of Republicans are arguing for. They are not going to want to see their fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters losing their unemployment benefits in the name of fiscal responsibility while the rich are still paying less than their fair share. Americans are have learned from the Wall Street debacle that a hands off approach to regulation is like playing hot potato with a hand grenade.
While there might be those who are bamboozled by the Republican ideology of tax cuts for the wealthy all the time and no regulation, if the tone continues to be so condescending, so blaming of the regular working person for the economic troubles they face, then it is going to be hard slogging indeed for Republicans this fall. It is all well and good to run a populist campaign, but the people have to believe that you really are looking out for them. When the evidence is clear and daily of the disdain the Republicans hold the working class and middle class this nation, that faux populism is exposed for what it is, the cynical ploy of the elite.
If the Democrats continue as they have to expose and repeat the mean spirited and nasty thoughts of the Republicans candidates, if they can make Rand Paul, Sharon Angle, Joe Barton and the rest of the ugly Republicans the face of the party they have a chance to pull this election out of the crapper, all conventional wisdom to the contrary. It is the ugly face of the Republican world view that is most likely to make what should be a banner election year for them one of meager and marginal gains at best.
The floor is yours. |
