Why Republicans Remain Nervous

Politico has a story which goes along with the polling results in the previous post which showed that only 19 percent of voters are happy with the direction of the Republican Party. They quote Republican strategists such as Matthew Dowd who warn against becoming over-confident:

Matthew Dowd, who consulted for former President George W. Bush and voted for President Barack Obama: “If any Republicans are running around town celebrating in jubilation, they should remember that in the country’s constant state of change, neither party gets more than a moment.”

But Republicans still will fight against another set of numbers: the large number of voters who simply don’t like the brand the GOP is selling. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found only 30 percent of those surveyed had a favorable view of Republicans. That is 8 percentage points lower than the favorability rating for Democrats. And 22 points lower than Obama’s…

Even Republicans aren’t thrilled with Republicans. A CBS News poll showed only 55 percent of Republicans hold a favorable view of their congressional delegation.

And voters also still don’t trust Republicans with big decisions. A recent Washington Post poll found 24 percent trusted congressional Republicans to make the right decisions for the country — 8 points fewer than Democrats and 23 points fewer than Obama.

“Scott Brown didn’t even really run as a Republican,” Dowd notes. “He ran as an outsider.”

The state of the economy will play a major factor. I suspect that people will vote against incumbents if they are not seeing more improvement but anti-Democratic sentiment could be quickly forgotten considering that most blame the problem on the Republicans:

The WSJ/NBC poll found 65 percent felt Obama inherited the economic mess, while only 17 percent said his policies were “mostly responsible” for the current situation.

Republicans are also concerned about “the lack of diversity among GOP candidates and their supporters” and the “the number of conservatives who will challenge establishment-backed candidates in key races.” Besides draining resources, this could highlight the extremism of the party assuming that the conservatives are able to beat more moderate candidates in Republican primaries.

The Public Still Opposes Republicans, And Will Support Health Care Reform If Handled Better

Republicans are feeling very good this week, as would be expected after winning a Senate seat in Massachusetts and possibly being successful with their strategy to do anything to block health care reform regardless of how much they harm the country. They should not get over confident that they can win without several unusual factors which helped them in Massachusetts. Public Policy Polling found that only 19 percent of voters are happy with the direction of the Republican Party:

One lesson that can be taken from the recent GOP successes in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia is that your party can be a complete mess and still win an election.

Our national poll this week found that only 19% of voters in the country are happy with the direction of the Republican Party, compared to 56% who are unhappy with it. Even among independents, who have voted overwhelmingly for Scott Brown, Chris Christie, and Bob McDonnell 58% say they don’t like the direction the GOP is headed in.

The GOP’s own voters are displeased with where the party’s going- 38% say they are unhappy with the current direction to 35% who support it. In a trend that perhaps provides at least a ray of hope to Democrats the Republicans unhappy with their own party are disproportionately moderates. 54% of them are displeased to 25% content- the question is what Democrats can do to get those folks to actually jump ship.

Disliking the Republicans does not necessarily mean people will vote Democratic. Far too many Democrats saw the repudiation of George Bush and the previous Republican-controlled Congress in 2008 and 2006 as support for a specific agenda as opposed to opposition to the status quo. If voters remain upset about the status quo, many are likely to respond by voting Republican.

I don’t normally pay much attention to anonymous blog comments, but part of the problem can be seen in the first comment at Public Policy Polling’s site:

Tom, I personally think that you’re analysis isn’t correct, but I do think that many ppl I know, from around me, who always voted for Democrats, their whole life, and are promising never ever to put a ballot with a D near it in the ballot box! We’ll vote for the Republican always b/c the Dems went to the extreme left with Obama et al. That’s the problem!

In reality it is the Republicans on the extreme right with Obama taking a centrist course. The Republicans have managed to distort a fairly conservative fix to our health care delivery problems as a radical solution. Democrats deserve part of the blame here. This includes failing to properly prepare for this inevitable attack  as well as some policy mistakes, including Obama backing away from his opposition to the individual mandate.

Democrats  needed to do a better job of explaining that the Medicare Part D cuts were cuts in subsidies given to the insurance companies by George Bush, and not actual cuts in Medicare. It is astounding that the Democrats could ever wind up in the situation of allowing the Republicans to falsely portray themselves as the defenders of Medicare.

The Democrats  might have been better off pushing for pieces of health care reform in smaller chunks which the pubic could understand rather than having to defend themselves on far too many fronts at once. A majority would be likely to support eliminating restrictions on pre-existing conditions, eliminating rescission of policies after people become sick, offering the choice of a public option, and even paying a little more in taxes to provide coverage for those who cannot afford it. The Democrats might have won on each of these as individual battles while they now risk losing the war. It is not too late for the Democrats to take up each of these measures. Public support might lead to their victory, or if the Republicans continue to block everything they will then risk being the party which is shocked in November.

Science or History?

Quote of the Day (from The Washington Post via Political Wire):

“I’m a history buff,” he said. “I love the Museum of Natural History.”
–Scott Brown

I hope this is not an indicator that he shares the ignorance and often hostility towards science which is commonly seen on the right. As disappointing as his win was, he is now the most liberal Republican in the Senate and I hope  maybe he can be a moderating influence on them. It is more likely he’ll pull a Mitt Romney and move to the right to seek more national attention, but there is hope he will remain a moderate looking towards his own reelection in a blue state.

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