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How worried are Democrats about the mid-term voting only 10 months away? "If the election were held today, we'd lose the House," Democratic campaign consultant Tom King told the Huffington Post this week, expressing a view that HuffPo says is echoed by a number of Democratic strategists in off-the-record conversations.
Democrats are reportedly busy devising a strategy as a firewall against a citizen revolt at the polls. Rather than emphasize their party's accomplishments, they will attack Republicans for wanting to restore the discredited Bush era. "The Republican party in Washington today is no different than the Republican party that ran the Congress before," Rep. Chris Van Hollen, head of the Democratic House campaign committee, told the liberal Talking Points Memo.
Without delay, campaign strategists are advising Democratic clients to use bloggers, phone banks, direct mail and canvassers to try to create a negative impression of their GOP opponents. Labeling their GOP candidates as being part of the Sarah Palin or Tea Party wing of the GOP will be the key element. One Democratic consultant told Huffington Post that the 2010 election "basically comes down to one thing. You've got to kick the [bleep] out of somebody."
No doubt both sides intend to play rough this political year. Still, it's striking how much Democrats have pivoted away from the civility that President Obama pledged to bring to Washington.
-- John Fund
Here's another insightful take by Fund on the screeching hormonal overload that calls itself the "Progressive" wing of the Demo-rats. Or Perhaps "Regressive Wing" might be a more apt term, as it appears that the terrible twos fit the behavioral patterns of the whack-jobs who scribble obscene drivel on DailyKos and Salon by ueber-Butch Joan Walsh::
Look, a messenger! Somebody shoot him!
Confronted with their gloomy poll numbers, Democrats have decided the solution is to discredit the pollsters they blame for dragging down their standing with the public. Politico.com reports that the No. 1 target is the proprietor of Rasmussen Reports, source of widely reported polls tracking the declining popularity of President Obama and his legislative initiatives.
"Democrats are turning their fire on Scott Rasmussen, the prolific independent pollster whose surveys on elections, President Obama's popularity and a host of other issues are surfacing in the media with increasing frequency," reports Politico.com. Democratic pollster Mark Mellman complains that Mr. Rasmussen phrases polling "questions in a way that supports a conservative interpretation of the world." That's why Rasmussen's approval numbers for President Obama tend to be about five points lower than those of other pollsters, he says.
Mr. Rasmussen responds that any differences can be accounted for in large part because he screens for only those voters whom he determines are most likely to vote. This group, he says, is trending more conservative these days because they are highly motivated in opposition to Obama policies. Other firms poll adults without screening for likely voters, he told Politico, a procedure that's "always going to yield a better result for Democrats."
Most of us pay attention to polls because we want to know how upcoming elections are likely to play out and how the distribution of political power will change. On that score, Mr. Rasmussen seems to get solid results. FiveThirtyEight.com, a liberal Web site run by Nate Silver, found that Mr. Rasmussen had the third-highest mark for accuracy of any pollster in last year's elections. He predicted a six-point Obama victory; the final margin was seven points.
In 2009, Rasmussen did it again. His final survey in New Jersey had Republican Chris Christie beating Democrat Jon Corzine by three points, exactly the margin of Mr. Christie's victory. Says Mr. Silver: "Rasmussen's election polling has tended to be quite accurate in the past." He explains that "Rasmussen has a different model of what the 2010 election is going to look like, one which will feature a more conservative electorate. But that model isn't necessarily wrong, nor does it necessarily reflect bias."
Indeed, Mr. Rasmussen was in step with other pollsters charting the collapse of President Bush's approval rating. In November, 2008 it topped out at 62% disapproval in Rasmussen surveys, with a full 43% registering strong disapproval. Those numbers correctly anticipated the Democratic resurgence in that month's elections. Now that President Obama's numbers are trending downward, however, Democrats are lashing out rather than rethinking their policies. Democratic pollster Tom Jensen acknowledged as much to Politico, saying: "I don't think that what's happening with Rasmussen is unusual. It's just that sometimes when people are unhappy, sometimes you shoot the messenger."
That messenger is clearly becoming a force in politics, partly by polling more regularly and intensively than other companies such as Gallup. Pollster and blogger Mark Blumenthal says that in 2009 Rasmussen became the most searched-for polling firm on the Internet. It also apparently has become the No. 1 target for people who don't like its findings.
-- John Fund
And finally, a visit to the public library in Searchlight, NV, the hometown of local eff-up DingyHarry:
"A commotion unfolds in the tiny public library here as the staff searches for a copy of the memoir written by Harry Reid, Senate Democratic leader and Searchlight native. 'Has anyone seen Harry's book?' a librarian calls out. A local patron grabs a trash can and peers inside: 'It's not where it's supposed to be,' he says" -- Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Nicholas, writing about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's declining popularity in his home town of Searchlight, Nev.
Even the LA Times is beginning to rediscover its journalistic roots after wandering in Death Valley for over a year of Messiah-searching.
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