archived: 6 - 12 Aug, 2006         Back                 Next

            LAMONT  

Various perspectives are circulating as to the reasons and importance of Lamont’s primary victory over Sen. Lieberman on Tuesday.  Here is TPJ’s: 

Lamont’s defeat of an 18 year incumbent who had been his Party’s Vice-Presidential nominee in 2000 is impressive. 

Voter turn out was the highest in Connecticut primary history. 

Both candidates were well funded and had every opportunity to make their case to the voters. 

Democrats in Connecticut unseated an incumbent in favor of a Democrat who promised active opposition to the conduct of the war in Iraq and who would offer active opposition to Bush’s policies. 

The people of Connecticut made their selection to represent the Democratic Party.  

_____________________________________________

UPDATED: August 8, 2006 

                        THE BOUNCE CONTINUES 

Early polling in August has suggests that Bush’s bounce in the polls has picked up a bit of steam.  Three polls have Bush’s approval rating at 40%, up 2.30% from July.   

ABC/Washington Post did not poll in July, but the August result is +2% in approval rating.  CNN also did not poll in July, but Bush is +3% over CNN’s June approval rating.  LA Times/Bloomberg did not poll in July, but Bush’s approval rating fell -1% from June.  

One curious fact of interest.  Bush’s approval rating is up +2.30% over July, and his “disapproval” rating is also up +1.93% from July.  In fact, the spread between approval and disapproval barely declined, about one-half point.  Also note that in June and July that while Bush’s approval rating went up in both months, disapproval went down.  In every other month in 2005 and 2005 in which Bush’s approval rating went up, his disapproval rating went down. Not in August.  

Looking at the small percentage of those polled with “No Opinion,” 2% in all polls, TPJ suspects that those interviewed who initially expressed no opinion were asked to state if they leaned toward approval or disapproval.  We base our suspicion on the fact that in every other month in 2006 and most months in 2005, almost every month records “No Opinion” at 5% or above.  And, we would note that in June, CNN had “No Opinion” at 10%. 

TPJ believes that Bush’s bounce, which has been evolving for almost 100 days, is continuing, but not with the same dramatic rise during May and June.  IF Bush continues to increase his approval rating at the rates now developing, TPJ projects that Bush will achieve an approval rating of approximately 44% and 54% disapproval at the mid-term elections.  

Of course, bounces and falls are rarely consistent.  Which way Bush’s approval/disapproval ratings will actually break for the mid-term elections is anyone’s guess.  Democrats should base their strategy on a President who is not popular, but may not be the albatross that the poll numbers of March and April 2006 suggested.   

_____________________________________________

                        KRUGMAN “GETS IT” 

Paul Krugman of the New York Times has penned an op ed (subscription required) that is a masterpiece. Krugman addresses progressive groups; such as the Sierra Club, who are supporting moderate Republicans such as Sen. Lincoln Chafee.   

If the Democrats gain only five rather than six Senate seats this November, Senator James Inhofe, who says that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” will remain in his current position as chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. And if that happens, the Sierra Club may well bear some of the responsibility.

The point is that those who cling to the belief that politics can be conducted in terms of people rather than parties — a group that also includes would-be centrist Democrats like Joe Lieberman and many members of the punditocracy — are kidding themselves.

The fact is that in 1994, the year when radical Republicans took control both of Congress and of their own party, things fell apart, and the center did not hold. Now we’re living in an age of one-letter politics, in which a politician’s partisan affiliation is almost always far more important than his or her personal beliefs. And those who refuse to recognize this reality end up being useful idiots for those, like President Bush, who have been consistently ruthless in their partisanship.  

The Republican Party is actively working a strategy to publicly blunt the comparison that Krugman is making.  At the recent meeting of the Republican National Committee in Minnesota, the Party leadership instructed Republican national candidates to make the “issues” and not Bush the issue in the upcoming election.  

Republican national leaders want Minnesota voters in the state's U.S. Senate race to focus on the candidates, Republican Mark Kennedy and Democrat Amy Klobuchar, not on President Bush.

They want voters in the 6th Congressional District to concentrate on Republican Michele Bachmann and Democrat Patty Wetterling, not on the Republican-led Congress.

The Republican National Committee opened its two-day annual summer meeting Thursday at the Sheraton Bloomington Hotel, hoping to outline a national strategy that will enable its candidates to swim against a tide of popular opinion flowing against Bush and the Republicans in Congress.

The theme of the meeting — the RNC's first in Minnesota — is "Defining the difference," and that means debating the Democrats on the issues and not defending Bush and the Republican Congress on the policies they have instituted in the past six years.

"This is going to be an election about choice, not a referendum on the president," said RNC spokeswoman Ann Marie Hauser. "The president is not on the ballot."

Of course Republicans want to divert attention away from Bush and the Congress, said state Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party spokeswoman Jess McIntosh. "It's very inconvenient for them that their figureheads are the most unpopular people in the country."

Bush's job-approval ratings in national polls taken in July ranged from 36 percent to 40 percent, which suggests he could be a drag on the ticket.

"No amount of help from Karl Rove and the RNC playbook is going to help the Republicans strategize their way out of their cataclysmic failures of the past six years," McIntosh said. 

Democrats across the country will need to work hard to keep the focus exactly where it deserves to be: on the Republican Party.  

                        FRACTURE  

TPJ’s mailbox is full of emails from Democrats circulating reports by highly respected political gurus that Democrats are on the verge of a political tsunami that will restore Democrats to majority status in one or both Houses of Congress. 

Perhaps it will be the tsunami Democrats desire.  

There are fractures in the Democratic Party that portend less desired results that the Party’s ambition.     

Top Democrats are increasingly concerned that they lack an effective plan to turn out voters this fall, creating tension among party leaders and prompting House Democrats to launch a fundraising effort aimed exclusively at mobilizing Democratic partisans.

At a meeting last week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) criticized Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean for not spending enough party resources on get-out-the-vote efforts in the most competitive House and Senate races, according to congressional aides who were briefed on the exchange. Pelosi -- echoing a complaint common among Democratic lawmakers and operatives -- has warned privately that Democrats are at risk of going into the November midterm elections with a voter-mobilization plan that is underfunded and inferior to the proven turnout machine run by national Republicans.

The Senate and House campaign committees are creating their own get-out-the-vote operations instead, using money that otherwise would fund television advertising and other election-year efforts. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.) -- who no longer speaks to Dean because of their strategic differences -- is planning to ask lawmakers and donors to help fund a new turnout program run by House Democrats. He recruited Michael Whouley, a specialist in Democratic turnout, to help oversee it. 

Unfortunately, both sides in this intra-Party battle are right and wrong in TPJ’s estimation.  First, Gov. Dean’s emphasis on long term infrastructure building is correct.  And, Democrats will have to mount an effective GOTV campaign this Fall.   

The special election in California 50 is a classic demonstration of the problem facing Democrats.   Without any real GOTV infrastructure in the heavily Republican District, Democrats pumped in tremendous financial resources to turn out the vote.  From the evaluations circulating, it appears that Democrats were able to increase their turn out as a percentage, but were largely ineffectual in bringing out Independents.  Republicans also poured money into GOTV, and while the percentage increase in their turnout was not as great as Democrats, it was sufficient to win.  

From Gov. Dean’s perspective, California 50 may have been a different story had Democrats been building their base and effectiveness over the years.  TPJ concurs.   

Yet, Democrats, in the short term, have to finds ways to compete with the Republican GOTV machine – and it is a machine.  The Cook Report’s leading concern for Democrats is GOTV:

This is at the top because it’s probably the biggest mystery of the cycle. It’s not clear who is funding get-out-the-vote efforts for the Democrats this year, or more important, who is running them. Is it a coordinated state-based campaign with a loose connection to the Democratic National Committee? Is it labor, and if so, which part — John Sweeney’s the AFL-CIO or Andy Stern’s SEIU? And where did all the money from America Coming Together go? Will even half of it make it back into Democratic coffers in some capacity? There are still lots of unanswered questions, and Election Day is less than five months away.

Every Democrat should start now to organize a GOTV effort in their precinct, county and State.  Call on Party officials to start a GOTV effort, even if no one around you is putting together such a program.  There are less than 100 days to the mid-term elections.  TPJ believes that the political tsunami Democrats want will only occur if Democrats create the wave.

NEXT- MICHAEL CARMICHAEL

Last Update: 08/13/2006