By Dave Anderson:
The Research 2000/Daily Kos tracking poll has been tracking Congressional generic ballot tests for the entire year. The basic story has been a halving of the Democratic lead and no change for Republican baseline numbers. Kos looks at the crosstabs and comes up with the following analysis that I agree with:
As noted already, this marks a halving of the Democrats' lead since we first asked this question. Democrats have lost eight points, Republicans 2, while the undecided have swelled by 10 points. Note the partisan trends -- Republicans have barely budged. They've been home for a while. Democrats have lost among self-identified Democrats, losing a net eight points. But look at Independents, who appear more disgusted at the political process than anything. Democrats have lost 13 points among Independents--or 38 percent--but Republicans have lost 8 points as well, or 33 percent off their May levels.... We're not seeing a partisan shift among Independents, rather a tuning out...they appear more disgusted at Democratic incompetence than policy. we're in bad shape in a base election. Core Republicans are engaged and solidly home. Democratic constituencies are wavering...The only key Democratic constituency to have moved more Democratic are young voters -- And even those gains are threatened by the (non) geniuses in DC seriously contemplating a health care mandate without cost controls (like the public option).... There's a way to change that dynamic -- deliver on the promises made the last two election cycles. Failure to do that would make cynics out of too many idealistic political newcomers, while turning off base activists who do the hard on-the-ground work of winning elections.
Ian Welshnotes the obvious; Democratic activists are not actively engaging in policy disputes because they have no stake in the fights:
Our real activists, as a group, believe in single payer. They are not going to march, or even show up at Townhalls in large numbers in order to push some wishy -washy bill that has a public option which sucks wind (and none of the bills have a good public option.) Obama and Democrats deliberately demotivated the base by telling them that single payer was off the table, arrested them when they dared insist on talking about it, and disrespected them in every way possible. Of course the activists aren�t showing up. Who the hell would expect them to? If Obama or Democrats in general want activists, who by definition are hardcore people who actually believe in liberalism to show up and fight for them, they need to offer liberalism, not warmed over centrist pap. I noted this same problem at Netroots Nation. Netroots Nation is one of the greatest concentrations of activist opinion leaders, and there was a pervasive shrug of the shoulders: the Democratic Party as a whole is shitting on its activist core. Bill Clinton in his keynote argued that liberals should shut up and accept anything that Max Baucus and three conservative, Glen Beck liking compatriots, want. Darcy Burner in the closing keynote argued both that healthcare is vital, the half a loaf strategy is bad, and half a loaf is about what we can expect, so we should go and fight hard for something that the vast majority of that room thinks is a watered-down, poorly positioned, poorly argued Blue Dog protection piece. Yeah --- that will go well. So right now, it is probable that the Democrats will lose double digit seats in the House (mainly Blue Dogs who don't quite realize that they are dependent far more on a homogenous national trend today than twenty or thirty years ago) and the best thing that comes out of healthcare is going to be at best mediocre from pretty much any evaluatory standard. And the netroots activists are fine with this. If anything, most of the interesting buzz at the convention was murmurs that quite a few people would be willing to either fully sit out the 2010 cycle or do the professional de minimas activism unless there is significant change that is believable. [Emphasis added] A real win or two on policy instead of being having the Democratic elites telling their activists to Shut Up and Knock/Donate would do wonders for Democratic intensity. Why is this not being acted upon or at least acknowledged out of elite self-interest?
One of the characteristics of American elite failure is the internalization of a semi-feudalistic belief that elites are entitled to absolute loyalty from their supporting bases without needing to give anything in return.
ReplyDeleteNotice how the GOP has done the same thing with its base and abortion as the Dems are doing with their base and health care: promising change at election time but pursuing 'let them eat cake' policies when in office.
'Let them eat cake' works for elites because elections are not fair or competitive enough to matter.