Great expectations
I was planning to write something on the order of this, but Schlicter did it for me [hat tip: AesopFan]:
Our problem is that we set huge expectations, and they simply did not pan out.
How realistic were our expectations? In hindsight, which is the clearest and most accurate sight, not particularly realistic at all.
I don’t include myself in the “we.” I had huge hopes but almost no expectations. In addition to my natural tendency to pessimism, I just didn’t think the high expectations of so many people seemed justified.
Oh, they were justified by events. In fact, purely on events and what the parties were saying and doing, I felt that the Democrats should have only around 20% of the votes – that is, only hard-core leftists. But either there are a lot more hard-core leftists in the US than I thought, or other things – like nonstop lies and propaganda fear-mongering and demonizing of the right – won out.
No one I know who is a Democrat (and I know a ton of Democrats) ever came to me during the past two years and said, “You know, I see now how bad the Democrats have been, and this cycle I’m voting for a Republican.” Not one person.
All the election post-mortems are necessary. Yes, I think abortion played a part. But I think the bigger part were the lies that people believed: every Republican candidate will vote to ban abortion nationwide if elected; every Republican candidate is going to end Social Security; every Republican candidate is a racist bigot and election denier. It has been relentless, and most people don’t have any facts with which to counter it.
Besides, as Schlicter wrote:
People [on the right] were talking about 50 House seats…The fact is that we had won a lot of the red seats in prior cycles and consolidated them – we were reaching for blue seats in 2022. To the extent we failed to hit our goal, it was a pretty hard goal. We were just not realistic about that.
This cycle’s Senate map was always tough. The polls indicated they were close pretty much the whole time.
One problem is that wishful people on the right turned “close” into “Republicans are undersampled so they’ll win close races.” Or “one close poll is more relevant than a host of not-close polls where the Republican loses” (that last bit was for Bolduc of NH, whom I cautioned was very likely to lose).
Another problem was that people turned “the present government is awful in so many ways” to “people will see that and blame the Democrats.” But remember, A Mind Is a Difficult Thing to Change – particularly when barraged by media and social media lies 24/7.
I was also cautious, if not pessimistic. I wondered if all the talk about huge victories would result in decreased turnout. It will be interesting to see some serious analysis when this is all over. Was turnout a factor ? Being an Arizona resident, I think fraud, or attempted fraud, was a factor in some elections. Katie Hobbs was supported, virtually installed, by George Soros to manipulate elections. He used this strategy in a number of states as those elections are usually not considered that important. His money was well spent.
I think another issue that had a hard time gaining traction is the economy. Yes, inflation is very high but the unemployment rate is very low and while wages haven’t been keeping up with inflation they have been going up and there are still 2 job openings for every 1 job seeker.
All of the Republican claims about the horrible economy didn’t really hit home with a lot of people.
Will the economy get worse in the next year? Probably, but as of right now it hasn’t reach the point where people have lost jobs and that is when it really hits critical mass.
For me the one issue especially in blue cities and states that should have been decisive is the crime and homeless but it seems to not matter to a lot of people or at least not enough to change their vote.
Strange times, quite peculiar.
Another problem was that people turned “the present government is awful in so many ways” to “people will see that and blame the Democrats.”
Shades of the Romney presidential election. It seemed to me that his campaign rationale was “Don’t make any gaffs, and the poor economy will seal the deal.” Wrong.
Also, the GOP is still campaigning like it’s 1999. They had great surge in the closing stretch heading for the finish line. Except there wasn’t a well defined finish line. People started voting a month ago. Somehow the GOP is unaware of this? Perhaps it is the money issue. The GOP simply couldn’t afford to mount both an early campaign and a good closing campaign.
This article about the youth vote is interesting.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/11/the_gop_and_the_youth_vote.html
I wonder what impact the housing and credit bust and recession of 2008 had on all this. The recession really hurt the job market for a time. And I recall that in the wake of the bust there was a consensus forming among young people that home ownership was a loser’s game, and the renting was the sensible way to go. I immediately thought, “Oh, that won’t end well.” And here we are with sky-high rents.
When you are mugged, raped, assaulted, or shat upon in a Blue state or city, blame a Republican, because deniers (climate, elections, abortion, gender). Everyone knows Republicans are fascists, and must be shunned, silenced, punished, or arrested. Because, “our democracy.”
Yes, I am sad to say a number of the Democrats’ lies were believed by many people.
Griffin:
I think inflation was a huge issue for most people. However, that doesn’t mean they connect it to Democrats, or to their own Democrat representatives in Congress.
In fact, I don’t think most people even know how their representatives vote in Congress, or what the effects are of those votes.
neo,
I agree they say it’s a huge issue (and in reality it is unless you are financially comfortable) but if they don’t care enough to vote like it is then is it really?
Same goes for crime.
We were advised not to get cocky, but we did anyway.
The main problem with the hype about a wave election is that a fairly good election for the R’s (likely solid control of the House, 225 or so seats and possible control of the Senate) gets spun by the media as a big defeat.
A bigger problem for the Rs is the D governors in some of the battleground states controlling the voting rules. Mail-in voting is going to be a big obstacle in 2024.
After Obama’s 2010 midterm “shellacking” it didn’t seem unreasonable to expect something similar with Biden — a much worse and more radical president.
The main difference between then and now seems to be Trump, which is why I tend to assign blame to Trump, whose every utterance since 2020 has made me wince.
One of the biggest reasons for the disappointing showing is the incompetence of Republican leadership in directing resources to the races that needed it. The house hangs in the balance and one of the closest races that may well decide control is the Trone vs. Parrot race in Maryland 6. The race is very close and will probably come down to a few hundred votes. My daughter is a volunteer for the Parrot campaign and they’ve gotten zero support from the national committee. The Democrats know how to get out the vote and have professionals doing it. Too many good Republican candidates depend almost entirely on volunteers.
The lack of support for Blake Masters in the Arizona is another example of a winnable race that the Republican establishment chose to ignore.
The generic house vote is now R +5.6, a bigger advantage than most polls predicted. In this environment a red wave should have happened.
huxley,
The other difference between now and 2010 is the Democrat majorities were WAY bigger in 2010 so there was much more upside room for the Republicans in both houses.
Due to gerrymandering (by both sides) and people self sorting there are far fewer toss up districts and states than just a few years ago.
In a perverse way I would enjoy a 218-217 R house majority and a 50-50 senate.
Yup, there are no good candidates / bad candidates. Great point.
Oh, except Oz. Trump’s to blame for that. Gotcha
I’m going to clue Schlicter and all the other into a key piece of info – know which candidate is winning as a Republican without the Trump MAGA voters ? NOBODY
Keep bashing Trump and see where it gets you.
BTW, I’m not convinced that McConnell was all that keen on being Majority Leader in the Senate. Certainly not of a 55 member caucus made up of 4 or 5 new Trump endorsed senators. A 51 member caucus with maybe 1 Trump endorsed Senator ? Maybe. Can’t get much done with just 51. Oh well. Maybe next time. Wink wink
deadrody:
Sure, go off in pique and do the “burn it all down” routine again. Then see where it gets you – and all of us.
Republicans have been fighting rear-guard retrenchments since Ronald Reagan, and usually because of poor leadership and intra-party squabbling. How poor? In this particular round, we had the spectacle of Mr. McConnell diverting funds away from competitive races and toward Alaska, to support an intra-party squabble, in support of candidate Murkowski. Candidate Murkowski meanwhile, supported a Democrat running against a quite viable Republican candidate who could have used the campaign funds, too. Ms. Murkowski, let’s not forget, is at the vanguard of the voting scheme that was put in place to damage her Republican opponent in the first place. We still have races that are in question with viable candidates that could have used the money, but instead are fighting it tooth and nail. Because Mitch McConnell would prefer that they lose, even if it means losing majority.
Elsewhere, we had Republican Mittens Romney supporting a stealth Democrat running against Mike Lee, one of the most steadfast conservative Republicans in the Senate, a very effective legislator. I didn’t hear why, but I am pretty certain I wouldn’t accept his excuse. Because Mittens Romney would prefer that they lose, even if it means losing majority
Also, we had Liz Cheney, of the Cheney Family Republican War Monger Empire, coming out in support of Democratic candidates. Because Liz Cheney would prefer to lose, even if it means losing majority
And, we had Cindy McCain, McCain Family Republican War Monger Empire, coming out against any Republican Candidate with the audacity to challenge election results.
And let us not forget the Bush family-associated PAC, “43 Alumni for Biden” which was created to support Joe Biden’s run for office. Hurrah for Bush!
What a great picture this paints. Republican Establishment against Donald Trump, a Celebrity Death Match. Maybe we could do it up, Christmas Pageant style, using Drag Queens, just to show how focused the Party is.
And now it’s a Full Court Press to cap Donald Trump once and for all, instructing all of us that ‘his time has passed’, with Biden making ominous noises about more ‘investigations’ the way he did with the Nordstream Pipeline’s future, ‘we have our ways’. I wonder who the Democrats would prefer to run against in 2024?
NO, I don’t we should burn it all down, but…..what does everyone suggest?
Aggie:
I agree about Liz Cheney et al.
But you are missing something important about what’s happening now. The people critical of Trump have supported him strongly up till now, for the most part. That is something very very different.
I don’t think I’m missing it, though. The GOPe has decided it cannot afford to have Trump as president again, and they’re willing to do almost anything – including internal sabotage and loss of political majority – to deny him a supportive caucus in Congress.
Haven’t heard any rallying cries for Herschel Walker’s runoff yet. You think DeSantis is going to lend his voice?
Maybe the Trump die-hards threaten to burn it down, but the Establishment GOP has actually been doing it. In addition to the examples above:
“Rep. Adam Kinzinger just endorsed four Democratic secretary of state candidates: incumbents Steve Simon of Minnesota and Jocelyn Benson of Michigan, along with Arizona’s Adrian Fontes and Nevada’s Cisco Aguilar.”
Secretaries of State are of course the ones who oversee elections…
The Republican Party needs to be cleaned out. Big public changes are the only thing that saves a toxic brand, and there’s too many reptiles in there who actively work to defeat conservative interests.
I had high hopes for the Red wave, but I had greater faith in the ability of the Democrats ability to lie and cheat, along with the media, and a badly misinformed body of voters.
No one with any awareness would have voted to re-elect Tony Evers as Governor, nor Josh Kaul as AG, with their pro crime policies, but they were.
At least we kept Mandela Barnes out of the Senate.
Sarah Hoyt is Not A Happy Camper.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2022/11/10/oh-please-2/
First she quotes one of her frequent commenters:
Then she goes ballistic.
Just for fun, Luke at Hoyt’s post has an interesting 4-D Chess theory.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2022/11/10/oh-please-2/#comment-886703
The Republican presidential primary is structurally rigged.
It’s set up to favor the squish with the highest name recognition.
There’s a bloody reason why most of the early primaries take place in blue or purple states.
The party also deliberately tries to get several conservative candidates of roughly equal stature to split the conservative vote.
And Lord love a duck, did I enjoy watching Trump shove that right down Jeb’s throat.
They’re trying to run the same play. If they can get both Trump and DeSantis run, they’ve got a really good shot at getting in a trough-swilling moderate, without fraud.
(But they’re going to fraud. Not as much as the Dems, because most Republican volunteers aren’t down with Party bosses pulling the strings. They’ll do all they can get away with.)
The thing is, DeSantis, at least, knows the game. I don’t think he’s eager to play spoiler.
He also knows darned well that the GOPe pushing him to run, are going to shiv him as soon as they’ve finished using him as a stalking horse.
In 2016, the institutional party was faced with a choice: through [throw] their support behind Cruz, or get Trump shoved up their fundament.
They took a third option, and deliberately tried to tank the election.
They clearly demonstrated that they would rather lose than elect a conservative and derail their gravy train.
That’s the situation.
The media and political system are pushing hard to make it happen.
My take (based off gut feeling) is that there’s a backchannel negotiation going on between Trump and DeSantis,
And DeSantis is driving an awfully hard bargain to get Trump to squeal like that.
People do stupid things out of pride, but after the past sevenish years I think they’re both resistant to toadies playing “let’s you and he [him] fight “.
Commenter d adds: “Now could I believe that Trump and DeSantis wants the left to think they are feuding? Would not put it past either. One way to get them gleefully rubbing their hands, so that later the two can be the cause of “Wait! What?”. Given they are both from the same state now, there won’t be a Trump/DeSantis or DeSantis/Trump ticket.”
Think WWE wrestling: kayfabe, heels and faces.