Month: November 2014

Americans Are Turned Off by and Tuned Out of Midterms

Buck Banks

People feel they’re victims of the process, that politics isn’t something to participate in, it’s something that is done to them. The feeling is getting worse, it’s getting much deeper, it’s covering larger and larger groups within the electorate …. Their frustration is much worse than anything I’ve heard before.

— Democratic Party pollster Geoff Garin, quoted in Politico.

No Matter Who Wins, Both Political Parties Are Going Extinct

Buck Banks

Whichever side emerges victorious, both Republicans and Democrats should face up to a much bigger truth: Neither party as currently constituted has a real future. Fewer and fewer Americans identify as either Republican or Democratic according to Gallup, and both parties are at recent or all-time lows when it comes to approval ratings. Just 39 percent give Democrats a favorable rating and just 33 percent do the same for Republicans. Not coincidentally, each party has also recently had a clear shot at implementing its vision of the good society. If you want to drive down your adversary’s approval rating, just give him the reins of power for a few years.

— Nick Gillespie, writing in the Daily Beast.

It Doesn’t Matter Who Controls the Senate

Buck Banks

The legislative dynamics in Washington are very simple. Gridlock exists because Obama and House Republicans cannot agree on legislation. If Obama and the House could agree on legislation, their deal would be approved by a Democratic-controlled Senate or by a Republican-controlled Senate. There are no plausible circumstances in which the Senate would block a deal struck between the House and Obama, because, whichever party controls the Senate, its ideological center will sit comfortably inside in the enormous space between Obama and the House Republicans. Ergo, the party that controls the Senate has no impact on legislative outcomes.

— Jonathan Chait, writing in New York Magazine.

GOP Not Content with Winning, Wants to Drown Democrats

Buck Banks

A wave just doesn’t happen. Waves happen when every single member of a cause or a movement comes together. This is our time, we need to crush it and push their heads under over and over and over again until they cannot breathe anymore.

— New Hampshire GOP Chairman Jennifer Horn, quoted by NH Journal, on defeating Democrats in the midterm elections.