pudge's Journal: Not Getting It

The problem with this and the other GOP reason-for-loss meme (that the conservatives abandoned the party because the Republicans had abandoned their philosophy of limited government) is that it just isn't borne out by either the facts (or even the conventional wisdom that this election was a move to the center.) These people all seem to truly believe that the majority who voted for Bush two years ago came out in favor of Democrats this week because they were upset that the Republicans were insufficiently conservative. Does that make any sense? -- digby

Actually, yes, it does. It is not the whole story, but it is a huge part of it, yes.

Well, let me back up slightly: the majority who voted for Bush didn't come out in favor of the Democrats this week. More people voted for Kerry in 2004 than voted for Democrats in 2006.

Also let me clarify that the abandonment of conservatism meme he linked to has nothing to do with social conservatism, and everything to do with small-government conservatism.

So, look at the turnout. GOP turnout was way down. For the first time in several decades in a midterm election, the Democrats came out in far greater numbers than the Republicans. And the reason for that is, quite specifically, because the GOP in Washington DC was not conservative enough. Find me one Republican voter -- current or past -- who is not pissed off at the lack of small-government conservatism in the GOP. And, as we know from the numbers, many of them simply stayed home. So how could anyone not see that this election is due in large part to the GOP abandoning conservatism?

The blindness is truly mind-boggling.

There is not the slightest bit of evidence that this election was a move to the center. None of the polling shows the electorate wanting higher taxes, more social programs, more gun control, and generally more government intrusion into our lives. Sure, there's some widespread support among the electorate on a few right-of-center issues like minimum wage, but there's no evidence that these issues significantly affected the electorate.

He quotes from The New Republic:

While the publicly-available election data can't answer this question definitively, everything we know about public opinion suggests there isn't a majority constituency for economic libertarianism. (Tax cuts, perhaps, but not the smaller government that goes along with it.)

There is some truth to that, which is (I believe) why the GOP cut taxes and not spending. But 1994 taught us that Americans are quite willing to have smaller government if it also means lower taxes. Sure, they want both, but if forced to choose, they will take lower taxes. That is precisely why the Republicans won every national election since 1994 except for Clinton in 1996, until now. And the reason they lost this time, in large part, was because the people finally stopped believing the Republicans in DC were for small government. By now, it is impossible to believe it.

The TNR piece goes on:

The easiest way to see this is to focus on a specific issue. For example, amid all the conservative hand-wringing is the occasional lament about Social Security privatization. But there's a simple explanation for the GOP's wobbliness on the issue: A solid majority of the country opposes it. According to a Washington Post poll from March of 2005, Americans disapproved of the president's Social Security plan by a 56-35 margin.

But the respondents didn't understand half of what the politicians were talking about, and the Democrats exploited this by lying through their teeth, saying the Trust Fund would not go bankrupt, that Bush's privatization plan would be forced on anyone instead of being entirely voluntary, that even though it was voluntary it would endanger the rest of the program ... all lies.

This sort of poll always underestimates how much people will be against a program when they actually see the bottom line for how it will affect them. That Washington Post poll did not mention the fact the Social Security program is estimated by the federal government to go broke around 2040 (meaning, specifically, that the Trust Fund will be empty, and the SS income will not be enough to continue paying the full benefits), and that at that point, everyone's taxes will have to go up (progressively more every year, without end) to cover the deficit. They just heard in the poll, "keep it the way it is, or not?" and said "keep it the way it is."

Democrats do this all the time. They just don't get that Americans don't want to spend the money (if it is their money, and for most of us, it is our money). And this is, again, why the Republicans screwed up: they gave us the benefits and cut taxes. Gave people both of what they wanted. But it can't last, and people finally caught on.

But by all means, those of you on the left, please keep believing that this election is a validation of your big-government views. PLEASE. I really do want you to act like it, and try to implement everything you believe in. Especially the parts that will cost taxpayers a lot more money. It will make my job as a Republican chairman so much easier.

SS Funding

[RevMike]

That Washington Post poll did not mention the fact the Social Security program is estimated by the federal government to go broke around 2040 (meaning, specifically, that the Trust Fund will be empty, and the SS income will not be enough to continue paying the full benefits), and that at that point, everyone's taxes will have to go up (progressively more every year, without end) to cover the deficit.

I've never seen any numbers on this from either set of advocates. How true is this? In 2040, the oldest o

Re:

[pudge]

The numbers are constantly being adjusted, so I am not sure of exact currennt numbers, but I wrote about this last year [slashdot.org]. No links in there, but it gives some background to where the data comes from. Here's the current summary [socialsecurity.gov] which still has the date at which the income cannot meet the outlays as 2017 (that is, when we start dipping into the Trust Fund), and 2040 (as opposed to last year's 2041) as the year the Trust Fund goes broke.

The data is all broken out and assumptions explained elsewhere, and if yo

Small government conservatives

[sulli]

We need more of them in the GOP to provide a proper balance to the big government wings of both parties. And I say that as a yellow dog Democrat.

see also ballot initiatives

[eglamkowski]

I wrote a JE on this, but I'm too lazy to link to it - ballot initiatives show that the nation wants a conservative agenda, and is quite opposed to the democrats agenda. Throwing the republicans out last week wasn't about giving the democrats free reign, it was about throwing the republicans out. Punishment for a poor performance in recent years. If the democrats actually looked at the trending in the ballot initiatives, they'd realize that forcing their agenda down our throats at this time will cause th

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[ces]

and the ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage were what, chopped liver?

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[tf23]

So you're equating proposed minimum wage increases to big government?

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[eglamkowski]

I wrote about that in subsequent JE after my main ballot initiative JE. One issue out of a long list doesn't mean a whole lot. It certainly doesn't mean the US public wants the entire democratic agenda being implemented. Not that it could be anyways, if Bush were willing to veto any of it that came across. Of course, that assumes Bush can/wants to veto anything the democrats throw at him. *sigh*

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[ces]

It certainly doesn't mean the US public wants the entire democratic agenda being implemented.

BTW I'm curious what exactly you think the 'democratic agenda' is.

Not that it could be anyways, if Bush were willing to veto any of it that came across. Of course, that assumes Bush can/wants to veto anything the democrats throw at him.

Well even if Bush is willing to veto some bills it won't matter if there is enough support in House and Senate to override.

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[eglamkowski]

Democratic agenda: nationalized health care for all, nationalized education for all, tax private retirement accounts to fund government run retirement accounts, tax the "rich", more "refundable credits" for the "poor", unilaterally pulling out of Iraq consequences be damned, stuff like that.

The point of Bush vetoing things is that the democrats do NOT, by themselves, have enough votes to over-ride. It takes a 2/3 majority to over ride a veto, not a simple majority. Bush could stop dead anything he didn't

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[ces]

nationalized health care for all

There is broad support from the voters for some sort of health care reform. Past that there really isn't much agreement on what form it should take either in the party or in the country at large. The furthest that even the most radical advocates of health care will go is to advocate a Canadian style system. Not bloody likely to happen in the next two years. Far more likely is whatever the democrats can get 2/3 of both houses to buy off on or what they can get the President to

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[pudge]

There is broad support from the voters for some sort of health care reform. Past that there really isn't much agreement on what form it should take either in the party or in the country at large.

There is broad Democratic support in Congress for some form of universal, single-payer, health care. Maybe not enough to get a majority in either house though. But many have vowed to try, and that alone is bad enough for the Democrats.

I think most voters would support increasing student aid for college (loans and

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[ces]

I think the Dems are against it primarily because they didn't think of it. It's a very typical liberal Democrat program. It could use some modest reform, and I predict the Democrats will introduce small changes and make it sound like they are big ones.

Actually I believe a fair number of Democratic voters and members of Congress support outright repeal. That the teachers unions don't like NCLB doesn't hurt here.

I have heard *dozens* of Democrats say they want to repeal all the Bush tax cuts (including Burner

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[pudge]

Actually I believe a fair number of Democratic voters and members of Congress support outright repeal. That the teachers unions don't like NCLB doesn't hurt here.

But what I am saying is the reason the unions don't like it is because of the requirements and consequences. Reduce the requirements and it is basically just federal funding of the schools, which they like.

The proposal from the incoming leadership is only for the top 1% or top 1/2%.

Right, but many Dems have said otherwise. We'll see ...

Still it w

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[nizo]

I have to wonder what will happen with a minimum wage hike, which would get interesting if it went through without any riders attached this time. It seems like it would be nearly impossible to argue to the average joe that raising the minimum wage is a bad thing (I don't know enough to say one way or the other), so only candidates with a serious aversion to being re-elected would vote against it :-) It wasn't mentioned at all by any of the local candidates, but certainly it will come up again in the next t

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[strspn]

What are you talking about? There were thirteen initiatives to reign in the Supreme Court's new broad interpretation of emminent domain, and they only passed in one state.

I hope the GOP leadership believes all this and runs from the center as far as they can.

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[pudge]

That couldn't be more beside the point.

First, most liberals are against the Supreme Court's new interpretation of eminent domain, too.

Second, the devil is in the details with each of these proposed initiatives. There's a lot that voters liked in some of these initiatives, but they voted against them for various reasons anyway. A liberal friend of mine in Michigan was planning on voting for their eminent domain initiative (an amendment to the state constitution), but was considering not because the languag

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[ces]

Let me voice my agreement with Pudge here.

If a straightforward, well-written Kelo limiting measure was on the Washington State Ballot I'd vote for it in a heartbeat.

(not that it is as needed here as elsewhere since there really haven't been many Kelo style eminent domain abuses here and existing state law keeps many of the worst abuses from happening.)

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[pudge]

I think most people would even vote for a better-written version of I-933. Although, it would have a much better chance of passing in a year when the conservative base actually votes ... really though, this year's elections were so completely devoid of actual discussion of issues. Darcy Burner, with no experience and no positions on any issues other than "George Bush is bad, mmmmkay?," almost beat Dave Reichert ... and the Democrats are talking about her as though she's a rising star.

I was really hoping f

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[ces]

I think most people would even vote for a better-written version of I-933. Although, it would have a much better chance of passing in a year when the conservative base actually votes.

I think starting with an anti-Kelo initiative would be a better idea as it is something needed and hard to oppose.

I'm not a big fan of the broader property rights type measures that have been put on the ballot here and elsewhere, though something to reign in the more obnoxious aspects of say the King County Critical Areas Ordin

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[pudge]

To be fair she had experience in the private sector and she did have positions on the issues. I will admit you wouldn't know that by her TV ads.

What I meant is that as far as the electorate was concerned, she did not, because as you concede, her experience (as described by her, in her ads) amounted to nothing more than being anti-Bush, and having relatives in the military (referring to some of her earlier ads, before she started attacking Reichert).

Speaking of being anti-Bush, I went to a McGavick rally las

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[ces]

What I meant is that as far as the electorate was concerned, she did not, because as you concede, her experience (as described by her, in her ads) amounted to nothing more than being anti-Bush, and having relatives in the military (referring to some of her earlier ads, before she started attacking Reichert).

I'll agree that to a majority of people her big thing was being anti-Bush. Perhaps if she'd run on a few issues too (and there were some where she could have drawn a contrast with Reichert and been suppo

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[pudge]

Perhaps if she'd run on a few issues too (and there were some where she could have drawn a contrast with Reichert and been supported by a majority of the 8th's voters)

Like what?

Sadly the same could be said for the Senate race. Maria did little in her campaign to highlight her rather admirable (especially for a freshman in the minority party) legislative record. Contrast this with Murray who ran at least partially on her record 2 years ago.

Although Cantwell is known, having been a Senator for almost six year

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[ces]

Like what?

Protecting the environment, energy policy, health care reform, and stem cell research for starters. Also student aid for higher education and immigration reform might play fairly well.

Although Cantwell is known, having been a Senator for almost six years. She does not have to give us her views and qualifications so much, because most of us who care know what they are.

True but as I said I wished she would have talked more about what she's done in the Senate since 2000. If you want to get re-hired b

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[pudge]

Protecting the environment

What does she want to do that Reichert doesn't? He is against drilling in ANWAR. What other issues?

energy policy, health care reform

How are her views closer to the voters than Reichert on these, too?

and stem cell research for starters

They have the same position on stem cell research.

Also student aid for higher education and immigration reform might play fairly well.

Again, how are her views different from his?

Not that it matters, campaign is over. I just don't think their views a

Re: Not Getting It

[tf23]

...the people finally stopped believing the Republicans in DC were for small government. By now, it is impossible to believe it.

Bingo! This is a total let down :(

saying the Trust Fund would not go bankrupt

I recall republicans saying this, not dem's. Actually, the more I think about it there seemed to be so many different people/organizations/media agencies saying so many different statements and statistics about it, I'd have to say it couldn't have been just any one organization that was spewing forth misl

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[pudge]

I recall republicans saying this, not dem's.

Nope. The Republicans said it would go bankrupt and therefore it needs to be fixed, and the Dems said no it won't go bankrupt and it is just fine.

I call hogwash on this. Here's my thought process why (heh, please, don't snicker): if it's privatized, and people partake of that option, if they screw it up and lose all their money, then what?

Ideally, then they simply lose all their money. *shrug*

In truth though, the program would be managed by the government, under