How Big Is the Wave?

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By Robert Tracinski

Editor's Note: I'll be speaking Friday night at a National Issues Forum sponsored by the Jefferson Area Tea Party, our local tea party group. The event is at 7:00 pm at Lane Auditorium in the Albemarle County office building. The event will be happening just after president Obama's appearance in Charlottesville, and not far away. I may also be speaking—the planning is still a bit up in the air—at a rally at Lee Park in downtown Charlottesville at about 4:00 in the afternoon, just before Obama's event. See JeffersonTeaParty.org for more information.—RWT

As we head into the weekend before the election, this is our last good chance to get a wide perspective on what's headed toward us, and the question is: how big is the wave? We know there's a big wave headed into shore that's going to wash a fair number of incumbent Democrats out to sea. We've seen it darkening the horizon for a few weeks, but only now is it getting close enough that we can start to judge the size of the wave and guess at exactly how many deserving victims it is going to claim.

We know what President Obama thinks from his perspective. He thinks the wave is going to be big enough to wash away his whole remaining agenda. After months of pretending that the polls show nothing more than a normal "anti-incumbent" sentiment, the president just admitted that it is a referendum on his policies:

"My name may not be on the ballot, but our agenda for moving forward is on the ballot, and I need everybody to turn out," Obama said Tuesday afternoon during an appearance on the Rev. Al Sharpton's radio show.

Note also the venue in which Obama said this. During his 2008 campaign, there was a satirical animated video making the rounds, which showed Obama going to great lengths to avoid Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton—meeting them in broom closets and dispatching them on important missions to nonexistent African countries. Now Obama is seeking out Sharpton and the like, because his only hope is to go for the ethnic vote.

Obama made the remarks to appeal to African-American voters to show up for Democrats at the polls. The president has made appeals to young voters and Latino voters in recent days in order to try to drive high voter turnout and replicate the coalition that propelled him and congressional Democrats to victory in 2008.

But of course, blacks and Latinos were only part of the coalition that won Obama the presidency. The other part was whites who wanted to put racial politics to rest and independents who were disgruntled with Republicans. The New York Times reports that Obama has lost this part of his coalition, and by a big margin.

Republicans have wiped out the advantage held by Democrats in recent election cycles among women, Roman Catholics, less affluent Americans and independents. All of those groups broke for Mr. Obama in 2008 and for Congressional Democrats when they grabbed both chambers from the Republicans four years ago, according to exit polls.

If women choose Republicans over Democrats in House races on Tuesday, it will be the first time they have done so since exit polls began tracking the breakdown in 1982.

The poll provides a pre-Election Day glimpse of a nation so politically disquieted and disappointed in its current trajectory that 57 percent of the registered voters surveyed said they were more willing to take a chance this year on a candidate with little previous political experience. More than a quarter of them said they were even willing to back a candidate who holds some views that "seem extreme."

That is grim news for the president and his party, but they've had it coming. They are paying the price for winning the election on false pretenses. Democrats won a majority by recruiting conservative Democrats—and then used that majority to push the agenda of the far left. And President Obama ran on a vague promise of "change"—without telling the American people that he wanted to change from a free society to a socialist one. Here, from the New York Times article, is the reaction of one ordinary voter:

In a follow-up interview, one poll respondent, Judy Berg, an independent from Morton Grove, Ill., said she voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 because she was "looking for a change," adding, "the change that ensued was not the change I was looking for but something totally out of left field."

People don't forgive you for that kind of bait-and-switch. No wonder conservative Democrats are running as hard as they can against their party's leadership. Georgia Democrat Jim Marshall has put out a hilarious TV ad disavowing Nancy Pelosi, all but promising to punch hippies, and touting the support of the Chamber of Commerce—after President Obama's attempt to vilify the Chamber as the center of a vast right-wing conspiracy.

But not everyone is as smart as Marshall, which brings me to what's happening in Virginia's fifth district, where President Obama will be making a visit to Charlottesville on behalf of freshman Democratic Congressman Tom Perriello. Why is Obama doing this? It beat me. Perriello looks doomed, and I don't think Obama is going to change that, so from a purely political perspective, it's a bad move for him: he puts his credibility on the line for a candidate who loses. I don't think it's a very smart move for Perriello, either. We've been deluged with radio and TV ads whose common theme is an attempt to make Perriello—who spent his whole previous career working for George Soros-funded leftist foundations—look like a "moderate" who is "independent" of his party. And now, four days before the election, he'll have his picture on the front page of all the newspapers with Obama's arm around him.

I don't think there's any way to rationally calculate why the Democrats are doing what they do, because I don't think they know for sure what they're doing or why. I think they're so desperate, they're just trying anything they can come up with in the hope that something will work. It's like Obama talking to Sharpton or calling on Hispanic voters. At this point, maybe Perriello thinks that his only chance for survival is to get Obama to stir up the far-left "base." That's why he's coming to Charlottesville—to whip up the loyal left that you find in just about any university town. And since Perriello has been a very loyal foot soldier, voting for every important piece of legislation the Democrats have put forward, maybe Obama felt he couldn't turn down the request.

At any rate, it will make for an interesting day out here.

Like I said, I don't think there's much method to the madness. The Democrats are in such deep trouble that they don't know what to do. Michael Barone survey the latest polls in a series of normally safe Democratic districts and concludes that "the world is coming to an end" is "one thought that's probably going through the head of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen as he receives the latest polling numbers from districts Democrats thought would never be competitive."

Meanwhile, Karl Rove points to the number of Democratic Party leaders who are now in trouble.

Then there are senior House Democrats who normally don't draw more than token opposition. This year, some are terminal and others in jeopardy.

Nine-term Congressman Earl Pomeroy (North Dakota) and 13-termer Paul Kanjorski (Pennsylvania) will both go down. Three House committee chairmen—John Spratt (South Carolina), Ike Skelton (Missouri) and Jim Oberstar (Minnesota)—are trying to hold off late-charging challengers. Even the dean of the House, Michigan's 27-term Congressman John Dingell, is having to fend off a spirited challenge by cardiologist Rob Steele.

Then there's House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, squaring off against Republican Sean Bielat, a Marine and businessman, in Massachusetts. In 2008, Mr. Obama carried his district by 29 points, but Mr. Frank is now stuck at 46% support in a recent poll commissioned by the Boston Globe. Anything less than 50% is a dangerous place for an entrenched incumbent. Mr. Bielat has campaigned so effectively he's forced the acerbic, high-strung Mr. Frank to confess he'd been wrong to oppose reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the years before their spectacular collapse.

To that list, I would add the Wisconsin district of retiring 21-term incumbent David Obey, whose seat is likely to go to a Republican challenger.

Jack Wakeland points to another important aspect of this story: early voting. We can't tell exactly how these people voted—but we can tell the party affiliations of those who have voted so far, and the results are interesting. Jack has been looking at these numbers and sent me the following note:

"With about 10% of the vote already in, the registered-GOP turnout numbers are looking very good.

"Based on this data, it is possible to call the Senate races in Pennsylvania and Colorado.

"In 11 states evaluated by Jim Geraghty, three are showing the signature of a mountainous anti-Democrat tsunami of biblical proportions (Florida, Louisiana, Pennsylvania); 4 are showing substantial (statistically significant) gains for the GOP (Colorado, Maine, Nevada, North Carolina) which might turn out to be a landslide on November 2. Early voters being the non-representative sample of all voters that they are, however, we cannot reach any conclusions about how big the GOP victories in those states will be.

The remaining four states in Mr. Geraghty's survey either show no significant change in GOP v. Dem turnout (Iowa, West Virginia) or there isn't enough information reported to judge it (Maryland, Ohio).

"Based on early voting data that shows a significant pro-GOP shift in turnout, things look bad for Majority Leader Harry Reid. With Las Vegas and its neighboring cities, Clark County contains 70% of the state's population. Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans at the early polling booth by only an 8% margin this year, when they outnumbered Republicans by a 21% margin in 2008. And Reid has lost ground throughout the rest of the state. But because Clark County so dominates the Nevada vote—and because early voters are a large but atypical statistical sample of all of the voters who will turn out—it is way too early to count the race as lost for the Senate majority leader.

"For incumbent Colorado Democrat Michael Bennet, however, it looks like his bid to keep his seat is lost. In Pennsylvania, things are absolutely hopeless for Democratic hopeful Joe Sestak."

But Jack also points to another analysis, based on the fact that only a third of Senate seats are up for re-election at any one time, which indicates the limits of Republican gains in the Senate.

"Sean Trende's discussion of what is happening with the Senate races is worth a very close read.

"In only one of every three senate elections in the six-year rotation are a majority of the contested seats in right-leaning states.

"The luck of the draw is such that in this election, the majority of the seats (54%) up for election are in left-leaning states. Thus, with the full energies of the Tea Party movement available, a lot of normally Democrat-held seats will fall. We should not be disappointed if the GOP gains 'only' 5 of these seats (as is predicted this year) as a part of a total gain of 8 seats for the year. These 5 seats are not easily taken from the hands of the left.

"In 2012, the majority of the seats (55%) up for election will also be in left-leaning states. The continued energies of the Tea Party movement may make it possible for the GOP to pick up as many as 6 more seats in left-leaning states, in additon to regaining almost all 8 of the seats in right-leaning states that are currently held by Democrats. A serious Tea Party effort to rally the nation against President Obama two years from now, could—potentially—make it possible for the GOP to obtain a filibuster-proof majority to back up a Republican president and a majority Republican House.

"However—just when you might worry that the energies of the Tea Party activism would be spent, the vast majority of the seats (64%) up for election in the next mid-term election will be in right-leaning states. In the election of 2014, it will be possible for the Republicans to easily retain their senate majority in the face of the mid-term retrenchments that always seem to occur. Keeping a majority in the House of Representatives will not be an easy thing, however. A future Republican president would need to be true to the small-government agenda that he espoused, he would need to cut the size of the federal government, and he would need to be successful at those things that can never be anticipated or controlled: domestic economic upsets and foreign crises.

"Thus, if the Tea Party movement can stay alive for two more years and get a decent man into the White House—if the House and Senate GOP leadership can actually follow through on a program of reducing the scope of government—the structure of the Senate election cycle will favor four full years of undivided government for a new small-government national majority."

As for predictions that the Republicans may gain only eight Senate seats this year—I still think that might be too cautious. A fascinating review of the varying polls in the California Senate race, for example, shows that all of the polls are actually showing the same results—they're just making different assumptions about the relative turnout of Republicans versus Democrats.

As you can see, the pollsters showing a comfortable Boxer lead are showing electorates that are similar to 2008. On the other hand, the pollsters who are showing a tight race see an electorate more like 2004 or 2006....

In the end, we can't know who has the electorate right until Election Day. For now, if you think California Dems have gotten their mojo back to 2008 levels, Boxer is a pretty safe bet. If, however, you think that things have settled down to 2006 levels and Republicans are surging, then this race is a coin toss.

Well, what do you think? I don't think the Democrats have their "mojo" back anywhere. In fact, at this point, everything they do just seems to make their situation worse

Take Joy Behar, the inaptly named co-host of "The View"—a sniping coffee klatch of bitter middle-aged female leftists—who hurled foul-mouthed invective at Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle, only to have Angle raise $300,000 off the incident in two days, a much-needed boost for the final week of the campaign. Even better, Angle sent Behar flowers and a card.

I reported last night that the Sharron Angle campaign had had a banner day fundraising, which the campaign attributed to the fact that The View co-host Joy Behar said of Angle on national television, "She's going to hell, this bitch!"

The Angle campaign tells me that this morning they sent flowers and a thank you note to Behar:

Joy,
Raised 150K online yesterday—thanks for your help.
Sincerely,
Sharron Angle

Then, of course, the Democrats have turned for money to their biggest backers, the government employees' unions, which merely confirms the public's suspicion that the Democratic Party stand for the looting of the taxpayer. Here's how Michael Barone puts it:

Who is the largest single political contributor in the 2010 campaign cycle? You can be pardoned if you answer, erroneously, that it's some new conservative group organized by Karl Rove. That's campaign spin by the Obama Democrats, obediently relayed by certain elements of the so-called mainstream media.

The real answer is AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The union's president, Gerald McEntee, reports proudly that AFSCME will be contributing $87.5 million in this cycle, entirely or almost entirely to Democrats....

Public employee union members have become, as US News Editor-in-Chief Mortimer Zuckerman writes, "the new privileged class," with better pay, more generous benefits and far more lush pensions than those who pay their salaries—and who are taxed to send money to their leaders' favored candidates.

Meanwhile, various corrupt vote-rigging schemes are coming to light. The campaign manager for Pennsylvania Democratic incumbent Patrick Murphy has been caught sending out a deceptive mailer trolling for absentee ballots, while Democrats are also more-or-less openly boosting third-party and independent candidates—including fake "Tea Party" candidates—in a desperate move to win on the basis of voter confusion and not on their own merits.

With just six days left until Election Day, a key component of the Democratic strategy to hold the House is becoming clear: In more than a dozen close races, Democrats are encouraging and advancing little-known, conservative third-party candidates in an attempt to fracture the Republican vote enough to eke out narrow victories.

But of course, two can play this game. In Alaska, establishment Republican Lisa Murkowski refused to accept her loss in the primaries and has staged a write-in bid. To overcome the problem of voters having to spell her name correctly—and believe me, that's a substantial obstacle—she used her insider connections to secure a judge's ruling that a list of the names of write-in candidates could be included on the ballot. Basically, this is an unprincipled attempt to bypass all of the rules about how a candidate can get his name on the ballot. But a local radio talk show host found an easy way to defeat Murkowski's stunt: he got dozens of listeners to petition to add their names as write-in candidates, too, so that Murkowski's name will now be lost in a very, very long list.

Here's one final indication of how the election is going. Bill Clinton is always a good weather-vane for political trends. Remarkably—for a man who is a much better, more charismatic campaigner than the current president—Clinton's recent campaign appearances have been sparsely attended and strangely dispirited. WLS Radio reports from Chicago:

Former President Bill Clinton's "get out the vote" rally for Democrats at a downtown Chicago hotel was the most unenthusiastic WLS veteran political reporter Bill Cameron has ever witnessed.

Clinton was an hour late for the Tuesday afternoon rally at the Palmer House and droned on for another hour, sending dozens of the few hundred Democrats in attendance for the exits.

So how big is the wave? Judging from all of these results, it will be very, very big. Here are my official predictions, for what they're worth: the Republicans will definitely take at least 60 seats in the House, probably 70, maybe 80 or more. In the Senate, at least eight seats, probably 10—I'm an optimist on this issue—maybe 12.

When we know what actually happens, I'll begin talking about the consequences and what the next step for Republicans and Tea Partiers should be.

But we can already say one thing: the Tea Party phenomenon is reverberating far beyond American politics. TIA Daily reader Michael Ryan sent me a note about a recent mayoral election in Canada.

Well, weren't the polls and MSM caught by surprise with Toronto's mayoral election. Mr. Ford (no choir-boy and certainly no Ayn Rand acolyte, but as close to a Tea Partyist as you're going to get outside the US) ran on a theme of "respect for the taxpayer." The polls suggested a neck-and-neck race with his very polished, erudite, experienced, and well thought-of liberal opponent who ran on a theme of—well, I'm not too sure, other than "anyone but Ford" and "you've got to be simple to fall for that nonsense." It wasn't close—Toronto had the highest voter turnout in decades and Mr. Ford's margin of victory was something federal and provincial politicians would salivate at. Oh yes, the MSM are offended at the result and say that Ford will have to "reach out" to the opposition because, well, doesn't he have to? His response: "To those who voted for me: when they look back four years from now, you'll be able to say that I did what I said I would do, and to those who didn't vote for me—I will show respect for your tax dollars, too." We could have done worse.

The point is: if our polls were so wrong and our Tea-Partyism is so much more muted than yours, I suspect it will be quite the sea change on November 2. Brace yourself for an upside surprise.

I hope so. And Daniel Hannan—the Tea Party's messenger in the UK—is already anticipating how the success of the Tea Parties in the US might inspire tax revolts in Europe. His latest headline says it all: "If Tea Partiers Are Such Deluded Fools, Why Are They Doing So Well?

I've been offering a lot of analysis of the political trends of this election, and now I've offered a few predictions. But the time for predictions is ending, because this is the point at which we stop speculating about the results—and recognize that we are the ones who will make those results happen. So get to work.

We know now that if we win this victory, we will be striking a blow for liberty that the whole world will see.—RWT

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Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist and TIADaily.com. Subscribe to Robert Tracinski RSS Article Feed.