More About the Midterms

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We're roughly 6½ months from the midterm elections.

With a split Congress, the priorities for both political parties have been predictable, haven't they? I mean, the Democrats have the Senate and would like to have the House, too. The Republicans have the House, and they would like to take over the Senate. All things being equal, either could happen — and neither could happen.

CNN's Ashley Killough reports that the political terrain is getting worse for Democrats. Killough reports that five Senate races that were previously thought to be reasonably safe for Democrats have become competitive. That is based on information from a memo from the political director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee — so take it with as many grains of salt as you wish.

Until the votes are counted in November, of course, anything (theoretically) is possible, but, as I have pointed out before, midterm elections don't usually work out too well for the president's party, especially in the second midterm of a president's tenure.

Historically speaking, therefore, since Democrats hold the White House, they are likely to experience setbacks in the midterms — unless something dramatic happens that has clear benefits for the president's party. How severe those setbacks will be is unclear.

With each passing day, the likelihood of something dramatic happening lessens.

How's it looking to observers so far?

• Over at Sabato's Crystal Ball, the emphasis lately is on the House of Representatives, which Democrats had hoped (and, presumably, still do) to flip in the fall.
  
  At one time, the Democrats with whom I spoke expressed optimism upon hearing of the retirements of Republican incumbents. Based on my highly unreliable conversations, that mood has shifted. In more recent weeks and months, the Republicans with whom I have spoken have expressed the same sense of optimism regarding the retiring Democrat incumbents.
  
  Actually, writes Geoffrey Skelley, associate editor for the Crystal Ball, "the degree of turnover in the House this cycle is not unusually high." An average of slightly more than 70 House members leaves every two years, Skelley writes, "about one–sixth of the total House membership."
  
  So far, 50 members of the House are leaving for one reason or another. Some are retiring. Others are seeking other offices. The reasons for a member's departure can be many (including losing a bid for renomination) and additional retirements may be announced, but, considering we are now better than midway through April, you have to wonder if the number of retirements will even reach the average.
  
  Currently, the Crystal Ball anticipates a gain for Republicans in the House of 5–8 seats. That is roughly what the Rothenberg Political Report projects.
  
  To people who haven't been watching elections too closely until, say, the last 10 years or so, that may seem like a low number. In the context of other recent elections, I suppose it is. In the last five election cycles, either Republicans or Democrats gained at least 21 House seats three times.
  
  But those other two elections, in which one party or the other gained fewer than 10 seats, were more typical of American legislative elections.
  
  An election in which one party or the other wins as many seats as the parties did in 2006, 2008 and 2010 is seen as a transformational year by political observers.
  
  Charlie Cook's Cook Political Report finds 17 House seats up for grabs. If all those seats were held by Republicans and Democrats carried each, it would be enough for the Democrats to seize control of the House.
  
  The problem is that only four of those seats are held by Republicans. The rest are in Democrat hands. To win the House, it looks more and more like Democrats will need something dramatic to happen.
• The latest Rothenberg Political Report finds Stuart Rothenberg obsessing over the rumor that outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius might challenge Sen. Pat Roberts in Kansas.
  
  
  
  Rothenberg wrote that his initial response to a New York Times article that reported Sebelius, a former two–term governor of Kansas, was "considering entreaties from Democrats who want her to run" was that Democrats "had to be encouraged," given the difficulty they have had in recruiting quality candidates to challenge Republican incumbents.
  
  "After that," wrote Rothenberg, "I quickly came to my senses." He pointed out the things that occurred to me immediately upon hearing that Sebelius was considering making a run — things that should have given her pause if she really was thinking about it. Maybe they did.
  
  It is true that, at one time, Sebelius was a popular figure in Kansas. She was elected governor in 2002 with more than 53% of the vote, and she was re–elected in 2006 with 58% of the vote.
  
  But she was perceived as more of a centrist then.
  
  "I remember interviewing her years ago," Rothenberg writes, "when she was running for governor. She was all business. No chit–chat. Not much personal warmth at all. She was all about Kansas and managing things properly."
  
  That image has been transformed by the Obamacare experience. It is no secret that Sebelius' name is intricately tied to Obamacare, which is not popular in red–state Kansas. Her boss for the last five years, Barack Obama, got 41% of the vote in Kansas when he first sought the presidency in 2008, and that dropped to 38% of the vote when he ran for re–election in 2012.
  
  If Sebelius had run for the Senate, Obamacare would have been front and center, keeping the story in the headlines and benefiting Republicans elsewhere at a time when Democrats have been trying to change the subject to ... anything.
  
  Then there is Kansas' electoral history in Senate races. It hasn't been unusual for Democrats (even Democrat women) to be elected governor of Kansas — rare but not unusual — but Kansans haven't voted to send a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since (appropriately) the year before the premiere of "The Wizard of Oz."
  
  Rothenberg concluded that the Senate seat is safe for Roberts — and, apparently, so did Sebelius.
  
  Republicans need to win six seats to take control of the Senate. Rothenberg currently thinks a gain of 4–8 seats is probable. The Crystal Ball says Republicans appear likely to win four Senate seats with three more rated tossups. The Cook Political Report is a little more conservative right now, saying that three Democrat–held seats appear likely to flip and five more are up for grabs. But it also says two Republican–held seats are in jeopardy.
• Those observers analyze politics professionally. I only do it on an amateur level.
  
  But, at this stage of a midterm campaign, I think it is useful to compare presidential job approval ratings for presidents in their second midterm election years.
  
  About a week ago, the McClatchy/Marist poll reported that Obama's approval rating was 45%. That's better than some polls, not as good as others, but it is the most recent one of which I am aware.
  
  How does that compare to other presidents in their second midterm election years?
  
  Well, Obama's immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, had an approval rating of 39% in a Los Angeles Times poll conducted in April 2006. Bush seldom enjoyed approval ratings of 40% or higher in 2006. His Republicans suffered, losing six Senate seats and 32 House seats.
  
  In April 1998, Bill Clinton had just survived an attempt to impeach him, and he was enjoying consistent approval ratings in the 60s. Thanks to the backlash against the impeachment attempt, the party division in the Senate was unchanged, and Clinton's Democrats actually gained four seats in the House.
  
  Ronald Reagan was facing his second midterm election in 1986. In mid–April of that year, Gallup reported that his approval rating was 63%. Reagan's Republicans lost eight Senate seats and five House seats.
  
  The circumstances of the midterm election of 1974 were unique in American history. Richard Nixon had been re–elected in 1972, but he resigned about three months before the midterm election of 1974. His successor, Gerald Ford, had to face the wrath of the voters in the grip of Watergate backlash.
  
  Nixon was still president in April 1973, and Gallup reported his approval rating at 26%. Republicans lost five Senate seats and 49 House seats.
  
  Dwight Eisenhower faced his second midterm election in 1958. In April 1958, Gallup reported his approval rating at 55%. 1958 was a tough year for Ike. His approval dipped below 50% in late March for the first time in his presidency. In November, Eisenhower's Republicans lost 13 Senate seats and 48 House seats.
  
  Harry Truman wasn't elected president, but he wound up serving most of Franklin D. Roosevelt's fourth term, and he presided over the midterm elections of 1946. The midterms of 1950 were the second midterms of his presidency, and, in the spring of 1950, his stunning victory in the 1948 presidential election was a distant memory, and he was fluctuating from the 30s to the 40s in his Gallup job approval ratings. Democrats lost six Senate seats and 29 House seats.
  
  Roosevelt had his own troubles. In the spring of 1938, with the second midterm of his presidency approaching, FDR's approval rating was 54% less than two years after he was re–elected in a landslide. In November, Roosevelt's Democrats lost six Senate seats and 71 House seats.

On Voting

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"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable."

G.K. Chesterton

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I read with interest an article by Peter Grier in the Christian Science Monitor that sought to clarify what recent poll numbers indicate.

For example,the Associated Press found that, while the majority believe the president is a nice guy, two–thirds rate his presidency as average at best — and nearly half rate his presidency below average. Clearly, liking the president and liking his agenda are two separate things.

I guess one of the most intriguing quotes I read said, in effect, Barack Obama seems like a nice guy, someone I might like to hang out with, but I like a lot of people and most of them aren't qualified to be president.

That's the part of public opinion polling that I have never fully comprehended, I guess. I get that people want to feel good about the people for whom they vote, but, please, try to understand. I was a child during the Nixon years. No one seemed to like him, not even people who voted for him, yet he was elected president twice. The second time he was elected, he got a higher share of the popular vote than anyone in American history except Lyndon Johnson.

The lesson I took from that was somewhat Machiavellian, I guess — a leader does not have to be loved or even liked. (Yet, the questions that are put to modern voters about their political choices — Which candidate do you like best? Which candidate would you rather have a beer with? — suggest that likability is the only thing voters consider.)

But a leader does need to lead.

Being liked simply isn't a requirement of the job. It's a plus, but it isn't necessary. And my assessment, after the special election in Florida, is that Democrats relied too much on the impression that Obama is generally well liked — and gave too little credibility to voter opposition to the policy.

I know that voters want to like the people for whom they vote, but I have voted in many elections, and I know it isn't always possible to like the candidates for whom you choose to vote.

When you're casting your vote, my experience is that you are more likely to encounter a race in which you really don't like either of the candidates as you are to encounter a race in which you do like them. (Most of the time, there will probably be one candidate you like better than the other.)

In every election, though, you really have two options. You can skip voting in that race entirely (you certainly aren't required to vote in every race on your ballot, and I generally do skip at least one such race every election), or, if you have no clear preference in the likability department, you can choose a candidate based on other (usually more important) factors, such as the candidates' relevant experience and records of achievement.

That, too, can be exaggerated, but the truthfulness of what a candidate says about himself or herself can be easily verified by enterprising reporters. So, too, can the success or failure of the policies and programs with which a candidate and/or the candidate's party are linked in the public mind.

Which brings me to the special election in Florida.

It's hard, in the aftermath of yesterday's special election in Florida's 13th congressional district, to avoid wondering just how much of an influence the low popularity of Barack Obama and the implementation of his signature achievement, the passage of Obamacare, had on the outcome — and, by extension, how much it will affect other races across the country in November.

Predictably, Democrats are downplaying the Obamacare part of it. Instead, they are pointing out that Republicans narrowly held on to a seat they have won comfortably for decades. Party cheerleader Debbie Wasserman Schultz was spinning so fast today that the loss amazingly became a positive.

Just as predictably, the Republicans are calling this an early indication of a national rejection of Obamacare. They dismiss the fact that the Republican winner was held under 50% in the three–candidate race. House Speaker John Boehner called it a "big win," which is a considerable stretch.

But here's the bottom line: The special election in Florida's 13th was a "must–win" for Democrats, in the words of political analyst Stuart Rothenberg.

For years, Democrats have been anticipating a takeover when the seat was open. After all, Democratic presidential nominees have carried the district in five of the last six national elections. But the takeover did not happen.

After the votes were counted, Rothenberg wrote this: "The Republican special election win doesn't guarantee anything for November. But it is likely to put Democrats even more on the defensive, undermining grassroots morale and possibly adding fuel to the argument that Democratic dollars should go toward saving the Senate than fighting for the House."

That's about the size of it.

The Battle for the Senate

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times.

Practically since the last vote was counted in the 2010 midterm elections, supporters of the administration have bemoaned the difficulty of accomplishing anything with this Congress. Barack Obama can't do anything with this do–nothing Congress, they say.

I find myself struggling to follow the logic.

If the administration has been unable to accomplish its objectives because the Congress — more specifically, the House because that is the chamber that is controlled by the Republicans — has been obstructing its efforts, then it seems to me there are really only two options:

1. Change the president to one who will work with the Congress or


2. Change the majority in Congress to one that will work with the president.

If the American people decide collectively that they want cooperation between the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, the former seems more likely than the latter.

I mean, for Democrats to control both chambers of Congress, they would need to reverse the outcome of the midterm House elections, and that's a very tall order.

In 2010, Republicans took 64 seats from the Democrats. It wouldn't be necessary for Democrats to win that many to reclaim control of the House — unless the objective was not merely to win control of it but to regain the margin Democrats enjoyed in Obama's first two years in office.

To seize an extremely narrow majority (but a majority nevertheless) in the House, Democrats would need to increase their total by 25 seats in November. That certainly isn't impossible. Americans have taken at least 21 House seats from one party and given them to the other in the last three elections — but two of those elections were midterm election years, not presidential election years.

Historically, such turnover in Congress typically happens in midterm elections.

The party of an incumbent president who is seeking another term usually wins a few House seats in the process, whether the president wins or not, but only one such incumbent in the last 60 years has seen his party win as many seats as Democrats need to capture the House in 2012.

And no one has been suggesting that Democrats are likely to do that.

Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball indicates that Republicans currently are likely to hold 234 seats, which is 16 more than they need to ensure a majority in 2013 and 2014. Democrats can expect to hold 186. A total of 15 seats are regarded as tossups.

The Rothenberg Political Report says only six House seats are "pure tossups" — and there are five more, although Rothenberg indicates that those seats are leaning, however slightly, to one party or the other.

Well, one thing is certainly clear. Barring the development of something totally unexpected, the numbers just don't seem to be there to flip the House back to the Democrats.

That doesn't faze some of the Democrats I know.

It's no secret that Congress isn't popular, but many Democrats appear to be gambling that, because of that unpopularity, not only will Obama be re–elected but the voters, frustrated by gridlock, will give him a Congress that will work with him.

Don't hold your breath — at least on the latter — writes Alan Abramowitz for Sabato's Crystal Ball.

"[D]espite the abysmal approval ratings that Congress has been receiving," Abramowitz writes, "2012 will not be an anti–incumbent election. That's because opinions about the performance of Congress and opinions about whether most congressional incumbents deserve to be re–elected have little or no influence on the outcomes of congressional elections."

Sweeping losses in the House in a presidential election year (in which a 25–seat turnover is possible) tend to happen when the president (or his surrogate) is in trouble with the voters — in 2008, for example, when Obama was elected after eight years of Republican rule, and in 1980, when Jimmy Carter lost in a landslide.

If a change is going to come in Congress, it seems more likely to come in the Senate, where the Democrats' once filibuster–proof majority was reduced significantly in the 2010 midterms but they still clung to a bare majority.

Only 51 members of the Senate are Democrats, and two independent members of the chamber typically vote with the Democrats, giving them 53 seats. Forty–seven members of the chamber are Republicans.

It's safe to say that — numerically, at least — the bar for success is much lower in the Senate.

If Obama is re–elected, Republicans would need to win four Senate seats to have control of both chambers. That might be easier said than done, but incumbents who win re–election have been known to lose some ground in the Senate simultaneously. Bill Clinton's Democrats lost three Senate seats when he was re–elected in 1996, and Ronald Reagan's Republicans lost a single Senate seat in 1984.

If Obama is defeated, Republicans would need to win only three seats. That would produce a 50–50 tie, but the Republicans would have effective control of the chamber because the new vice president, who would be responsible for casting any tie–breaking votes, would be a Republican.

The fortunes of the individual presidential nominees in certain states could influence the outcome of the battle for the Senate. Rothenberg observes that ticket splitting, in which someone votes for the nominee of one party at the top of the ticket but votes for nominees from the other party in races down the ballot, is "increasingly rare" in America.

Thus, the trend to straight–ticket voting should work in Obama's favor in places like Hawaii and Massachusetts. Both states have long histories of supporting Democrats for president, and both will have Senate races this year. Logically, both seats should be in Democratic hands after the votes are counted, but both are a bit shaky.

In Hawaii, Democratic incumbent Daniel Akaka is retiring, and in Massachusetts, Scott Brown is running for a full six–year term after winning last year's special election to succeed Ted Kennedy. Obama's presence on the ballot could help his party retain — or regain — those seats.

But Obama could just as easily hurt Democratic prospects in states like Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and North Dakota, Rothenberg says. Presently, Democrats hold all four seats, but two are retiring, and those seats are regarded as likely to flip to the Republicans. The incumbents are running in the other two states, and those races are regarded as tossups by both Sabato and Rothenberg.

Nebraska was already likely to elect a Republican senator before incumbent Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson opted to retire, Sabato writes, so that didn't significantly alter the terrain, and that certainly makes sense, given the state's electoral history. But Nelson's decision "makes a Republican takeover of the Senate a little more likely," Sabato observes.

The task could be made even easier in the weeks and months ahead — and Rothenberg points out that it all could come down to half a dozen states that are considered battlegrounds in the presidential race — and also happen to have Senate races on the ballot: Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Five of those seats (all but Nevada's) are currently held by Democrats, and three of those Democrats (the ones from New Mexico, Virginia and Wisconsin) are retiring.

New Mexico may be small, but it bears watching. With a reputation for being a bellwether (it's been on the winning side in 23 of the last 25 elections), it might be the most accurate political barometer on Election Night — in more ways than one.

Virginia, as I wrote last month, had been in the Republican column for more than 40 years until it voted for Obama in 2008. But his popularity has declined there, and I am sure that the state will vote Republican in November. The next question would be, will the Republican nominee's coattails help the GOP retake the seat it lost in 2006?

I don't know what to expect in Wisconsin. The state has supported Democratic presidential nominees in the last six presidential elections, and it has seldom sent Republicans to the Senate since the days of Joe McCarthy — but it voted for a Republican over three–term Sen. Russ Feingold i 2010, and it has frequently elected Republican governors, including the one who was elected in 2010.

Both Obama and his eventual opponent can be expected to spend a lot of time and money in those states. It remains to be seen what kind of an effect the presidential race has on the Senate campaigns there.

Historical Inevitability

When I was young, I remember my father telling me that America had survived as a nation because it always seemed to get the kind of leadership it needed when it was needed.

At the time, I guess it struck me as being his personal version of "Manifest Destiny" — i.e., it is America's destiny to get the kind of leadership it needs when it needs it.

I don't remember how old I was when he made this observation to me. I might have been in high school ... might have been in junior high. I don't remember if there was a particular crisis going on when he said that. Could have been anything, I suppose. There was always something in those days — Vietnam, civil rights, Watergate, oil embargoes, etc. — that seemed to be crying out for leadership that never really came.

I guess it's what George H.W. Bush called "the vision thing." (Personally, I was kind of relieved that he didn't call it "the vision thingy." That just didn't seem very presidential to me.)

And I wonder if that belief that my father expressed is a byproduct of living through the Great Depression and the inspiring presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. If that is so, then perhaps it goes beyond my father or even his circle of friends.

Perhaps that is what the majority of the people of my father's generation believe — that America is destined for greatness because great leaders will always emerge when they are needed. That was, after all, their experience in their formative years.

But that hasn't always been the experience of the people of my generation. And sometimes I wonder if the great leaders truly were as great as advertised or if they just looked great when they were compared to those who came before.

Abraham Lincoln, for example, is typically regarded as one of the greatest presidents, and he was preceded (and followed) by strings of presidents who are generally considered by historians to be among the worst in our history.

(I don't mean to suggest that Lincoln was not a great president. I believe that he was. But I also believe there was a certain amount of truth in a comedy bit on a David Frye album in the early 1970s, in which he presented a fictitious conversation between President Nixon and his party rival, Nelson Rockefeller, about how to derail the possible presidential candidacy of infamous party–switcher John Lindsay, the mayor of New York.

(The Nixon character, as I recall, fretted about how good Lindsay would look on television and how tough he would be to defeat in Nixon's campaign for re–election. Rockefeller reassuringly replied — in a reference to a notorious sanitation strike during Lindsay's administration that left mounds of trash piled up all over the city — that "anyone would look very good, in my opinion, standing next to all that garbage all the time.")

The three presidents who came before FDR — Harding, Coolidge and Hoover — ranked in the bottom one–third, according to a survey of scholars conducted by Siena College this year.

If you study the American presidency for any length of time, you're bound to come to the conclusion that we've had a heckuva lot more truly terrible presidencies than truly great ones.

Oddly enough, most of those truly terrible presidencies began with a certain amount of enthusiasm and optimism. With the exception of a few who became president after the previous president's death or resignation, most of the presidents who are today rated as terrible were chosen by the voters in a democratic election.

As ludicrous as it may seem today, people actually did vote for James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce and Warren Harding — and others who are not remembered favorably in the history books. And those people must have been nearly as enthusiastic about electing those presidents as they were when they elected Lincoln or the Roosevelts — or Barack Obama.

Well, regardless of how much enthusiasm accompanied the elections of America's presidents — both the truly great and the truly awful — it is virtually impossible to predict how an individual presidency will be regarded by historians before it has even begun.

However, a genuine historical inevitability (i.e., not a recent phenomenon) has arisen: Except for rare circumstances (which usually involve some sort of international crisis), midterm elections go against the party in power.

But it isn't always so inevitable. In Congressional Quarterly, contributing writer Stuart Rothenberg reminds readers that, until last summer, there was practically no talk among insiders in either party that suggested that Democrats would lose ground in 2010.

Early in Obama's presidency, Rothenberg writes, Democrats were encouraged by several factors ("Republican retirements, Democratic incumbency and financial advantages, and new Democratic opportunities") that indicated to them that, even if the traditional backlash against the party in power occurred, they could minimize their losses. And Republicans, while hopeful, were aware of the considerable damage that had been done to their "brand."

All of this assumed that events would follow a predictable pattern — which, of course, they almost never do.

Nearly 15 months ago, Rothenberg writes, "my newsletter ... noted that 'small Republican gains would seem the most likely outcome' of the midterms, adding that the House 'is not at risk in next year's elections.' "

Even though conditions were bordering on the horrific when Obama took office, there seemed to be a willingness on the part of the public to give him and his Democrats in Congress plenty of time. Polls seemed to confirm this. When he became president, Obama's approval ratings tended to be in the 60s. But those days ended by June of 2009. For the next several months, Obama's approval ratings mostly languished in the 50s, and they have been almost entirely in the 40s since the start of 2010.

"My point in resurrecting all these numbers and projections," says Rothenberg, "is that it was not always inevitable that Republicans would make large House gains, no matter what you may read and hear now."

And he's right about that. If you don't believe me, look it up.

Now, approval numbers in the 40s don't tend to make a president an asset on the campaign trail — but, historically, a president's party still can do reasonably well in a midterm election, as Rothenberg points out.

But that isn't a sure thing. Even FDR, who enjoyed an approval rating in the 50s at the time of the 1938 midterms and was the beneficiary of a wartime approval rating in the 70s during the 1942 midterm campaign, saw his party lose ground. It can be argued, though, that no other outcome really was possible. In 1938, Democrats held 75 of 96 Senate seats and 333 of 435 House seats; in 1942, they held 66 Senate seats and 267 House seats.

In hindsight, there was nowhere to go but down.

On the other hand, FDR's successor, Harry Truman, faced a different problem. His party had fewer seats to defend in both houses of Congress, but Truman's approval rating fell below 50 in the late spring of 1946 and continued to decline, settling in the mid–30s by Election Day. Truman's Democrats lost control of both houses of Congress for the first time since the stock market crashed in 1929.

The Democrats regained control of Congress in 1948, when Truman pulled off his famed "upset" triumph in his campaign for re–election, and he even enjoyed a brief surge in popularity early in 1949. But he dropped below 50% for good more than a year before the 1950 midterms and, by the time Americans went to the polls in November 1950, Truman's approval rating was in the upper 30s or low 40s. His party retained control of both chambers but lost six Senate seats and 29 House seats.

As the years have gone by, the lesson appears to be this: Once a president slips below that 50% approval level, it seems to be increasingly difficult for his fortunes — and, by extension, his party's fortunes — to bounce back, particularly in this era of 24–hour cable news.

To modern observers, George W. Bush is the most flagrant example of this, but it would be a mistake to blame it exclusively on the CNNs and the Fox Newses of the world. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson received the highest share of the popoular vote that a presidential candidate ever received, but after the summer of 1966, he seldom enjoyed approval ratings that exceeded 50 — and his party began a downward trajectory that continued through several election cycles.

For the most part, Bush's approval rating fell below 50% — permanently — after the Terri Schiavo episode in the spring of 2005. By the time that Democrats regained control of both chambers of Congress in November 2006, polls were reporting approval ratings in the 30s.

Obama's rating isn't as low as Bush's — but he had much farther to fall. And the wound that has been suffered by those who supported him two years ago and now feel, to varying degrees, betrayed by the gap between the expectations and the reality — a stubbornly high unemployment rate in spite of Obama's insistence (all evidence to the contrary) that he focuses on job creation every day; two wars that continue to rage on in spite of Obama's insistence during the campaign that he would bring them to an end; a three–month flow of crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico that made Obama seem impotent — is deep.

Obama and his supporters are tumbling into a trap I have seen before. Some men — Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton come to mind — are successful in their campaigns for the presidency in part because they blame conditions on the other party, but that turns out to be a double–edged sword. No matter how long it took for the bad conditions to surface, voters expect immediate (or almost immediate) improvement.

In the absence of evidence of such improvement, Obama and the Democrats resort to reminding voters that they inherited this mess from the previous administration. When a president focuses on what he inherited rather than what he is doing about the problem, he loses the confidence of the voters.

"Actions, indeed, do have consequences," Rothenberg writes. "In this case, the combination of an aggressive Democratic agenda, a weak jobs recovery and a large deficit has created a political environment very different from the one 18 months ago."

Argue if you must that an increased deficit was a necessary evil to halt the economic erosion. Voters don't see much in the way of job gains — and that is the bang for their bucks that the voters are looking for.

In recent weeks, Rothenberg has written that:

• A total of 88 House seats (76 held by Democrats) are in play this year, and Republicans are projected to gain 28–33, but "it is important to note that considerably larger Republican gains in excess of 39 seats are quite possible."
  
  A gain of 40 seats would give the Republicans control of the House.


• Democrats, who currently control 57 seats plus two independents who generally vote with them, now look likely to lose five to eight seats in November.
  
  That's roughly what the projection has been for awhile, but the bad news for Democrats is that Senators Boxer, Feingold and Murray are only slight favorites for re–election.
  
  Voters clearly have doubts about the Republicans controlling the Senate, and Rothenberg concedes that "[t]he chances that the next Senate will have a Republican majority are not great, but even three months ago there were not enough Senate seats in play to imagine a Republican gain of 10 seats. Now there are, with 11 Democratic seats definitely competitive."

Rothenberg isn't the only political analyst who anticipates rough sledding for the Democrats this fall.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, runs the Crystal Ball, which has been uncannily accurate in its projections over the years. Currently, the Crystal Ball expects Democrats to lose seven Senate seats and 32 House seats, narrowly retaining control of both chambers.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, who worried about the midterms earlier in the summer, seems to have had a change of heart and has said recently that he expects Democrats to hold Congress in the midterms.

Perhaps they will. But if they don't, Democrats should remember what Rothenberg says:

"It didn't have to be this way."

The Sky Is Falling!

Do you recall the fable of Chicken Little?

As I understand it, there are several versions of that particular fable, and the moral varies from version to version.

But, in the version I remember from my childhood, a falling acorn strikes a chicken in the head, and she concludes that the sky is falling. She decides she must give this information to the king so she embarks on a journey to do precisely that. Along the way, she runs into several other animals, and she tells them what has happened. They decide to come with her.

At some point, they encounter a fox, who eats most of the chicken's friends.

Essentially, the moral of the story is to have courage and not give in to hysteria.

For Democrats, in a celebratory mood after passing health care reform on Sunday and sending it to the White House, where Barack Obama signed it into law today, this may seem like a strange time for talk of an imminent disaster.

But nonpartisan political analyst Stuart Rothenberg isn't trying to lure Democrats into a trap in his piece at The Rothenberg Political Report, where he asserts that "[f]or Democrats, the sky is falling."

He's actually trying to give them the early warning that many insisted — all evidence to the contrary — that they got from January's special election in Massachusetts.

Citing the results of a couple of recent polls, Rothenberg writes, "Both found far more Americans believing the country was headed off on the wrong track ... than in the right direction, and both found the once strong Democratic advantage in the generic ballot, which measures how people plan to vote in November ... or which party they would like to control Congress after the next election ... has narrowed or disappeared."

But wait. There's more.

"Even worse for Democrats," he writes, by a two–to–one margin, "Americans now say it is better to have different parties controlling Congress and the presidency rather than to have one party controlling both branches."

Doesn't sound promising. What about the familiar old fallback positions upon which Democrats have relied?

"[T]he Republican brand still stinks," Rothenberg writes. "Voters aren't clamoring for Republicans to run anything in Washington, D.C., and polls continue to show that Americans still think that former President George W. Bush bears more of the responsibility for the nation's economic pain than anyone else."

Is that enough? Apparently not. "Unfortunately for Democrats," Rothenberg observes, "their own brand has fallen like a rock."

What about blaming Bush? Democrats got considerable mileage from that in 2009, didn't they?

Well, "he won't be on the ballot or in the public's consciousness in November," Rothenberg writes, "so Democrats will have to spend a great deal of time (and money) trying to make the midterms a referendum on the former president rather than on the sitting president. The chances that most Democratic candidates will succeed in that effort are exceedingly small."

Well, doesn't the passage of health care reform count for anything?

"Health care reform, once seen as a party strength, has turned into a significant liability," Rothenberg writes, "and few think the economy will turn around far enough or fast enough to help Democratic candidates in the midterm elections."

Rothenberg admits that he has been reluctant "to get too far in front of the election cycle, since circumstances can change and Democrats could well have an important financial advantage in the key post–Labor Day time period. But let's be clear about what is developing: Obama and the Democratic Congressional leadership have dug themselves into a deep and dangerous political hole, and the only question right now seems to be the severity of the drubbing."

Does that mean a change in party control of either chamber of Congress — like what happened in 1994 — is possible?

"As one smart Democratic strategist told me recently," Rothenberg says, " 'All of the elements are in place for a disaster like 1994. But it could be even worse.' "

The Republican Dilemma

Republicans in New Jersey are going to the polls today to choose their candidate for governor.

As they do so, political analyst Stuart Rothenberg has some thoughts to share with the Republican National Committee chairman in his latest column in Roll Call.

"[RNC] Chairman Michael Steele's comments last month to RNC state chairmen calling for the party to turn the corner 'on regret, recrimination, self–pity and self–doubt' and to declare 'an end to the era of Republicans looking backward' weren't ill–advised or inappropriate," he writes. "They were just irrelevant."

Rothenberg observes that high–profile Republicans, from former Vice President Dick Cheney to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, from radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, have been squabbling about what it means to be a Republican and "[t]hey are focused on what divides them from each other rather than on what unites them in their opposition to President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party."

Rothenberg is correct when he points out that this is nothing new. This is a familiar pattern for a political party that has been beaten decisively in two consecutive elections. He is also correct when he says that the bickering will continue until Republicans "find something better to do" — specifically, "focusing on a common adversary."

In New Jersey, the immediate common adversary for the winner of the GOP gubernatorial nomination and the state's Republicans is likely to be Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine. He is opposed in today's Democratic primary by three candidates, but none are given much of a chance of upsetting the incumbent.

Thus, Corzine is likely to be the Democrat on the ballot in November. But even if lightning should strike and someone else carries the party's banner in the November election, that person will be the Republicans' common adversary.

New Jersey and Virginia are the remaining battlegrounds for the Republicans in this first year of the Obama era. They already lost the first showdown — in New York, where a Democrat was elected to take the seat vacated by Hillary Clinton's replacement in the Senate.

Minnesota won't elect its governor until next year, but the Republican who has held that job for two four–year terms, Tim Pawlenty, apparently will not seek a third term next year.

Pawlenty has scheduled a press conference for 2 p.m. (Central) today, and he is expected to announce his plans at that time.

At one time, Pawlenty was believed to be a contender to be John McCain's running mate last year. Current speculation suggests that Pawlenty plans to focus on a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.

In other political news from Minnesota, the never–ending Senate race between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken is in the hands of the state's Supreme Court.

The court must rule on Coleman's appeal of the trial court's ruling that Franken was the winner.