Conservatives lost, but, Democrats are losing

(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Daveinchi wrote an essay, Conservatives will lose the Plains next.  It has some great numbers that give the Democratic Party hope for a sustained movement.

While the numbers look promising, they tell only half the story…

By the 2006 mid-term elections, people were getting pretty sick of the Republican Party controlling everything.  But, the 2006 election only gave the Democratic Party a 51-49 margin in the Senate and a 233-202 margin in the House.  When you compare those numbers to the 2004 levels, the Democratic Party picked up 7 seats in the Senate and 32 in the House.

The 2008 election was, no doubt, a pure repudiation of not only the Republican Party policies, but, an answer to the Democratic Party cry that they didn’t have enough votes.  In the Senate, the Democratic Party gained another 7 seats and in the House 20 seats, giving them a total of 56 in the Senate and 255 in the House.  Seven states turned blue in the Senate races and I count 18 states swapping Party in the House races.  

But, these numbers are not the entire story.  Elections are one side of the story and how people vote is the other side.  Let’s not discount that the President still has to make good on his promises.  And this is where the Democratic Party gets itself into trouble.

I have stated for years that the Republican Party was hemorrhaging supporters.  This is not news.  A recent poll found that those identified as Independent voters has risen to the highest level in 70 years.  The breakdown was 39% Independent, 33% Democratic, and 22% Republican with 6% undeclared.  That doesn’t mean that the new Independents will automatically support the Democratic Party, however, as many of the new Independents are disgruntled Republicans who still lean to the right.  To further break down the poll of the Independents, 33% say that they are conservative, a 7% point increase from right before the 2006 elections.  But, this wasn’t news, either.  In March, 2008, a Pew poll found fewer voters identifying as Republican.

But, as I stated, these numbers mean little if the Democratic Party cannot deliver and, right now, both Parties are looking bad.  President Obama’s “preventive detention” theory has raised many hackles from the Left and Independent voters.  The GOP purge is decimating it’s attractiveness to the Right and Independent voters.

In December, I wrote “Why every party is going to lose the middle“.  In that essay, I wrote:

There is no doubt that the current GOP wingnuttia of “we simply weren’t conservative enough to win” is a dying mantra of a political Party whose membership is likely to die of old age within the next 20 years.

There is also no doubt that the Democratic Party has always maintained their right to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory due to their own spinelessness.

There are those who say that President-elect Obama never was the “liberal” that the “Left” portrayed him.  While he might not have been, if “change” was merely a campaign slogan to him, then millions of Americans have been duped.

That statement holds true today as President Obama waffles on DADT, state secrets privilege, and “preventive detention”.  

I wrote:

There are some who say that we should not judge President-elect Obama by his cabinet picks or appointee’s, but, on his actions once he becomes President.  This statement always includes the disclaimer that any appointee will simply follow the President’s wishes and not their own agenda.  What it fails to address is that to make that appointment, the President-elect must somehow agree with that individual on an ideology level.  There is also another choice; that the President-elect has come to realize that there are other players in the game — and they cannot be ignored.

Well, Geithner and Summers appear to have proven my statement correct.  Wall Street is getting what it wants despite driving our economy near Depression levels.

Yes, the GOP has now invoked exactly what it decried; turning the Senate into a mandatory 60 votes to do anything.  Did we expect less?  But, the Blue Dog Democrat’s aren’t helping matters by trying to appease a shrinking conservative base at the expense of a public mandate to pull us back from the brink.

To say I am not impressed with President Obama is an understatement to anyone who has read my essays.  He won the election because, a) he was not a Republican, and b) he promised to bring change to Washington.  I personally wanted John Edwards, love child adulterer he was and all.

Yes, as the GOP obstructs everything, the Democratic Party will likely get one more chance in the 2010 elections.  After that, if Harry Reid continues his spineless “leadership” and the Democrats don’t oust him, if Nancy Pelosi doesn’t get her House in order or be ousted, the Independents are going to start abandoning the Democratic Party.

After 2010, you’ll see more moderate conservatives taking control again because, frankly, they have no choice if they wish to survive as a Party.  And, that will be an invitation to all those newly-minted Independents to return to the GOP if the Democrats can’t deliver because they are spineless cowards.

I finished my December essay with these words:

Yes, we know that the GOP is going to obstruct everything.  We get that point.  But, unless the Democrat’s show that they have balls to govern, why should we do more than write in Mickey Mouse come 2010 or 2012?

If you wonder what losing the Independent vote means, just look at the last two elections to figure it out.  If both Party’s lose the middle, the GOP wins by default due to the gerrymandering.  

It holds as much truth today as it did then.