American Politics and the 2006 Election

I'm going to go out on a limb here, with five months to go until the election, and I'm going to predict that the Republicans will hold on to both houses of Congress, and will in fact not even lose half as many seats in either house as would be necessary for Democratic control.

I'm watching television tonight (insomnia, my oldest and most faithful companion), specifically Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Guest host Brian Unger is discussing the election with Bob Shrum, a former senior adviser to both the Kerry and Gore campaigns. They are discussing the differences between 2006 and the previous elections. Mr. Unger has quoted recent studies which he says indicate:

1. A majority of Americans agree more with liberal values than conservative
2. 49% state a preference for a Democratic congress compared with only 38% for a Republican one
3. 54% are more likely to vote for a candidate who favors pulling out of Iraq within 12 months, 32% less likely to vote for that position

The whole discussion surrounds the tactics of Karl Rove and the fact that Mr. Rove has already indicated that he plans on attacking any Democratic candidate who advocates a troop draw down as weak on National Security and as wishy-washy.

But the thing is, we've heard it before. Going into the 2004 elections, the polling said that President Bush lost in polls when paired with virtually ANYONE (including at least one notable poll which had him losing in a race between “Bush” and “Unnamed Not Bush”). The week before the elections had John Kerry winning by a small but decisive number. The exit polling all showed the same thing, and yet when the dust settled, George Bush had won in roughly equal proportion to the amount the polls said he was going to lose by.

By election day, it will have been two years since the 2004 election, and yet very little serious attention has been paid to the massive irregularities of the last election. Outside of a couple of fringe sites like blackboxvoting.org and the Brad Blog (both of which have given a lot of attention to the issue), very few national sites have given the issue much coverage. The most widely available national version of the story was in Rolling Stone, hardly a publication known for its hard news.

And so I feel safe in calling the election now in favor of the Republicans. There are several reasons. First, both parties are in disarray right now, neither party has a consistent message any more (those on the Right who claim otherwise are mistaking a Presidential voice for a consistent message, when more and more in the President's own party are breaking away from his incessant power grab for the Executive Branch), each seeming content to run on the “At least we're not THEM” platform, which has historically shown underwhelming results at translating into actual votes, and when voters have little to differentiate by, they tend to stick with what they know, the incumbents.

Second, much ignored by the media when they talk of these polls suggesting that the country would prefer a Democratically controlled Congress is the fact that people don't vote for the make up of Congress, they vote for their local Congress members, and some of those same polls which show a preference for the overall makeup also show that many of those same people support their local guy, it's not a question of voting out OUR Republican, people just feel that OTHER Republicans ought to be voted out.

And finally, there's the fact that if the various vote tampering that went on in 2004 has not been addressed, then that machine is still more or less in place. From outright questionable results returned by voting machines to wide spread suppression of votes, the Republicans clearly were better at their fraud than the Democrats were this past election. So even if the people turn out in record numbers to throw out the Republicans and vote in the Democrats, I have little reason to believe that the final vote tallies in some states will accurately reflect the will of the people or even the votes cast after voter intimidation.

For the record, I'm in favor of a complete Democratic sweep this next time around, but not because I believe the Democrats are any better per se than the Republicans. No, I am, as I always have, following my personal belief that the country is better off when the Presidency is in the hands of one party and the Congress in the hands of another. Corrupt or not, they keep each other in check when they have similar amounts of power.

In the end, it boils down to this: I honestly believe the democratic process is broken in this country. And the most important thing we can do, bar none, is to fix it. The longer we go on pushing democracy on the world with a sham democracy at home, the more respect we will lose worldwide, and that lack of respect will ultimately be more destructive to this country than any terrorist could ever be (to say nothing of eroding any partnerships we might have in combating those same terrorists).

Liam.