It’s Offical: Democrats Are Toast In November

Unfortunately, Erick Erickson stole the title I was going to use for this post- he must have read my mind and knew it was a great headline- so I had to modify mine above. However, the point is still the same. Namely, when The New York Times has a front-page story saying Democrats are toast in November, Democrats might as well throw in the towel.

Morning Joe had the author of the article, one Jeff Zeleny, on this morning, and he highlighted three powerful Democrats in particular who were in trouble, including House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey (D-WI) . More importantly, though, is what he describes in the article:

The fight for the midterm elections is not confined to traditional battlegrounds, where Republicans and Democrats often swap seats every few cycles. In the Senate, Democrats are struggling to hold on to, among others, seats once held by President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Democrats are preparing to lose as many as 30 House seats — including a wave of first-term members — and Republicans have expanded their sights to places where political challenges seldom develop.

And later:

Mr. Obey, who leads the powerful Appropriations Committee, is one of three House Democratic chairmen who have drawn serious opposition. Representatives John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, who oversees the Budget Committee, and Ike Skelton of Missouri, who runs the Armed Services Committee, have been warned by party leaders to step up the intensity of their campaigns to help preserve the Democratic majority.

The article is pretty good- I recommend reading it in its entirety. Republican difficulties against Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and for the Florida seat should Florida Governor Crist run as an independent are highlighted, as they ought to be, but the main focus is on the sweep Republicans are likely to make come November.

The beginning of the article- and my first quoted section above- include the fact this November is not just another trade of moderate seats that happen all the time in Congress. Liberal Republicans and Conservative Democrats are constantly grabbing up valuable and vulnerable seats, and so gains in some of those districts and states are to be expected on a regular bases. My biggest fear, however, is that Zeleny is wrong, and that this November will just be another part of the regular shift in D.C., and no real conservative swing will take place. As Mark Steyn noted on March 5 (emphasis mine),

So there was President Obama, giving his bazillionth speech on health care, droning yet again that “now is the hour when we must seize the moment,” the same moment he’s been seizing every day of the week for the past year, only this time his genius photo-op guys thought it would look good to have him surrounded by men in white coats.

Why is he doing this? Why let “health” “care” “reform” stagger on like the rotting husk in a low-grade creature feature who refuses to stay dead no matter how many stakes you pound through his chest?

Because it’s worth it. Big time. I’ve been saying in this space for two years that the governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. It redefines the relationship between the citizen and the state in fundamental ways that make limited government all but impossible. In most of the rest of the Western world, there are still nominally “conservative” parties, and they even win elections occasionally, but not to any great effect (Let’s not forget that Jacques Chirac was, in French terms, a “conservative”).

The result is a kind of two-party one-party state: Right-of-center parties will once in a while be in office, but never in power, merely presiding over vast left-wing bureaucracies that cruise on regardless.

The admittedly liberal Center for American Progress noted two weeks ago that in poll after poll Americans like Social Security and Medicare, the two biggest impacts on the federal deficit and debt. Further, even President Obama couldn’t cut defense spending in his “freeze” proposal without a massive backlash. Without cutting Social Security, Medicare and military spending, how do we ever expect to balance the budget, never mind eliminate the debt? I hope Americans realize the tough decisions that must be made, and I hope they vote in politicians who will actually do what’s best for the country, not their re-election hopes. However, I must admit that I am not entirely optimistic.