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| Why the GOP will strengthen its grip on Congress | |
| 2006-11-06 | |
Mid-october article; apparently those guys were accurate in their 2002 and 2004 projections. Still, don't forget to vote... in fact, vote early, vote often. By JIM MCTAGUE THE STATE OF THE UNION is cause for anxiety. Our military is stretched thin in Afghanistan and Iraq; the profligate Congress has turned a surplus into a record deficit; and the economy is threatened by trade imbalances, job losses, high oil prices and a health-care affordability crisis. In light of this doleful litany, you'd expect voters to "Throw the bums out!" The bums in this case are the Republicans, who control not only the White House but both branches of the legislature. But the throwing-out will not materialize, in our view. While it's too soon to predict the presidential race, the GOP looks poised to strengthen its grip on Capitol Hill once all the votes are tallied after Nov. 2 and all the legal challenges are adjudicated. Barron's predicts that the Republicans will pick up seven additional seats in the House and three more in the Senate, adding to the gains of the 2002 midterm election. In the House, we foresee the Republicans with 234 members to the Democrats' 201, for a 53.8% majority, up from the current 227-205, or 52.5% majority. In the Senate, we believe the Republicans will end up with 54 members to the Democrats' 46, up from the current 51-49 advantage. The predictions -- pointing to greater GOP gains than most observers expect -- reflect our view that the Republicans in key races generally have better grass-roots organizations than their rivals. The evidence: greater contributions from local residents as opposed to out-of-state interest groups. The Republicans are also helped by an economy that, while perceived less robust than before 2001, nonetheless is growing. In sizing up the races, we looked at key polls, campaign-financing disclosures, economic indicators and insights from top political analysts -- a broad approach that served us well in forecasting the outcome of the 2000 and 2002 elections. In 2002, for instance, we were among the first and the few to correctly call a GOP win in the Senate. We predicted a 52-48 GOP advantage, when most other prognosticators saw Democrats winning control. We also correctly called a GOP surge in the House. We predicted a 225-seat majority, which was only two seats short of the actual result. The GOP gains we forecast this time bode well for the stock market. For one thing, stocks have generally fared better when Republicans have held majorities in both the House and Senate. Such Republican rule historically has been accompanied by average gains of 16.9% a year in the Standard & Poor's 500 index, compared with 8.2% gains when Democrats have held sway, says Anthony Chan, senior economist with J.P. Morgan Fleming Asset Management. That reflects Republicans' historical role as fiscal conservatives, favoring lower taxes and less spending. Furthermore, even with the predicted Republican gains, Washington will remain sufficiently gridlocked that neither party will be able to spend freely. And that's good news for deficit reduction, a key concern on Wall Street. Lawrence Lindsey, President Bush's former economic adviser, says the GOP needs at least 55 seats in the Senate to accomplish much. Republican lobbyist and political guru Rick Hohlt argues that Bush, if re-elected, would need 60 Republicans in the Senate to assure passage of his second-term agenda. Hohlt points out that the GOP for all intents and purposes will have three-to-four fewer seats than advertised. That's because Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania often oppose their party's most sweeping proposals. John Kerry, if elected, clearly would be even more stymied. But that might not be so bad for investors: A gridlocked Washington can't do much harm to the economy. On our score card, a candidate's fund-raising prowess is given considerable weight, especially on the House side, where there is considerable historical evidence linking a big war chest with an Election Day victory. In fact, in most upsets of incumbents, the challenger usually is better financed. On the other hand, an incumbent with a cash advantage is rarely defeated on Election Day. The correspondence between lucre and electability is not as pronounced in Senate races because both candidates typically are awash with cash. In part, there is more money because people from outside a state are making donations to advance their party's Senate candidate. To compensate for outside interference, we give an additional edge to the candidate who raises the most money from local zip codes. Local donations, we find, measure the strength of a candidate's grass-roots support and campaign organization. Part II (methodology I guess) is available for suscribers only, but this should helps keep your spirit up. | |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #10 Don't forget Leroidavid, our newest Frenchman, who popped his head in yesterday for the first time in a while. See, a5089? The number of your compatriots has increased by 100%! (Or 50% if you prefer to count the total number from your country) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-11-06 19:35 |
| #9 A5089, No problem. Cheer up. Go have a glass or two of Merlot and some cheese; you're still one of RB's two favorite Frenchmen. Since RB's two favorite Frenchwomen are Melissa Theriau and Sabine Herold, you're in good company! |
| Posted by: mac 2006-11-06 16:21 |
| #8 "I'm a retard". No, I'm a retard. "I'm a retard". No, I'm a retard. "I'm a retard". No, I'm a retard. "I'm a retard". No, I'm a retard. ~~~ anonymous5089 *WE ARE ALL LAUGHING AT YOU* |
| Posted by: all my dissociative identities 2006-11-06 13:43 |
| #7 You're not a retard. I thought the most telling line is that races in 2002 and 2004 predicted GOP loses. You see, the polls are for strippers. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2006-11-06 12:22 |
| #6 I'm a retard. I prefer "intellectually challenged". |
| Posted by: Dreadnought 2006-11-06 11:56 |
| #5 I'm a retard. You're gonna end up stuck in Iraq. |
| Posted by: Jackal 2006-11-06 11:08 |
| #4 This proves this guy has a point, I guess... |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-11-06 09:24 |
| #3 Ok, I've been to the blog, and this is indeed a background material, the 2006 october article is this one : Survivor! The GOP Victory By JIM MCTAGUE JUBILANT DEMOCRATS SHOULD RECONSIDER their order for confetti and noisemakers. The Democrats, as widely reported, are expecting GOP-weary voters to flock to the polls in two weeks and hand them control of the House for the first time in 12 years -- and perhaps the Senate, as well. Even some Republicans privately confess that they are anticipating the election-day equivalent of Little Big Horn. Pardon our hubris, but we just don't see it. Our analysis -- based on a race-by-race examination of campaign-finance data -- suggests that the GOP will hang on to both chambers, at least nominally. We expect the Republican majority in the House to fall by eight seats, to 224 of the chamber's 435. At the very worst, our analysis suggests, the party's loss could be as large as 14 seats, leaving a one-seat majority. But that is still a far cry from the 20-seat loss some are predicting. In the Senate, with 100 seats, we see the GOP winding up with 52, down three We studied every single race -- all 435 House seats and 33 in the Senate -- and based our predictions about the outcome in almost every race on which candidate had the largest campaign war chest, a sign of superior grass-roots support. We ignore the polls. Thus, our conclusions about individual races often differ from the conventional wisdom. Pollsters, for instance, have upstate New York Republican Rep. Tom Reynolds trailing Democratic challenger Jack Davis, who owns a manufacturing plant. But Reynolds raised $3.3 million in campaign contributions versus $1.6 million for Davis, so we score him the winner. Likewise, we disagree with pollsters of both parties who see Indiana Republican Rep. Chris Chocola getting whomped by Democratic challenger Joe Donnelly, a lawyer and business owner from South Bend. Chocola has raised $2.7 million, versus $1.1 million for Donnelly. Ditto in North Carolina, where we see Republican Rep. Charles Taylor beating Democrat Heath Shuler, a former NFL quarterback, because of better financing. Analysts from both parties predict a Shuler upset. Is our method reliable? It certainly has been in the past. Using it in the 2002 and 2004 congressional races, we bucked conventional wisdom and correctly predicted GOP gains both years. Look at House races back to 1972 and you'll find the candidate with the most money has won about 93% of the time. And that's closer to 98% in more recent years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Polls can be far less reliable. Remember, they all but declared John Kerry president on Election Day 2004. Our method isn't quite as accurate in Senate races: The cash advantage has spelled victory about 89% of the time since 1996. The reason appears to be that with more money spent on Senate races, you need a multi-million-dollar advantage to really dominate in advertising, and that's hard to come by. But even 89% accuracy is high compared with other gauges. Tracking each candidate's funding is "exceptionally valuable because it tells you who has support," says William Morgan, executive director of the renowned Mid-West Political Science Association in Bloomington, Ind. The cognoscenti, he says, give the most money to the candidate they believe has a good chance of winning. WE FOUND NO SHORTAGE of people to challenge us. They argue that money doesn't make a difference when the electorate is as worked up emotionally, as it is this year. John Aldrich, a professor of political science at Duke University who writes extensively about elections, says that a candidate really doesn't need the most money to win; he merely requires enough cash to get his message across. Aldrich believes Democrats will win this year with less money because they won't have to spend so much to persuade voters to switch horses. "The support for the president, the Congress and incumbents is relatively low by historical standards," he says. In fact, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll says voter disgust with Congress is the lowest in the survey's 17-year history. It's true that our formula isn't foolproof. In 1958, 1974 and 1994, the wave of anti-incumbent sentiment was so strong that money didn't trump voter outrage. We appreciate that voters in 2006 are hopping mad at the GOP because of the war and because of scandal. We just don't agree that the outrage has reached the level of those earlier times. The reason is that the economy in 2006 is healthier. And the economy is the only other factor that figures in our analysis. In 1958, in sharp contrast to now, the country was in a deep recession. Though the Democrats controlled the House, voters blamed their pain on Republican President Dwight David Eisenhower, and it cost the GOP 48 seats. In 1974, a Watergate year, inflation and an Arab oil embargo pinched household budgets and helped fuel voter anger at Republicans. In 1994, though the economy was improving, unemployment was above 6% and personal income began to fall in the quarter prior to the election, souring the mood of the electorate. People blamed their pain on high taxes, which they associated with Democrats, and ushered in Newt Gingrich & Co. Though the current economy is slowing, unemployment remains relatively low, at 4.6%, and disposable-income growth is positive. While GDP figures will be revised downward in coming weeks and unemployment figures could edge up, it may not matter. Those numbers are "interesting stuff for economists, but voters will continue to focus on pocketbook issues like the price of gas and the value of their 401(k)s," says GOP insider Rick Hohlt. Pump prices have been falling and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has been on a tear, reaching 12,000 last week. Hohlt and analyst John Morgan say Republicans will have unusually tough election-day challenges from Democrats in more than 50 races -- a high number. They recall no more than 20 highly competitive races in 2004. All but 10 of this year's contested seats are held by incumbents, and Hohlt and Morgan aren't predicting an outcome. No gain, but no landslide either. So, basically, I followed and posted the wrong link, I'm a retard. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-11-06 09:18 |
| #2 Arh, my bad! I followed a link from a recent entry in a french blog, and didn't notice the year, only the month (either he made a mistake himself, or this is supposed to be some kind of background material). Damn, and I forwarded it to a couple of US correspondents too. Ok, I screwed up, you can laugh at me. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2006-11-06 09:13 |
| #1 What sort of mutant article is this? It is talking about comparisons about what happens if Bush is reelected, vs if Kerry is elected. This article is pre-2004 national general election. What is it doing with a November 2006 dateline, citing October developments. |
| Posted by: Lone Ranger 2006-11-06 09:01 |