Elections Prediction: 10/24/2010

Traders at Intrade are predicting that Republicans will take the House and Democrats will keep the Senate. Rasmussen has the Senate as 48 solid Democrats, 46 solid Republicans and 6 toss-ups. My prediction is that Democrats will win in Washington and California (and Connecticut). That gives them 50 plus Biden. I think Nevada will be a nail biter. I think Reid might be able to pull it off, although his debate performance seems to have been weak and I read that he isn’t campaigning as hard. I will not be surprised if Rand Paul wins. He seems somewhat smart (if lacking judgement and thoughtfulness). But I will be appalled if Sharon Angle wins.

James Carville et al have an interesting column in today's NY Times comparing this election to the midterms in 1998. I wonder if Democrats have enough time to make the point that Carville thinks voters will listen to (ie middle class and American jobs).

I don't know why we can't once and for all quiet the calls for ideological purity. And I thought we would have learned already from 2006 and 2008 that a big tent is a winning strategy. But of course there will always be people who learn the wrong lessons from history.

There is so much wrong with the logic in the column I linked to above. It blames the Blue Dog Democrats for current legislative troubles, which is completely absurd. If some of the more conservative Democrats had been Republicans, we would have likely gotten an even more moderate health care bill (and stimulus and financial reform), if any at all.

A Blue Dog only wants to moderate Democratic tendencies, where as Republicans want to thwart all Democrat efforts. And thinking that we can make up for the loss of numbers through being better motivated (because moderates apparently demotivate the party) is just naive. The columnist also realizes that Republicans are going to lose some races because of ideological purity, but doesn't see the same for Democrats.

The biggest mistake though comes from not understanding basic human behavior. Whether we are in a center-right or center-left country - we are near the center. And thinking you will be more successful by becoming more extreme is just ridiculous. You make progress by convincing the independents to move a little in your direction, and you can only do that with moderates in your party.

I don't know if there is really a trend of increasing partisanship - it seems like it, but then again, I think we underestimate how partisan the past was. But I did mourn the loss of reasonable moderate Republicans in 2006 (only slightly since it did increase Democratic majorities) and I will mourn the loss of moderate Democrats this year. The moderates keep both parties from going too far to the extreme and actually allow us to make positive changes. Within both parties there are voices calling for ideological purity. Not only is it a losing strategy for elections and governing, but it is bad for compromise and our discourse.