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A while back I wrote a piece on things that conservatives didn't want to hear about the new Congress. But since the only thing worse than a battle won is a battle lost, it only seems appropriate to bring up why, indeed, matters are even more problematic for the Other Side right now.
They aren't going to get better for Democrats any time soon.
1) The 2010 House elections were reactionary. Here I do not mean 'reactionary' in the usual sense of 'Anything a Democrat doesn't like' - although it kind of fits - but instead in the sense of 'a reaction to 2006 and 2008.' If you look at the 66 Republican-gained seats in 2010, you'll see pretty quickly that they were mostly in GOP territory anyway: the average Cook PVI for them was R+4.92 - and if you take out the Democrat-advantage districts then the average goes up to R+6.68. These districts were being held by a disproportionate number of freshmen and sophomore legislators because in 2006 and 2008 a Democratic tide had rolled in. In 2010 it rolled right back out again, because the voters weren't very thrilled with the results, once that buzz wore off.
2) Nancy Pelosi was not a good choice to be House Minority Leader. Partially because she's divisive; partially because she's a lightning rod for criticism; but mostly because she's a blithering incompetent who just squandered an overwhelming House majority for a line of albatross necklaces for Democratic politicians. Competent Speakers of the House do not lose sixty-three seats, net, in a single election. The previous sentence should not be the sort of thing that has to be written out; but it seems that it must be
3) Running to the Left will not save the Democrats. See the first point. For that matter, look at the PVI numbers for the new cycle: currently, the Republicans hold 207 seats with at least a R+2 rating (the Democrats have 178 seats with at least a D+2). Pushing the Democrats even farther from the mainstream than where they are now will not help them win seats in districts that are already skeptical of their party.
4) Running to the Right will only save the Democrats if they can get people to believe them. See the second point: there are a net R+63 House seats in the next Congress because the Republican party was able to show that there is no such thing as a conservative Democrat. They all voted for Nancy Pelosi, which meant that they all enabled horrifically expensive and pointless programs like the 'stimulus' and Obamacare.
Normally, these sorts of arguments don't transfer over from election to election . . . because normally, the party out of power has the good sense to make proper scapegoats of their leaders and credibly claim that they've learned their lesson. The Democrats have decided to publicly not learn their lesson, which is why every Democratic House candidate in 2012 will be asked to formally declare whether or not they will vote for Pelosi for Speaker of the House. And every non-'no' answer will be scored as a 'yes.'
5) The Senate will run to the Right, whether people believe them or not. Twenty three Democrats are up for re-election in 2012 (as opposed to ten Republicans). I count thirteen vulnerable Democrats on that list, based on this year's results . . . and so can their staffs. It might be different if the Democrats had managed to hold onto the House, but as it stands the odds of progressive legislation making it out of Congress is nil anyway, so why not act as if it’s every man for himself? It's even true: the President will be too busy getting himself re-elected to provide what (dubious) help he can.
And so it goes.
