This election season is leaving me dizzy - First I'm down, then I'm up... it's all too confusing.
One thing that has me perplexed is the notion that Evangelical voters will stay home in droves based on the Foley scandal. The first time I heard this, I thought "bullshit." As the thought has hardened into a conviction that Democrats are poised for significant victories next month, I've found myself alternately covinced and nervous. Could this all be disinformation circulating from the dark mind of Karl Rove? Or is Glenn Reynolds right, and this is all over?
Here's the thing - solidly right wing Republicans are motivated by a fervor that has nothing to do with a scandal du jour. As bad as some individual Republicans are, they believe all Democrats are worse, and that Democratic governance is the worst imaginable thing. Rove and Bush have mastered a technique for speaking past the press to these voters (Bill Clinton did that too with his voters), and these solidly reliable voters intend to turn out, at least I'm fairly convinced.
What is happening, and what I think is out of Rove's control, is a rising sense of disgust/annoyance on the part of suburban Moms and other moderates - the "David Brooks" voters who don't subscribe to an ideology so much as a way of life. Seeing themselves as nice, reasonable, average (though they are probably upper middle class professionals and this really kind of not), they get the Foley scandal, and that it's more than just one bad guy. They haven't been happy about Iraq, or a dozen other things, and they're not as easily motivated by the "scare" tactics of the Rove machine as they were in 2002 and 2004. They are the ones moving individual House races (in their suburban and exurban districts) into contention, and keeping Missouri and Tennessee in play for Democrats (and cutting George Aleen's lead down in Virginia to a point where he can be caught) at the Senate level.
So is Rove quietly motivating turnout in his base and will that be enough to minimize losses of seats? Or is the White House simply out of touch - on this as with so many things - and willfully ignoring reality? And are Democrats prepared for what is clearly shaping up to be an ugly three weeks where probably nothing is beneath the opponents? I am thinking especially of Tennessee, already announced as a "firewall" state, where the politics of trying to defeat harold Ford could get incredibly brutal.
Me? I still think Democrats take the House by a small margin, and pull the Senate back to 50-50 or 51-49 GOP (at which point one wonders what Joe Lieberman will do), taking Tennessee and probably Missouri, but not Virginia. That could change in a day... or a week. But part of me remains nervous - I think Democrats are simply too nice and too unwilling to believe how outrageously Rove plays this game. And letting Republicans get away - again - with the slash and burn politics of saying and doing anything to win will ruin politics and our public discourse.
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