Every election year we are treated to some grandiose theory that will predict the outcome. One instructs us that the party in power in the White House always loses seats in non-presidential election years. Another predicts that the president's party loses badly in the sixth year of an incumbency.
Those old saws are at least rooted in experience, but other election year gimmicks are simply invented. Remember the "angry white males" of 1994? They were a fiction. It turned out that there were no surveys showing that white men were particularly angry that year (except for the media types who were incensed that Republicans won).
How about soccer moms? They were supposed to be the magic that
put Bill Clinton in the White House. Not so. Married women gave 41 percent
of their votes to Clinton and 40 percent to Bush in 1992. (Perot took 19
percent.) Lately we've heard about the importance of NASCAR dads and
security moms. What's next? Let me guess: single Internet addicts.
A great deal of ink has been spilled on the "right track/wrong
track" poll results. Some are combining these numbers with the demonstrated
anti-incumbent sentiment in a few primary races (Lieberman in Connecticut,
Murkowski in Alaska) to predict a very turbulent year for incumbents. But
the right track/wrong track question is a Rorschach test. Analysts as well
as those polled see in it what they wish to see.
The question, posed in a variety of ways by different polling
companies, asks whether voters think that "in general, the country is moving
in the right direction or is off on the wrong track." In November 2004, 51
percent said the country was off on the wrong track, and yet the incumbent
president was re-elected by a comfortable margin. Today, the wrong track
number is considerably higher, at 71 percent. Yet it isn't clear that this
dissatisfaction works exclusively to the Democrats' advantage. It may be
that voters are dissatisfied over federal spending, or gay marriage, or the
state of the culture.
If the Democrats are going to take the Congress in November, it
will be on the strength of issues, and as a result of particular campaigns,
not on some mythical swing voter group or the six-year itch.
Democrats are hoping that disillusionment with the war in Iraq
will launch them to victory -- though their other hoped-for theme, "the
culture of corruption," froze to death in Rep. William Jefferson's freezer.
Democrats also cobbled together a Contract with America lite called "A New
Direction for America" that would take America in quite an old direction.
They would reverse the Bush war on terror in favor of a defensive crouch
("fully man, train and equip" our first responders), provide taxpayer
subsidized college tuition "for all" and "stop any plan to privatize Social
Security."
If Republicans do lose the House and Senate in 2006 (and I
predict they will not), it will not be due to that stirring Democratic
platform. Instead, it may be the case that the GOP base is simply too
exasperated with Republican leadership to show up in large numbers. The
country remains about evenly split between the parties, so lack of
enthusiasm by one side or the other can decide elections.
The Republican base is roiling over two matters: illegal
immigration and federal spending, specifically earmarks. The failure of
immigration reform can plausibly be laid at the feet of Democrats in
Congress. Earmarks are another matter. According to National Review,
earmarks have grown tenfold since 1995. As the Christian Science Monitor
reports: "When Republicans took over the House in 1995, there were five
earmarks in the Labor, Health and Human Services bill, amounting to $2.4
million. By FY 2005, the number of earmarks attached to this bill had soared
to 3,014 or $1.18 billion." There are a great number of Republican voters
who look at those numbers and ask, "Why bother to vote?"
Were it not for the Islamofascists and their tireless struggle
to destroy our civilization, Republicans might be looking at disaster in
November. As it is, with the Democrats stubbornly opposing the war in Iraq,
the detainments in Guantanamo, NSA eavesdropping on al Qaeda calls and the
Patriot Act, it seems the Republicans may slip back into office -- though
narrowly.
To find out more about Mona Charen, and read features by other
Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web
page at www.creators.com.
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