Polling from the RNC - Were we misled by Mehlmann, Rove, Hewitt? (Vanity Post - sorry, I had to)

11/08/06

[MplsSteve]

I knoe vanity threads are frowned upon - but considering the circumstances, it wouldn't hurt us to vent and debate what happened yesterday.

In the last week of the campaign, mnay leading GOP'ers (inlcuding, but not limited to, Ken Mehlmann, Hugh Hewitt, etc) spoke of a blue wave. Not a tsunami-like blue wave - but a blue wave strong enough to help us keep control of Congress.

I'd like to pose this question to you.

Was there ever REALLY a blue wave?

Was there a wave - but it wasn't strong enough and soon enough?

Or was the GOP establishment blowing smoke simply to hype up our chances?

I'm not sure that I have an opinion yet - but I would like to hear yours!

Comments or opinions - anyone?

[edcoil]

Isn't this what we put the executives at Enron in jail over - trying to talk positively about their company to boost the stock while the bottom was failing out?

[beezdotcom]

I'm thinking it was a mix of both. I think they saw something in the polls that suggested a slight momentum shift, and they hoped they could cheerlead it into something major.

[comebacknewt]

I don't think Rove lied to us. I think he was counting on Indies not showing up, just as I was. Had they stayed at home, our results would have been MUCH better.

Unfortunately, they did show up and they voted overwhelmingly for the RATs. It looks like our GOTV effort was not as powerful as we had anticipated either.

[PhiKapMom]

YES! I want the facts not spin and it looks to me like I personally received spin not facts and I am disgusted. I want heads to roll and want leaders with spines that will tell us the truth not crap about a surge that I actually believed including internals.

I want leaders and candidates that speak the truth, give the facts without spin, and stand up and be counted. I also want Republicans on TV that will take on the biased media and not sit there like spineless wimps!

Other than that we took the OK House for the first time ever back to back and only 3rd time in history and tied in the OK for the first time in history. We also got clobbered statewide as we had no message! Our Congressional delegation is returning four Republicans including our newest member Congresswoman-elect Mary Fallin!

RNC and state organizations need a real shake-up and we need involvement from activists!

[tobyhill]

If we hadn't been mislead and we just laid down to kill over the loses would have been much worse.

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

There is no wave. The tug-of-war rope is in the middle. It inched left from its inched right position. Sure, that difference makes TONS of effectual difference....but the country hasn't changed so much at all. You wouldn't notice it so much if the divide between us -- who and what we stand for -- were not so wide.

[Steven W.]

no - the numbers are telling. This setback is 1 Senate seat less + 15 house seats less than Reagan's setback in 1986. A small number of additional Republican voters in key spots would have saved 1+ senate seat and a few more house seats. The swing in the last week was real & kept scale with traditional 6 year itch elections. The problem was there were 10 give-me house seats that the Republicans lost due to corruption. There were 10 more that were in Kerry districts, hard to defend & hard to get back.

[Question Liberal Authority]

"Blue" is "Democrat. A "Blue Wave" is what you saw.

[Steven W.]

Republican voter turnout ended up at 40% - the polls in the prior weeks pointed to turnout at 65%. Too many Republican voters stayed home - and - while sad - for legitimate reasons that are all obvious and discussed here.

[Wormwood]

Of course we were misled.

Since when haven't we been?

[gubamyster]

I was listening to Hewitt yesterday and was giddy with excitement. I even suffered through the comedy fill-ins he had on. His "don't listen to the exit pollsters", "the Republican turnout is huge", "something big is happening in Michigan", "this guy has a chance, that guy is doing great", "the dinosaur media is going to be crying".... I was stoked. Alas, it was all a crock.

[Paraclete]

In 40 years of intently participating in poliics I can tell you that the grunts in the trenches will always be told the best case scenario. Can there really be any other way?

[RangerM]

Most of the dems that won weren't that blue, and the wone mostly due to the Republicans that weren't that red.

[MplsSteve]

Yes, I stand corrected.

What I meant to say was "Red Wave".

[tennmountainman]

Get Back To Reagan Conservatism and We'll win again.
Stay The Course with This Bunch and we will be wandering in the dessert for years.

First, ALL HOUSE LEADERSHIP MUST GO\Second, TRENT LOTT must NOT be allowed to take a position of leadership in the Senate.

Third, Lindsey Graham and other RINO"S must straighten up or be voted out.

[GoMonster]

Well look weasel wad. We lost Virginia by less than 1/2 percent etc... most races were within a point or 2. Thus, a little more help we would've won. Did you want them to say we may lose therefore show up and vote. Then we would've not even had a shot.

[tennmountainman]

You are right.

The house as a whole actually is more conservative with the election of conservative democrats. Does that mean they will vote conservative?

Who knows, but they ran as conservative democrats like heath Schular.

[discostu]

It's called campaigning. Nobody admits defeat before the election, that would keep voters home and make whatever defeat you're facing even worse.

[edcoil]

You just proved my point, you said "Did you want them to say we may lose therefore show up and vote. "

I said the government attacked Enron and the only defense was enron discussing the positives to buck it us and keep going but private industry attacked by government killed it and they went to jail.

[sasafras]

Hugh Hewitt is the biggest RINO on radio - if you want to know the current RINO/Bush/Rove moderate opinion then listen to HH. He is like drinking luke warm coffee - he stands for absolutely nothing.

[tennmountainman]

Hugh is not right about much.

It might help his perspective if he were from a Red State like Tennessee.
We held our ground here.

I would not give much credibility to Hugh.

[tennmountainman]

BINGO about Hugh

[MAD-AS-HELL]

I love listening to Hugh but he has always been too rosy with his predictions and his sources have shown,yet again, to be incompetent. Remember, Hugh is an inside the beltway type of republican. But, it's fun to read and hear his spin.

The one person who will be gloating like no tomorrow will be Moonbeam lover Michael the WEINER Savage.

[pgkdan]

Republicans in Congress became the problem. In the past year we had the DeLay indictment (bogus), the Abramoff scandal, Bob Ney's resignation following months of denials of any wrong doing, and then recently questions about Curt Weldon (bogus) the Foley scandal and a bunch of others. Pretty disgusting when taken as a whole and not at all what we expected from our Republican Congress when we first won the majority. Taken as a whole their tenure in the majority ahs been a huge disappointment to me.

[discostu]

The difference is Enron was knowingly filing false official government reports. Rove was campaigning, there's nothing official about it.

[Incorrigible]

 

 

[AnotherUnixGeek]

I was listening to Hewitt yesterday and was giddy with excitement. I even suffered through the comedy fill-ins he had on. His "don't listen to the exit pollsters", "the Republican turnout is huge", "something big is happening in Michigan", "this guy has a chance, that guy is doing great", "the dinosaur media is going to be crying".... I was stoked. Alas, it was all a crock.

That's been my general assessment of Hewitt for a while now. He's a cheerleader and apologist for the Republican Party, with conservatism taking a back seat. His credibility with me is not high.

[BritExPatInFla]

THE math (tm)

[TheRealDBear]

conservative democrats: orly?

[chimera]

Get Back To Reagan Conservatism and We'll win again.

What helped Reagan win big was that people liked him personally. He was an attractive, likable person. Sure, being conservative helped cement his position with the 30% or so of the electorate that agrees with those principles, but he won an overwhelming number of "middle" voters, as well as quite a few 'Rats, because he was likable, didn't seem threatening, was optimistic, and presented a better choice than his failed opposition (Carter).

Stay The Course with This Bunch and we will be wandering in the dessert for years.

Wandering in the "dessert" would not be bad if it was tasty, but wandering in the DESERT would suck. But, yes, it is clear that if we "stay the course", it will be hello to President Hillary or President Obama in '08. The overarching issue in this election was the Iraq war. We need to wrap that up quickly (preferably in our favor by beating the bad guys) so there is no perception by the electorate that we are "losing".

[gubamyster]

Normally I don't listen to him - his blinded cheerleading is tiresome, but he usually covers elections better than other talk radio. Yesterday he was way off the mark.

[tennmountainman]

I doubt he will be gloating.

While all the other talk show hosts were painting a pretty picture, Savage had it right.

If you don't close the borders, don't cut spending, promote stupid deals like the Dubia Ports deal and Win the occupation in Iraq, not manage it, thye GOP would pay a price.
He was proven right. Rush, hugh, Hannity were either not truthful or inaccurate in their analysis.

[Question Liberal Authority]

What I meant to say was "Red Wave".

Then your entire premise is wrong.

Rove, Mehlman and Hewitt were not talking about a "red wave". They were talking about stopping the blue wave before it crossed the end zone.

Now, Hewitt is just a pundit and he's a Homer (that is, someone who always roots for the home team regardless of facts). This is most noticable when he talks about sports. All teams from Ohio can do no wrong. He was even talking smack about the Pittsburg Steelers AFTER they won the Super Bowl.

As far as Rove and Mehlmann, Mehlmann's always been a demographics guy. He can tell you this precinct has such and such a percentage of such and so between the ages of x and y.

If Rove was "The Architect", then HE HAD TO KNOW that "corruption" was a BIG ISSUE with the electorate. If Bush / Rove and company were as partisan and divisive as the libs say, then the White House should have been screaming about Democrat corruption for months and months and months.

However, Bush is too much of a gentleman and new tone and blah blah blah. Plus, it wasn't until the last few days that many Republican campaigns even WANTED to be associated with Bush. They threw Bush under the bus, and now they've been dragged under the bus and now Rumsfeld gets tossed under the bus for good measure.

If there's a positive to all this, it's that Democrats are only happy when they're in charge. You watch and see how outstanding the Economy suddenly becomes once the Dems are in charge. You'll start seeing stories like "Hey! The stock market is 12,000 and unemployment is 4.4%. Everyone has a spring in their step and it's all thanks to Speaker Nancy." It will be nauseating, but that's the way it was through the Clinton years. Even though most of Clinton's economic success was due to gridlock in Congress preventing him from passing too many new laws.

[rahbert]

Michael the WEINER Savage

He is from Vienna?? He sounds like a New Yawkah..

[nutmeg]

bookmark

[Owen]

People, stop.

This is not about philosophical introspection and wallowing about wondering whether left or right is the direction to move.

The country Did Not Move in just 2 years since electing Bush. Morality doesn't change that fast.

Many, perhaps most, of the seats lost were lost because of scandal. Clean up the dirty candidates and change philosophy not one iota in either direction.

Then see what happens.

[MAD-AS-HELL]

I agree...though I am not a huge fan of savage and can only listen to him for so long, he is right that the republicans have strayed from their core values.

[tennmountainman]

Iraq occupation was terrible.

We managed the occupation, not fought to win the occupation.
Our solders have been fighting with their hands behind their backs.
Remember Fallugh, when the marines were set to go in? and pulled back.

We let Al Mookie Sadr off the hook as well.

[PhiKapMom]

Well stated! Pres Reagan was all about fiscal conservatism and a strong defense and I will take that one step further we need a strong defense domestically in this country.

Secondly, we need to stand for giving social issues back to the states along with education. Those are state issues not national issues. I want fiscal conservatives with backbones in Congress!

[feralcat]

I think Hewitt is an interesting guy but you should know that Hewitt is a first and foremost a booster of the Republican *party* more than anything else.

He is a bit unusual in that most people who are mainly loyal to party are brain-dead hacks, whereas Hugh is an intelligent man who has simply made a decision that devotion to party is the best way to get things done.

The exit polls were indeed crap (they had Lamont winning and Allen losing in a landslide). And the late polls that showed GOP tightening were accurate but the momentum wasn't enough and all the close races broke for the Dems. So I don't think Hewitt's optimism last night was totally unjustified. (Although those lame-ass excuses for comedians he had on were almost as unbearable as the results of the election.)

Probably the worst example of mindless GOP boosterism I've ever heard came in 1998 on a conservative Christian radio talk show. They had on California gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren and they were trying to convince people that the Lungren victory express was right on track when the polls clearly showed that Lungren and the GOP were going to get their butts kicked.

[Killborn]

There was a lot of misleading. Note that most consevrative proposals were passed. GOP, RINO or not, got roundly trounced. This isn't about too conservative or not enough. It's about the DSM capability to decieve and lie.

Without DSM, we win. HAnds down.

Destroy it before it kills us.

[PhiKapMom]

Some of those conservative running Dems are not conservative so don't be taken in and bet they vote almost in lock step with Pelosi. I sincerely hope I am proven wrong.

[reformedliberal]

Good luck.

For over 4 years I have repeatedly contacted the RNC and suggested we do as the progressives have done: organize on the ground in each district under the leadership of professional organizers. Even when our County GOP was in the hands of a sneering rabid crooked progressive who went on to become a DA who left under a cloud and then under a single-issue border security activist who had a Kerry sign in their yard and did no work, along with the rest of our county GOP, in 2004, the national just wrote us off. When we went to the BC04 staff in 2004 with intel on student organizing to double vote, they told us:"Don't worry, we have a plan." That plan was simply an attorney on call for each precinct. The donks cheated with impunity.

Every conservative candidate has had money withdrawn publicly at sensitive points in the campaign, or received no support from the beginning.

We have lost the local youth. We have no organization in my County for anyone under 60 and the members we have are moderate to liberal Republicans. Because GOP wins here at the state and local level, it isn't that we are simply a donk county. It is that we have little to no understanding of how to organize and win the national elections.

Our opponents have out organized us at every demographic. Even in the churches, they have only gay marriage/death penalty/abortion/guns and those are obviously not enough in the face of moderate Democrats who are willing to give a bit on social issues in order to gain support on environmental, poverty, diversity and pacifistic issues among Christians.

I believed the spin this year. I believed some of the promises in 2004, which were also just hype. We weren't a battleground state this year, but we will need every state and every precinct in 2008. Targeted literature and constant phone calls don't cut it any longer. We need ground up organization that gives every demographic a way to slot into the national committee effort: high school youth/college/young singles/young parents/middle aged and seniors. I doubt this can be accomplished locally without professional help from the national.

If this cannot be accomplished in the next two years, we will lose again to a permanent Democrat majority, IMO.

[PhiKapMom]

If your State ran as louzy Get out the Vote as we did in OK, no wonder we lost. Fortunately our Congressional Republican seats were safe here in OK. We just got clobbered statewide with louzy candidates.

[tennmountainman]

I happen to believe Pelosi will have a short shelf-life as speaker.

[PhiKapMom]

I agree with everything you have stated.

Our ground game this campaign was horrible here in OK. In 2004 we had the Coburn grassroots from young to old in every county and we brought it home for Dr. Tom. Our State GOP didn't even contact those people to help -- they paid a Democrat organization to hang door hangars for get out the vote and they used a generic one that used Senate liberal candidates and we didn't have a Senate race.

RNC can only be changed by the National Committee people elected in each State. We need new ones and we get a chance at our conventions in 2007 to elect new National committee people.

[PhiKapMom]

Works for me! :)

[ansel12]

Welcome to Hugh Hewitt, he is always a Pollyanna, he is a one note player.

Whether we end up winning or getting our asses kicked, Hewitt always offers the same exact, pre election analysis.

[DariusBane]

You are so right! Here in New Mexico, Gov Richardson trounced Rep. contender John Dendahl 68%-32%. The Dendahl campaign, if you can even call it that was so awful that we were always asking what the name of the Rep candidate for governor. Heather Wilson our Rep. district one representative may or may not retain her seat. The last day she was getting killed by ads at least 4-1 against her. So, she must have been out spent. The Republican party is in a shambles here. I am not sure what to do about it. I did keep getting glossy mailings from the RNC with pictures of the pres... That was about it. Oh, and they asked for my money, not my help. We are screwed without real district organization.