Posted on 12/14/2009 3:21:31 AM PST by rabscuttle385
Conventional political wisdom pegs Republicans as the most threatened by pollster Scott Rasmussen's shocking finding that a Tea Party party would draw more support today than the GOP, but Democrats have even more to fear.
Consider the situation facing Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., an incumbent representing one of her party's most reliable congressional districts in the country, thanks to the 18 point registration advantage Democrats enjoy over Republicans.
Her district is so solidly Democratic that Titus has voted with the liberal Democratic majority on all three of the major issues before Congress this year, including President Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus package, the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade, anti-global warming energy bill, and the House version of Obamacare.
In normal circumstances, Titus should cruise to re-election because her voting on the big issues of the day appears to match the views of her constituents. But guess what -- the latest Mason-Dixon poll finds Titus in a dead heat with Joe Heck, a relatively unknown Republican.
Titus' poor showing can't be ascribed to ethics problems. As RedState.com's Leon Wolfe notes, "Titus does not have any major corruption or personal issues driving up her unfavorables like Jon Corzine did or like Chris Dodd does."
And, as Wolfe further notes, "it also can't be that voters are punishing Titus for the failure of the Democratic legislative agenda in general; the House passed all three measures and Titus was a contributing factor to all three."
The fact is that most of Titus constituents in a heavily Democratic district oppose what she is voting for in Congress. The Mason-Dixon survey found voters in the district oppose Obamacare 47-41 percent.
Now let's look at Rasmussen's numbers. Most of the media coverage focused on the fact 36 percent of the respondents picking Democrats for congressional voting, compared with 23 percent going for a Tea Party-endorsed candidate, and a mere 18 percent opting for the GOP candidate.
That's significant news to be sure, as it shows just how sorry a state into which the Republican Party has fallen since the 2004 election. Frankly, it looks like the GOP is permanently branded as the party that promised but failed to get Washington spending and corruption under control.
The GOP now has the same problem faced by General Motors and Chrysler ever since American cars and trucks became indelibly branded among consumers as having less quality than Japanese vehicles.
GM -- and Chrysler to a lesser extent -- closed the quality gap years ago, but the second-rate image remains among the biggest threats to the two firms' prospects for ever regaining buyers' confidence. That both had to be bailed out by government and are now effectively controlled by Washington bureaucrats and the United Auto Workers union only makes it worse.
But wait, it gets worse for the Democrats, too, thanks to the abandonment of the Obama Democrats by independents. The Tea Party candidate gets the nod by 33 percent of independents, compared with 25 percent for the Democrat and only 12 percent for the Republican.
Most significantly, Rasmussen found 41 percent of his respondents overall saying the Democrats and Republicans are so much alike that a new party is required to represent the American people. Among independents, 60 percent say a new party is needed.
We are witnessing a widening, cross-partisan voter rebellion against Washington deficits, taxes, spending, regulation, and cronyism incited by two major factors. First came the earmark-powered spending splurge and congressional corruption under George Bush and the Republican congressional majority.
Voters threw the GOP out of power in Congress in 2006 and out of the White House in 2008. But then the second factor came into focus when the Obamacrats got it exactly backward by concluding those elections proved voters wanted to turn America into a European welfare state.
Voters wanted "change," to be sure, but that meant lower spending and taxes, less bureaucratic meddling in their lives, fewer federal boondoggles, and no more corruption or coddling of special interests. Obamacrats are instead giving them monumentally more of everything they don't want.
That is why the worst thing that can be said of a Washington politician these days isn't "Democrat" or "Republican," it's "incumbent."
Mark Tapscott is editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner and proprietor of Tapscott's Copy Desk blog on washingtonexaminer.com.
*Ping!*
This person sure draws a lot of conclusions while providing very few supporting facts. It reminds me of most articles on global warming.
I happen to agree with him that the Tea Parties are going to end up doing serious damage to the Dems and the 0bamactrats in the 2010 elections. All you gotta do is look at the NJ and VA elections last month.
That is why the worst thing that can be said of a Washington politician these days isn't "Democrat" or "Republican," it's "incumbent."
Nah. Nan and Harry can solve that.
All they have to do is come up with a Bill that declares all incumbents as 'Endangered Species' and some Clinton Judge will rule only they shall be on a Ballot.
And you can bet your bippy Eric Holder would have his Black Panthers, ACORN and SEIU paid goons, oops; Federal Agents, enforce that to the 'letter of the law'. (HUGH sarcasm)
Tea party people are us - and we are them. The GOP has become liberal-lite. Top GOP members read all the fake letters sent to them - written by dems - pretending to be conservatives and they are STUNNED when they meet REAL conservatives who are sick of liberal-lite.
so true....look out RATS and RINOs.
Good Post. Thanks.
Talk about "damning by faint praise."
Rings right with me. The only things remaining are result.
question:
what is ACW
is it something to do with anthropomorphic climate change
“And you can bet your bippy Eric Holder would have his Black Panthers, ACORN and SEIU paid goons, oops; Federal Agents, enforce that to the ‘letter of the law’. (HUGH sarcasm) “
They will drop like flies, if the “goon squad” Civilian Security Force is unleashed.
You betcha!
It's AGW - the font has a strange "G". :(
AGW = Anthropogenic Global Warming
It took me 2 hours on the internet to trace Obama’s sordid life back to the fetus, IN THE SUMMER OF 08. Americans have become lazy, and their civic participation(prior to the election) was close to nil. All one needed to know about Obama was readily available to almost every American. But the All Star game was on. Americans could have spent just one evening researching Obama, but “Dancing with the Stars” was on. They could have learned that Obama is a life long communist/terrorist thug, but up popped the World Series. I HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR OBAMA, AND NOW HAVE BUYERS REMORSE. Truth to tell, I would prefer punching them in the teeth.
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