Dems To Take House - Real Thing, or Summer Fling?

The NY Times ends a rainy Labor Day weekend with a headline designed to cheer their readership:

G.O.P. Seen to Be in Peril of Losing House

 

By ROBIN TONER and KATE ZERNIKE

 

WASHINGTON, Sept. 3 — After a year of political turmoil, Republicans enter the fall campaign with their control of the House in serious jeopardy, the possibility of major losses in the Senate, and a national mood so unsettled that districts once considered safely Republican are now competitive, analysts and strategists in both parties say.

Sixty-five days before the election, the signs of Republican vulnerability are widespread.

   

Time will tell.  However, let me pick on one detail - the Times coverage of the impact of high gasoline prices on the electoral outlook:

In the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll, just 29 percent said the country was headed in the right direction, a measure of national pessimism that rivals the 26 percent who felt that way in October 1994. The war in Iraq, the price of gas and a sense of economic unease all play roles, analysts say.

And a bit later:

Democrats will be pushing hard to remind voters of the big picture, and their frustrations with it. In southeastern Indiana, Baron Hill, a Democrat who is trying to reclaim the Congressional seat he lost two years ago to Representative Mike Sodrel, held an event at a gas station where he pumped fuel at a 2004 price, $1.80, rather than $2.79.

“People are angry,” Mr. Hill said. “They want to know why we’re paying $3 a gallon and Congress is giving tax breaks to oil companies.”

Mr. Hill is making the right point - if oil companies need tax incentives for production even with $70 crude, we have other problems.

However, there is a slight wind at the Republicans back which the Times does not mention - gasoline prices typically peak during the summer driving season and then drop.  This illusory progress may help the Reps come November  (The next official outlook is due out on Sept 12).

Meanwhile the NY Times Election Guide breaks down the House races as follows:
Safe Dem, 189; Leaning Dem, 17; Toss-Up, 16; Leaning Rep, 21; Safe Rep, 192.

If the Reps can collect all their "Safes" and "Leaners" they only need to add five of the sixteen toss-ups to retain control.  Conversely, the Dems need to pick up their safes, their leaners, and tweleve of sixteen toss-ups.

Comments

[Dwilkers]

FWIW gas prices have fallen here in Houston from right at $3 to the low $2.40's, something like 20% I guess. I don't think momentary gas prices drive elections though. Well generally. I guess a sudden $1 spike could tip things if it were played correctly by the Dems. It will be interesting to see how the campaign starts to shape up over the next few weeks.

[Other Tom]

Tradesports has GOP House majority at 43.1 today. Senate is about 81.

[maryrose]

I don't care what the reason is;lower gas prices right before the election can only spell good news for the repubs.
NYT is engaging in wishful thinking as is their wont the nearer we get to the day that the PEOPLE DECIDE! That's always a reality check for dems as it will be this November.

[maryrose]

Sorry, forgot to answer the thread question: definitely a summer fling of fancy and fantasy.

[Foo Bar]

TM,

This comment is actually regarding "WaPo Wacks Wilson", 2 posts ago. Sorry to post off-topic, but I get the impression you're not reading the comments over there anymore and therefore missed my comments here and here.

The "call in the auditors" section of that post is wrong. You used the wrong date range and hence the wrong set of GAO reports. The first 15 months of the Fitz investigation is Jan '04 through the end of March '05. If you use the relevant GAO reports, you get a total of $724K. It checks out (within $1K). There is no discrepancy for The Next Hurrah to square.

Please fix.

Thanks.

[hrtshpdbox]

Gas is dropping because the price of oil continue to drop, and there's a glut of it; it's been massively stockpiled in anticipation of Iran troubles, and that appears to be a stalemated situation for the time being. As the RNC hasn't even started their election push in earnest (who would be taking over those House committees?), the TradeSports wager is a great buy.

[rXapt]

Elect Dems and we will move towards energy independence. Afterall, the Dems favor drilling for oil in Anwar and off the coast. Don't they? And the Dems favor a return to nuclear power plants and more use of coal, the one abundant source of energy in the US. Don't they?

And the Dems will give us more ethanol at taxpayer subsidized prices. KOOL!

And maybe the Dems will shut down WalMart and stop all this free trade stuff that is hurting the american consumer by forcing him to buy more goods and services at lower prices.

[AMDG]

I take little comfort in the supposition that the the Republicans need to only take 5 of the 16 toss-ups.

I would guess that the toss-ups would tend to end up going the same way and that if they do you would see see several leaners go the way of the toss-ups.

[Sue]

Chuck Schumer said on Fox yesterday that democrats will lower gas prices. Without telling us how. How do you lower gas prices? I remember another democrat controlling oil prices. That worked out well, didn't it?

[Semanticleo]

Gas prices have a lot more to do with polls than we would like to think, but Peak Oil
assures us there is no end to high prices, just an end to availability. So if it is the
hope that the numbers might turn before Nov because Joe Lunchbox is grateful for the
reduction in gas pains, it is thin, at best.

[Sue]

One thing for sure, if the economy we are seeing today was under a democratic president, we would be hearing a different tune.

[jwest]

This is just another example of the mental cruelty practiced by liberals on themselves.

Has there ever been a time when polls that favor democrats actually materialize into votes? When looking at polls from ’94 on through ’04, it is obvious that either through the wording of questions or the weighting of results democrats are consistently overestimated .

The GOP was supposed to suffer a loss with Duke Cunningham’s seat. Paul Hackett was the great liberal hope of Ohio. All the hype was proven misplaced when the actual votes were counted.

House seats don’t change hands on national issues. The Senate does swing with some influence of the administration, but other factors have a bigger impact. Our fine MSM is barely mentioning the likely Senate pickups for the GOP in New Jersey, Maryland and definitely Michigan.

Liberals make an industry out of deluding themselves with polls that reinforce their theory of being in the majority. Come November, Carville will be placing a bag over his head as the results are read, Sharpton will be yelling about disenfranchisement and the moonbats will blame Diebold once again.

[Sue]

I don't know what republicans are worried about. They merely need to steal another election. No problems.

[Jane]

Liberals make an industry out of deluding themselves with polls that reinforce their theory of being in the majority. Come November, Carville will be placing a bag over his head as the results are read, Sharpton will be yelling about disenfranchisement and the moonbats will blame Diebold once again.

From your lips...

The left has developed a perfect election model; If they don't win, the election has been stolen. There is simply no other possibility. And the sad part is, they believe it.

[patch]

Ahem...

The Myth of "Peak Oil"

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1717

[Jane]

OT: Kofi Annan has agreed to mediate the release the of the 2 soldiers abducted in Lebanon.

Perhaps he will Iran to help.

[lurker]

Funny, 1701 called for an unconditional release of those 2 soldiers!

[jwest]

Democrats are making a big push this year to capture state offices, like Secretary of State and Attorney General.

This is in response to the racist policies of the GOP, such as the recent disenfranchisement of 50,000 black voters in the city of Detroit by the Republican Sec. of State, Terry Lynn Land. With the help of another Republican, Attorney General Mike Cox, these remnants of the plantation era capriciously decided that these people were guilty of “voting while black”.

The fact that these voters were also dead showed the insensitivity of the GOP.

[lurker]

Captain's Quarters has a different take on this poll.

The democrats are pushing really hard for Nick Lampson to win Texas district 22.

[lurker]

Cantrell isn't going to do well. Wasn't she accused of voter fraud?

[Other Tom]

Reading Hugh Hewitt's interview with Stuart Rothenberg is surely not encouraging.

On any list of subjects about which the public and the media are pitiably uninformed, the pricing of oil and gas has to be in the top three every year since at least 1973. I assume that Chuck Schumer knows at least something about the world oil market, but it's certainly not in his interest to let the cat out of the bag.

[Jane]

Right, but let's negotiate anyway. Maybe we can really stick it to them this time.

Sheesh get rid of the UN.

[Semanticleo]

Not sure why Ludwig has any business discussing Peak Oil when he has, by his own admission, no expertise outside economics. He even speculates oil may be quasi-'renewable' as fossil fuels have algae and plankton components extant to this day.
Not exactly within the usual conservative mainstream, is he. But, what the hell, it supports the conservative POV, right?

Never mind the real scientists who don't really know what the situation in the Persian Gulf geography, because for twenty years the Saudi's and Iranians have refused to allow the Society of Petroleum Engineers to survey for reserves. But, in the rest of the world, they have been surveying;

"Altogether, according to ChevronTexaco, out of 48 significant oil-producing nations worldwide, 33 are already experiencing declining production. Few doubt that the rate of oil production for the world in total will peak at some point. That point is known as peak oil. If the peak were to occur within the next five years, national economies could not adjust quickly enough without major dislocations, while a peak 20 years hence would present easier adaptation, assuming we begin adapting now."

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=11320

[Semanticleo]

BTW;

The consensus seems to be 2020. That gives us 14 years. Will we use it wisely?

[SunnyDay]

I heard global warming will increase the supply of oil. :)))

[lurker]

ali-cleown, nope.

[Uncle BigBad]

Cleo

If you're talking about Ludwig von Mises, you should know he's been dead lo these many years.

Further, he refused to call himself conservative. He insisted he was a liberal. (He would insist that people who call themselves liberals today are simply nuts).

One of his main theses was that there was always an element of self-interest even in altruistic behavior.

[Semanticleo]

Patch cited Ol' Ludwig. I was responding

[Daniel DiRito]

Not unlike a football game, voters are in the position to gauge the potential of each side to succeed. That process involves evaluating the game plans of both teams before placing ones bet (vote). The fact that most people bet on the favorite cannot be ignored. Many people like to see the long shot win the game or the horse race...but they rarely bet on that outcome absent tangible evidence.

The Democrats may be the sentimental favorite as voters may have grown tired of seeing the frontrunner run the table over and over...but if switching ones bet is predicated upon personal safety (terrorism), it may well mean voters will enter the ballot box and choose the Party that has a track record of winning even though they may not like the way that Party has executed the race.

This midterm election may turn out to be a Seabiscuit moment...but the GOP and their "War Admiral", George Bush, a "Man O'War"...may be an all too terrifying obstacle.

Read more here:

www.thoughttheater.com

[noah]

Will we run out of cheap oil? Definitely but nobody knows when exactly...there are billions of barrels of the stuff in Iran, Iraq, and ANWR. Offshore oil production is already "not cheap". Venezuela and Iran have declining production because of incompetence not lack of reserves.

Are the American people stupid enough to think that Democrats will bring back cheap gas? I suppose anything is possible.

[Terrye]

I would think that if it were possible for a politician to bring back cheap gas, Bush would do it. For his own sake.

[PeterUK]

I am always glad when Sematicleo comments,it reminds me to run the System Defragementer which is so much more interesting.

To quote a wise Sheik "The Stone Age ended before we ran out of stones".

[PeterUK]

Why would Al Gore,for example,want to bring back cheap oil? How do the Democrats square the belief in Anthropogenic Global Warming and cheap gas?

[Sue]

How do the Democrats square the belief in Anthropogenic Global Warming and cheap gas?

The same way they square driving SUVs, flying private jets, living in multiple mansions.

[Alan]

If the GOP loses control of the House one thing is certain. The Religious Right and social conservatives will say it was because the GOP wasn't pro-life enough that they stayed home. Forget the GOP's downward spiral began with a memo, no doubt written on a spiritual high after prayer breakfast, which caused congress to stop everything and appeal for the life Terry Shiavo's empty shell.

[clarice]

Yesterday I reread a Wash Po article (dated I beleieve Oct 2, 2004) predicting the outcome of the Senate races. They were right on only 2 out of their 6 predictions.

Jay Cost notes that state polls are nototiously bad.

I say the Reps will hold both houses.

[clarice]

Edited for typos:Yesterday I reread a Wash Po article (dated I believe Oct 2, 2004) predicting the outcome of the Senate races. They were right on only 2 out of their 6 predictions.

Jay Cost notes that state polls are notoriously bad.

I say the Reps will hold both houses.

[Syl]

assuming we begin adapting now

We have a real enemy and are engaged in a real war. The overseas stuff is the easy part. It's the next level we get to at home that will be hard if we're not careful.

Scaremongering?

No more scaremongering than 'We're running out of oil! We're all gonna die! Do something now!' and 'The earth is warming! We're all gonna die! Do something now!'

It's just so much nicer to worry about peak oil and global warming than Islamofascism 'cause we don't have to do all that yukky killing and war stuff.

I wanna war on SUVs, Wal-Mart, and CO2 instead.

Sheesh.

[Soylent Red]

Let us not forget that the Dems have always been somewhat at the mercy of the enviro-nuts, and to a large degree still are.

Historically, this has brought about such folly as restrictive exploration controls and over regulation of refinery construction, two of the biggest root causes in our current woes.

They have also come out on the record over the years against drilling ANWR, coal oil production, oil shale extraction in the Rockies, expanded offshore drilling, and nuclear power generation. Add to that all of the very public nonsense about displacing owls, toads, moose, piss ants, etc.

In short, Dems have done a lot to foster the idea that they are anti-domestic energy. People won't forget that, no matter what the current DNC "Plan for the Salvation of Humanity" proposes or how much the Left bashes energy company margins. There's just too long a track record of the Democrats mouths working against them.

I don't, however, believe gas prices will be the critical factor in November. It may contribute, but along with war fatigue and stock market volatility, I get the sense all of this revolves around (unfounded) mass "bad vibrations" about things in general.

[Daddy]

TM,
Gas prices here in Alaska for regular, where the stuff is sucked out of the tundra, seem to be holding at about $2.70. Interesting doings however are going on up here. Our first scandal is that we've got a major pipeline currently out of service and rotting due to BP's gross failure to adequately test and maintain for corrosion. Second, we've just in the last few days got some huge FBI investigation going on, supposedly involving 20 subpoena's, and multiple state congressmen mostly Republican's) being investigated even as we speak for suspected corrupt dealings with VECO, a huge sort of mini-Haliburton gas middleman company. Most interesting is that the headlined state congressmen under investigation is Ben Steven's, son of Ted Steven's of "Pork Bill Blocking/Bridge to Nowhere" fame.
Granted we are a sparsely populated state, and way off the radar screens of the East Coast media maven's, but this episode seems to me to have the potential to hit the national media fan in a big way, and should that happen, it'll definitely be to the detriment of the Republican's; ie "Good old boy Republican fat cats caught once again in bed with Corrupt Big Oil".

[Lew Clark]

Don't be so sure the Democrats in control can't solve the oil crisis. All they have to do is restrict private transportation to the "Party Elite". That's the way you do it in a socialist workers paradise. The common people will walk. Except on those rare days when the poorly constructed solar buses actually work. We have plenty of domestic oil to provide for the needs of our betters!

[Alan]

If we made an effort to get off of burning oil, the money used to finance islamic fascism would dry up. I'm for promoting the use of electric cars...run on batteries or hydrogen fuel cells. Let's do it; but not out of fear of global warming but to stick it to Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

[Martin]

No worries. If Nagin can get re-elected Mayor of new Orleans, the Repubs can definitely maintain control of Congress.

[SunnyDay]

Gas prices have people bitching, but they haven't stopped driving. Spending is up. Everything is up. Unemployment is down.

Unexpectly, of course. Always unexpectedly good news - but not that good and besides, we will have bad news soon. If not, it will be phrased so that it sounds like bad news. Or it will be unexpected.

[windansea]

what me worry? :)

[jwest]

Alan,

If Bush proposed building 1000 identical 2GW nuclear reactors across the country to eliminate imported oil, would you enthusiastically support the program?

[Alan]

Yes!

[Specter]

More on Ned's campaign here.

As for oil consumption, ethanol is coming (due to Republican backing) and the free market will take care of cars and other transportation. Check out the Tesla here.

[SunnyDay]

If Nagin can get re-elected Mayor of new Orleans...

heh! I do hope you're not comparing. Bad choice. ;)

those folks in NOLA will deserve whatever happens next time. I'm sorry but there is no excuse for this. But, you can't fix stupid.

I think the average American isn't overwhelmingly swayed by the rhetoric and polls. A lot of them vote by name recognition only, couldn't tell you how their legislators voted on anything, unless it directly affected them.

[Syl]

Are people really putting up with the Dem grousing about everything?

I know they expect the party out of power to criticize, but the Dems are hysterically negative.

Failure, incompetence, catastrophe, corruption, spying, slayers of the middle class!

Much more of this and voters will simply start rolling their eyes--if they aren't doing so already.

It's all gloom and doom and failure.

Yes, the citizenry want change! They want the Dems to shut up already and get real.

Americans are optimistic at heart.