Dana Milbank writes about the debate where no grown-ups appeared; Byron York reviews the GOP field in the aftermath of the debate-that-wasn’t and draws conclusions; Chris Cillizza writes up the only serious threat to Barack Obama … When Mario Cuomo took forever and forever to decide not to run in 1992, he was written off as “Hamlet on the Hudson.” If Mitch Daniels declines to run, will he be “Ophelia on the Ohio?” Sage minds want to know…
Tag Archives: 2012
The Dems in the House…
Last week The Bitch posted the Nate Silver column about polling student Harry Engen’s model that predicted, “with 95.5% accuracy,” that the GOP would hold the US House of Representatives in 2012. Silver questioned the model, but didn’t really disagree with the conclusion. The Bitch’s take was that absent the final districts, the candidates and many of the issues, it was waaaaay too early to make any predictions. But boys like mental masturbation — and Jonathan Chait has jumped into Mark Blumenthal’s round robin over on HuffPo, making this useful (if over-generalizing) point:
The 2010 election was largely a result of the generation gap. To oversimplify, the old (conservative) portion of the 2008 electorate showed up, and the young (liberal) portion stayed away. Democrats borrowed a lot of seats in 2008 with a swollen electorate filled with young voters who weren’t likely to stay engaged in 2010. But the corollary of that is that Republicans borrowed those seats right back in 2010 with a disproportionately old electorate that doesn’t reflect what 2012 will look like. The mere fact of having a presidential race will make the House electorate substantially more Democratic.
Indeed, it’s entirely possible that, if the age gap continues, the Congressional vote will continue to swing back and forth like this, with Democrats picking up seats in presidential election years, and losing them in off-years.
So, to recap: not only do we not know the districts, the candidates, the issues (some of them we can guess at, though), we don’t entirely know the ages of the voters….yeah, it’s waaaaaay too early to call the House. But it’s something to think about…
Today in the Weird and Wonderful World of Capitol Hill…
- Representative Mike Pence, sponsor of the “2011 Abortion Provider Prohibition Act,” a bill that would zero out all funding for Title X health clinics (clinics that provide low- or no-cost family planning services and are found in mostly poor urban neighborhoods, or rural areas that have limited access to health care services) said on the hated NPR that he “never intended to touch women’s health services,” he just wanted to defund Planned Parenthood (PP, an abortion provider, received approximately $342 million from Title X between 2002 and 2008, but per the Hyde Amendment, none of that money paid for abortions). Hel-lo, Mr. Pence: that’s what defund means: to take the money away. Didn’t they teach you that in Congressman School?
- Representative Michelle Bachmann (not to be confused with the Minnesota Common Loon) “is likely to form” a presidential exploratory committee (per her handlers) and has been touring early primary states. This will be fun, boys and girls – Bachmann, well-known as a “Birther,” says whatever she thinks and doesn’t care if it makes sense or not – just the traits I know I want in a President.
- But oh, it gets better! Sharron Angle, who lost by five points to Harry Reid in a anti-Democratic wave last fall is writing a book…self-published, of course… and running for office again! And she says she’s the frontrunner! Bless her heart! And her new haircut!
