The Republican Midterm Dilemma

Lincoln Mitchell
HuffPost

After the Democratic Party took back control of congress in 2006, the 2008 presidential election emerged not just as an opportunity, but also as a test for the Democrats. The 2006 election had defeated, but more importantly, discredited, the Republicans. Had the Democrats been unable to win in 2008, it therefore would have raised the questions of whether the Democrats could ever win, and what the point of the Democratic Party was. Fortunately, Barack Obama got elected president in 2008, so these questions have been avoided.

Ironically, the Republican Party, by portraying President Obama as seeking to bring about the socialist apocalypse, and by stressing the strength of anti-Obama among voters, has spun itself into a similar corner today. Raising expectations is never wise in politics, but the Republicans have done just that in the last eighteen months. They have made this more of a problem by overstating the danger represented by the Obama presidency.

This has led to a context where if the Republican tsunami of 2010 fails to materialize in November, even loyal Republican voters will be forced to ask some tough questions about the relevance and future of their party. Republican leaders will have to explain how the Republican Party -- with a dangerous socialist in the White House and such an enormous groundswell of support for the far right -- could not manage to get control of congress. Thus, anything less than a major Republican victory in November will raise the question that if the party cannot win when the Democratic president is doing so badly, when can they ever win? This is, of course, something of a political trick question, because the premise is grounded in Republican spin rather than reality, but it is a trick the Republicans have played on themselves. Creating and promoting these perceptions has been a short term and risky strategy, but it may have more serious long term consequences.

(More here.)