Recent polls have shown that the American people are fed up with both parties and the recent NBC/Wallstreet Journal poll showed the 28% of those polled would prefer a "Tea Party" candidate as opposed to a Democrat or Republican...Further the retirement of 24 members of the House (14 Republicans, 10 Democrats) and 8 members of the Senate (6 Republicans, 2 Democrats) has been used to show that the Anti-Incumbent sentiment is starting to scare off members of Congress and some (like Fox News) are making it sound like Democrats know their going to lose control this year and are getting out while the getting is good..though is a pretty weak arguement considering there are almost twice as many Republicans retiring as Democrats...the true story is that both sides are worried about this fall...Democrats are worried about tooking weak and disorganized and losing control of the House and/or the Senate...Republicans are worried that Tea Partiers are going to wreck their races by running their own candidates to challenge who they deem not conservative enough or too corrupt...
The amazing thing is..only the confident political force this so far is the Tea Partiers...but they are overly confident and it will likely be their downfall...Why you ask? While there is real anger against Washington and the government, the Tea Party movement is still terribly de-centralized and has already broken up into rival camps and have no real particular platform...just general goals of being Anti-Tax, Anti-Incumbent, and Anti-Obama...very vague and they will continue to be weak and disorganized until they unify and set up real goals and a true Platform..so while I do believe they will likely get a few of their backed candidates, they will not be able to trully change the balance of power in Washington...not yet anyway...
The Democrats have good reason to fear this fall but so far, the signs show that while they COULD lose both houses of Congress..they likely won't...In all likelihood, Dems will lose the House of Representatives but will hold on to the Senate but will likely lose at least 5 seats which will severely weaken them for the 2012 elections..But lets not get ahead of ourselves..Why will they survive? While the healthcare debate did terribly weaken their position, they could still pull of a mediocre year by focusing on the economy and jobs and save themselves...
But, if they decide to pursure legislation like Cap & Trade or Immigration reform they risk losing what little political capital they have left and will leave themselves wide open for the Republicans and Tea Partiers this fall...because if the Dems actually get some good for everyday Americans work done that isn't terribly controversial and the Republicans continue with their Party of NO shtick then the Republicans will just look overly partisan and petty and people will not vote for them in the fall and this will save the Dems and could possibly strengthen the Tea Partiers...
2010 is shaping up to indeed be a major political event for politics in America...will it be a repeat of 1994? Will Democrats survive another election cycle? Will Tea Partiers fracture the Republican Party for good? For now it is too early to tell...but it promises to be an interesting year no matter what the outcome...Stay Tuned
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