HOW DO YOU GET SOMEONE WITH A JOB TO VOTE AGAINST THE ECONOMY?

Democrats Have Intensity, but G.O.P. Has Its Machine (ROBIN TONER, 10/15/06, NY Times)

Voter intensity is a critical element in politics, especially in midterm elections, when Americans’ interest and turnout are typically much lower than in a presidential election year. Pollsters say enthusiasm among Democrats is particularly high this year — significantly higher, by several important measures, than the intensity of Republicans.

Republican strategists counter that they can compensate for any gap in enthusiasm with their legendary get-out-the-vote operation. The party has built its electoral success in the last two elections on identifying and producing nearly every obtainable Republican vote at the polls; this time may be more challenging, they say, but no different.

“I do think our base is coming together and will be coming together later, but four weeks is an eternity in this business,” said Representative Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican and longtime party strategist. Republicans will ultimately be motivated to vote, Mr. Cole said, and they will turn out on Election Day even if “this is a race where professionalism has to make up for enthusiasm.”

Even so, in the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, conducted Oct. 5-8, 46 percent of Democrats said they were more enthusiastic about voting this year than in previous Congressional elections, compared with 33 percent of Republicans.

A similar trend appears in recent polls by the Pew Research Center and Gallup, which show that Democrats’ level of engagement is higher than in the midterm elections of 2002, 1998 and especially 1994, when a Republican landslide gave the party control of the House and Senate.

How Bad Will It Be?: The GOP debacle to come (Fred Barnes, 10/23/2006, Weekly Standard)

REPUBLICANS and conservatives, brace yourselves! Strategists and consultants of both parties now believe the House is lost and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi will become speaker. At best, Republicans will cling to control of the Senate by a single seat, two at most. For many election cycles, Republicans have been the boys of October, using paid media and superior campaign skills to make up lost ground and win in November. This year, they were the boys of September, rallying strongly until that fateful day, September 29, when the Mark Foley scandal erupted. October has been a disaster so far. A strong finishing kick for Republicans, minimizing Democratic gains, is possible. They pulled one off brilliantly in President Bush's first midterm election in 2002. But recovery will be harder this time, a lot harder.

The press is fixated on the so-called generic ballot--Do you want a Democratic or Republican Congress?--as an indicator of Republican setbacks on November 7. But that gauge has rarely been predictive. Two others are more reliable: presidential approval and party enthusiasm. And they tell an ominous story for Republicans about the difference between 2002 and 2006.

Presidential approval correlates with how the president's party fares in midterm elections. It's simple: High approval is linked to election success, low approval to defeat. In October 2002, with Bush's approval at 62 percent in the Gallup Poll, Republicans won six seats in the House and two in the Senate. Now Bush is at 37 percent in Gallup. The inescapable conclusion is that Bush
lacks the clout with the public he had four years ago. To make matters worse, presidents associated with unpopular wars are historically a drag on their parties (Truman, LBJ).

The most overlooked election indicator is the level of voter enthusiasm. In every election from 1994 through 2004, Republicans were more enthusiastic than Democrats. That was a decade of Republican growth. This year Democrats are more excited. And it's measurable. In 2002, 42 percent of Republicans said they were more enthusiastic than usual about the election. Thirty-eight percent of Democrats said the same. In 2006, the numbers have flipped. Republican enthusiasm has dipped to 39 percent and Democratic enthusiasm has jumped to 48 percent. Enthusiasm affects turnout. Gloomy voters are less inclined to vote.

GOP panic over midterm elections ends at White House front door (Michael Abramowitz, 10/15/06, The Washington Post)

Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the midterm elections, two people strike even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove. [...]

The question is whether this is a case of justified confidence — based on Bush's and Rove's electoral record and knowledge of the money, technology and other assets at their command — or of self-delusion. Many Republicans suspect the latter. Three GOP strategists with close ties to the White House flatly predicted the loss of the House, although they would not do so on the record for fear of offending senior Bush aides.

To Rove and the small cadre of operatives who have been at his side throughout the administration, confidence flows from a conviction that a political operation that has produced three consecutive national victories is capable of one more, despite voter disaffection with Iraq and GOP scandals.

It seems unlikely that you can really work up Democratic passions when the economy is booming--particularly when unemployment is virtually non-existent--but the Right did work itself into a tizzy in '92 and cost George HW Bush re-election, so anything's possible.

As AWW points out, we need to come up with an election contest. Anyone got any ideas? Races we should include? How about you have to pick the overall House number, 10 or so Senate races and a couple governorships?

MORE:
Democrats counting on zeal (ASSOCIATED PRESS, 10/15/06)

Democrats hope enthusiasm trumps Republican efficiency in the battle for control of Congress. Otherwise, they concede, they will have problems on Nov. 7 as a party still struggling to catch up with Republicans' ability to get voters to go to the polls.

"Makes me green with envy," said Ellen Malcolm, the president of EMILY's List, which backs female candidates who support abortion rights. [...]

"If the Republicans are less enthused, the independents are breaking our way, and the Democratic base is highly enthused, then we're in very good shape," said Karin Johanson, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

An election Foley-equipped with frivolity (MARK STEYN, 10/15/06, Chicago Sun-Times)

Who is James Vicini? Well, he works for Reuters, the storied news agency. By "storied," I don't mean in the Hans Christian Andersen sense, though these days it's hard to tell. But they have an illustrious history and they're globally respected and whatnot. And last week newshound Vicini got assigned quite an interesting story:

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A California-born convert to Islam, accused of making a series of al-Qaida propaganda videos, became on Wednesday the first American charged with treason since the World War II era, U.S. Justice Department officials said.

"Fugitive Adam Gadahn, 28, who is believed to be in Pakistan, was accused of treason, which carries a maximum punishment of death . . ."

Wow! Treason! First time in half-a-century, since the Tokyo Rose days. Since then, of course, the very word "treason" has come to seem arcane, if not obsolescent, like something some fellow in doublet-and-hose might accuse somebody of on "Masterpiece Theatre" but otherwise not terribly relevant and frankly no big deal: Indeed, the campus left usually gives the impression that "treason" is little more than an alternative lifestyle, like transvestism.

Yet the Justice Department wants this fellow over in Pakistan for treason. Now why would they do such a thing? After chugging through the various charges, Vicini got to the meat of his story: "Justice Department officials denied the case was timed to deflect attention from the fallout over lewd computer messages sent by a former Republican congressman to young male aides, a scandal that may help Democrats seize control of Congress in the Nov. 7 elections."

Cut out that paragraph and have it framed. Or now that the nights are drawing in, if you're at a loose end of an evening, sew it into an attractive sampler and hang it in your parlor. In years to come, you'll spend many precious moments treasuring it as the perfect summation of the 2006 U.S. election.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 15, 2006 9:25 AM