04.17.06
Republicans Broken Contract and Republicans Control Congress Too!
Late last week and over the weekend, with the exposure of KBH’s broken promise(s), many of us bloggers began working on the theme of the GOP’s broken contract on America. (I know it was the contract with…but I prefer on). Vince Leibowitz at Capitol Annex has an extensive post on the frauds and follies of the Contract on America. While it is essential to look back over this contract and hold our elected representatives feet to the fire I think it is just a piece of the puzzle.
In 1994 this contract was a late comer to the election, 6 weeks before. What had transpired over the first two years of the Clinton presidency, the healthcare debacle, and his subsequent low approval ratings, as well as the Democratic controlled Congress’ at the time, had as much if not more to do with it. Also the percentage of the electorate that knew which party controlled Congress was very high. Why is that important? Well, here’s why, Our Message In 2006: Republicans Control Congress:
It would appear that if roughly two-thirds or more of the electorate is convinced Party X controls the House, then Party X loses seats in the House. In fact, in every election since 1970 where there was a large swing in seats-1980, 1982, and 1994-there was unusually broad agreement among voters over who controlled the House of Representatives.
As a side note on this it is truly amazing how ignorant the electorate is about who controls Congress when you look at these results. This theory makes sense to me especially after a couple of conversations I’ve had in the last two weeks. One was with a lady who said her Father had one rule when voting, he always voted against the incumbent, becuase the longer they were there the more corrupt they became. And this weekend, talking to one of my family members, a Williamson County resident, he’s so disgusted with the corruption at every level that he said voting against all incumbents makes sense to him. Therefore with Congress having generally bad numbers and an inherent sense by the American people holding a “throw the bumbs out” mentality, the more voters that know the ruling party the more voters that will vote against the party in power. Now look at the last paragraph of the post linked above:
Voters tend to never like the job performance of Congress, and I suppose it thus isn’t surprising that whichever party they think is in power tends to do poorly in Congressional elections. In 1980, 1994, and 2002, most voters (over 65%) thought Democrats were in charge of the House, and Democrats suffered real losses as a result. In 1982, 1986, 1996, and 1998, most voters (over 65%) thought Republicans were in charge of the House, and Republicans suffered real losses as a result. In all the years in between, voters didn’t really know who was in charge of the House (no consenus of 60% or higher), and there was no significant change in seats. If I am right about the knowledge patterns I listed above, most voters should know that Republicans are in charge in 2006, which should result in Republicans losing seats in 2006. Will it be enough seats for Democrats to take over? I don’t know, but it should be an encouraging sign nonetheless.
What that means to me is when the disgust of what’s going on in our country, state, and in our case county, it is essential for gains to be made that everyone knows who’s in charge and therefore responsible for the current state of affiars. While it’s improtant that the electorate knows Republicans are corrupt, broke promises, and are running everything into the ground. It’s most important that they know Republicans are in control of Congress, and every other branch of government of our country, state and county and in order to change that they have to elect Democrats.
So remember tell everyone you know, Republicans Conrol Congress!