Is There No Price to Be Paid? By Stan Greenberg | Huffington Post | 07/19/2013 11:22 am Excerpts: The country has witnessed breathtaking intransigence by the Republican-controlled House and a majority of Senate Republicans, too. They have made a wrenching turn right in the culture war, rushing to virtually ban abortions and expand gun rights in the states they control and to limit access to contraception nationally. Rather than opening up to immigrants, virtually every House Republican voted to deport the "Dreamers" that Obama tried to legalize. Though President Obama handily won reelection just eight months ago, the Republicans are trying to blow up everything he has constructed, starting with the Affordable Care Act, and to just stop him from governing. The Republicans have surprised everyone by cutting away at government with glee. They have already pocketed the first year of sequester cuts and want to lock them in. That pales before the 20 percent immediate cut in education spending. They cheered when their budget abolished the Medicare guarantee and zeroed out funding for food stamps with dose of moral scorn for the hungry. So single-mindedly did Republicans gerrymander the House congressional districts that supposedly few competitive seats remain; indeed, Democrats will still be struggling to defend seats in a demographically and ideologically less hospitable off-year electorate. But think about what this says about the ordinary voter and citizen. He or she must be pretty clueless and disengaged. Seniors who punished the Democrats for their so-called Medicare cuts in 2010 must not be watching now. The one-in-seven families on the edge and using food stamps will not notice the House wiping out that safety net. College students and their families face accelerating costs and debt but will be nonplussed when their interests rate double. Sandy Hook and suburban America won't notice the Republicans' refusal on background checks. Hispanic Americans will not notice the virulent anti-immigrant rhetoric on the Republican side of the immigration debate. Let's start with the simplest of findings. Republicans won these seats by an impressive 10-point margin in the presidential year, 2012, but the incumbents have now lost half that lead in this whiter more conservative electorate. The pundits accept the accuracy of that big shift but choose to make nothing of it. The Cook Report and others decided to ignore that these incumbents scored lower than battleground incumbents at comparable points - incumbents who lost a lot of seats in the elections from 2006 onward. The current Republican incumbents in the most competitive seats have the highest disapproval rating and highest number saying, I can't reelect him or her; their 43 percent vote equals or falls below all the prior bloc of incumbents who took big losses. The pundits ignore the partisan winds in the faces or the backs of incumbents. But I remember my Republican partner in polling for NPR saying, if you believe the party identification is going to be +7 for Democrats on Election Day, then maybe Obama can win. Well, it was +6 on Election Day and Obama won by 4. It is pretty surprising then that in the 49 Republican districts in this off-year electorate, the Democratic Party is viewed 5 points more favorably than the Republican. It is viewed 11 points more favorably in the Democratic battleground districts, where a majority give the Republican Party a cool thermometer score. We do not whether that will matter in the battleground seats on Election Day, but we do know the Republicans have a wind in their face, while the Democrats, a wind at their back. What is brewing is evidence that voters are indeed paying attention to the mayhem, gridlock and extremism in Washington - and that is precisely where the Democracy Corps poll shows the biggest changes from last year. First, working with President Obama rather than trying to block his agenda. By 64 to 30 percent in the Republican battleground seats, these off-year voters want their member to work with the president -- up 5 points from October and 10 points from last summer. Maybe these supposedly obtuse voters are paying attention to a Republican Party that has decide to sabotage everything the president is doing. Second, the Tea Party. Though the off-year battleground is more Republican, negative feelings about the Tea Party have jumped 5 points since the election to half the electorate. The Tea Party is even more unpopular in the Democratic seats. Perhaps voters noticed that Tea Party members have led the fight in the House and Senate. continued:
conclusion Third, tax increases to address to our problems and reduce the deficit. Just 39 percent of the voters in these Republican off-year districts want to vote for the kind of no-tax Republican that represents them. A majority want to raise taxes in a balanced way like the President - again, tied for the highest margin on this question, despite the off-year. This is precisely the issue on which House Republicans are waging all out war. And fourth, Medicare and seniors. The Republicans faced their biggest electoral pull back since November among seniors in both the Republican and Democratic districts. Maybe seniors noticed the centrality of Medicare and entitlements in all the Republican battle plans. Maybe voters are now connecting the dots that they were not inclined to do during a presidential election and choice - dominated by billions of presidential campaigning. But this is not a presidential year and the country is living through a virtual political crisis, centered on the Congress. A stunning 45 percent of voters in the Democracy Corps poll wrongly volunteered that the Republicans control the U.S. Congress. And in the most recent Quinnipiac Poll, over two-thirds said Republicans were compromising too little -15 points above that for the president. Maybe that is beginning to matter. I respect Cook and Rothenberg's monitoring of the battleground as these elections crystallize, but we should all be a little humbler at this point..We would all benefit from listening to the voters who may be trying to tell us something about what is happening in Washington and the U.S. Congress. Maybe there is a price to pay for not trying to help our country meet its challenges.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stan-greenberg/is-there-no-price-to-be-p_b_3623520.html ...... IMO: As we get to know the American elective mind, we realize that Americans hold in their anger, fear, distrust, and contempt for the party that they mde a mistake about, and will set it right through thorough electioneering...just like in the 2006, 2008,, and 2012 elections. It is as if the republicans know their days are numbered both in the House and the Senate and are hurriedly trying to appear as the good guys but know that it is too late for that. They are now floundering in the sea of indecision as their popularity numbers go down even farther as they try to make some kind of sense out of their actions that continue to hurt the people they are sipposed to be serving. They are in total disarray and will may just decide not to run for re-election, or they will just get voted out of office by the people of America in 2014 and come back for the rest in 2016.
Earth to mars: there's no chance in hell that the dems are going to take the house back, and there's a good possibility they're loosing the senate as well. Thats what the talking heads and polling data state. But keep the koolaid flowing.
What have Republicans actually accomplished that benefits the American voter since they took control of the House? If they can't deliver, why should that voter not turn around and voted Democrat?
A dude from my state, Tennessee, lets us fish where ever we want without US army corps of eng getting I. The way. Can't think of much democrats have done to help me, a young white male.
...... This is not all about you, you know......and your pic doesn't look like you are young! and dude.lose the hat..it dates you too much.
The uniformed, socially populist types, probably will vote dem (so what else is new) because they don't know what the house has passed & sent to the senate and how the senate refuses to even look at the bills. The house's done a terrible job in getting their message out, but then with a media who's only objective seems to be supporting whatever Obama wants, it's a little hard to do.
This is classic, Agenthuff saying "As WE get to know the American elective mind"....toooooo funny...like Mathews apologizing for all whites! Ego city.
Well I gave it a shot. I have for over a year not clicked and read Agents threads but I decided to try it recently. I put an effort, I really did, but I just can't read this idiotic garbage that comes from the huffington post, as if visiting the site and being bombarded by advertisements of black entertainers wasn't enough. I'm sorry Agent but I just can't bring myself to click on your threads anymore.
In other words, the House Republicans haven't done squat? I invited posters like way2convey to get the House Republican message out and rather than do so he or she complains about the media instead. I'll try again: tell me what the House Republicans have accomplished since Obama became President.
Lets see if we can come up with a few things..... Democrats have informed you that youre a racist, because youre white. and Democrats have increased your patriotism, by increasing the taxes you pay.
