GOP Doomed By Democratic Anger; Women, Minorites Hardest Hit

GOP doomed? Certainly there's good reason for worry; this is the only time the past seven elections I think there's a decent chance of a Democratic takeover of one or both houses of Congress.

But Jim Geraghty notes we've been down this road before. He notes the GOP has been doomed, by media and Democratic estimation (and sometimes by Republican estimation, too), pretty much every damn election for the past ten years.

I love this so much:

Mickey Kaus loves to recall the New York Times story from the final Sunday before Election Day 2002, when the Times and CBS News released their final poll. They found that after months of Democrats and Republicans running neck-and-neck on the ‘generic ballot’ question, the GOP had jumped to a 47 percent to 40 percent advantage.

Six paragraphs in, Times reporter Adam Nagourney addressed the Republicans’ seven point bounce:

“That question, known as a generic ballot question, is a measure of national sentiment, and does not necessarily reflect how Americans will vote in the governor's races around the country and in the handful of close Senate and House races that will ultimately determine the control of Congress. The concern among Democrats about the nation's direction and the economy suggests that Democratic voters might be more motivated to cast their ballots on Tuesday and respond to the ambitious get-out-the-vote drives that have been organized by the Democratic Party, aimed in particular at voters who are distressed about the economy.�

Adam Nagourney is infamous for being able to write up a poll, no matter what it says, as bad for Republicans. And of course for that reason he's the NYT's go-to guy on poll-stories.

You think it's easy to spin a seven-point deficit on a polls as good news for Democrats? It's not. And that's why Nagourney will always have a job at the Times.

But it's not just him, of course. The Democrats' liberal media spirit squad is always cheerleading "Let's Get Rowdy" and "Be Aggressive," and yet they so infrequently manage a win.

posted by Ace at 01:14 PM

| Access Comments