Dangers Of Overconfidence
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Stuart Rothenberg writes that some Republicans are taking a more balanced, sober view of their chances this fall:
In fact, GOP political consultants and strategists aren’t popping champagne corks yet. Instead, they worry about the euphoria on the right and believe that the party has a long way to go before it can nail down a big win in the midterm elections.
Some Republican operatives are openly concerned about the party’s tactical disadvantages, most notably its financial position. Others fear that circumstances could change, robbing the GOP of its strategic advantage.
This is an appropriately cautious view to take. Consider what we have been seeing in just the last week. One of the few House Republicans with any coherent policy views, Paul Ryan, made an impressive budget proposal that his own leadership cannot run away from fast enough. In his first Q&A, Scott Brown simply ignored questions that pointed out the contradiction of supporting across-the-board tax cuts and demanding debt reduction, and it is this position of no taxes/no debt/no cuts that Republican leaders have been adopting. Shelby’s blanket hold may be something that only insiders and activists notice, but it contributes to the overall picture that the minority party is unreasonable, petty and not fit to govern. This is not a party on the verge of a dramatic return to power.
This is the problem the Tories have run into in every general election since 1997. The public may be furious with Labour, but the Tories have not yet capitalized on that discontent when control of the national government is at stake. As horrible as the governing party has been, the Tories kept failing to regain the public’s trust, and they could not demonstrate they were capable of competence in government. Only now do they seem to have a real chance, 13 years later amid a nearly complete meltdown by Labour, and even now victory is not guaranteed. Should the Tories fall short yet again, the recriminations and score-settling will consume the party for years. This is something Republicans should keep in mind.
The danger of overconfidence regarding the midterm results is not just that it can make the GOP complacent, arrogant and deaf to the real concerns of voters. It creates unduly high expectations that will make even an average or decent election result seem more like a defeat. The more the GOP hypes its chances of retaking one or both houses this year, the more devastating the failure to do so will be. After GOP-friendly analysts and pundits have been telling the tale of 1974 or 1994-style losses for the presidential party all year, modest gains will make it feel as if the election is a third straight repudiation of Republicans, because their leaders will have made the election a referendum on their readiness to be in the majority rather than a referendum on the administration.
The psychology of this is simple but very important. As in anything else, if performance exceeds expectations the reputation of the company, party or individual improves much more than if the performance falls short. If Republicans succumb to the temptation to believe that they are going to do something that is virtually unprecedented in electoral politics, and if they begin telling themselves and everyone else that they believe this, it will do them no good after the midterms for them to say that they had set their sights too high. Declaring that they can win 40 House seats, as several members of the leadership seem to think they can, they had better win at least 30 or be considered complete failures. If they were wiser and set the bar much lower at 15 or 20 seats, 25 pick-ups would look much more impressive.
Like the “center-right nation” story that many Republicans keep telling themselves, the belief that Scott Brown’s win heralds a massive anti-Democratic wave gives the GOP the false assurance that all they need to do is show up and reap the rewards. This means that they will continue to neglect the preparation needed to win back many of the seats they are targeting, and this complacency will compound the financial disadvantages they already have.
Filed under: politics
Both “1 and 99″, and “49 and 51″ average to 50.
Americans are not centrist, they are bipolar.
The problem with both parties is they try to govern between 40 and 60, when not doing things like giving taxpayer largess to banksters so they can get bonuses. But they need to be 80 or 20.
This entire meme amazes me. While voters may have turned on Democratic lawmakers because they couldn’t produce the instant gratification they demand those same Democrats still lead Republicans by 10% or more. The voters may be stupid but they are not stupid enough to not realize who it was who got them into this mess in the first place. All we hear from the Republicans is tax cuts – we had tax cuts and all they did was improve the economy in India and China.
The idea that the Repuyblicans will take back the Senate is insane. The Republicans will be luck to hold onto their 41 seats that they have now. The Republicans will pick up a few seats in the House but odd wins such as Cao will convert back to being Democratic seats.
Instead of worrying about the irrelevan Republicans why not think about the shifts in the Democratic Party. Will more left leaning progressives begin to replace moderates or will more moderates win election. Will the CBC and CHC moderate their stances or become more radical?
Until someone can demonstrate a model where the Republicans are relevant into the future, who cares what if the Republicans win a couple of seats. Just because the Democrats are having problems in accepting responsibility for governance, does not mean that the Republicans have become relevant again.
As a Democrat, I hope you are right in thinking that Republican gains will be minimal. But I doubt it. Look at recent senate polls – they are brutal for the Democratic party. I think it’s quite possible, even bordering on likely, that Democrats will lose the senate this year, and I’m sure the house too.
Not getting specific about budget cuts is smart politics, for reasons well explained by public choice theory.
As I’ve said before, entitlement reform will come when it has to, and both parties will give each other cover. In the meantime, the best course for fiscally conservative politicians is to talk up the goals of cutting both taxes and the budget, without making themselves targets of special interests by getting specific about where to cut spending.
I used to be sceptical of ’starve the beast’ tax cutting, but I think recent history has vindicated it. The Reagan era tax cuts led to the Perot movement, which put pressure on both parties to cut the deficit. This led to the relative fiscal conservatism of the Clinton era, with the budget at least nominally balanced and the federal bite of the national income falling to 18.4%.
ronbeas:
The voters may be stupid but they are not stupid enough to not realize who it was who got them into this mess in the first place.
Two points.
First, I don’t think the blame for ‘this mess’ can be laid wholly on the Republicans. The Democrats have had majorities in both houses since 2006. It’s not as if any Democratic leader saw the crisis coming and proposed preventative measures that Republicans thwarted. Also, Democratic fingerprints are on some measures that arguably contributed to the housing bubble. I think that as with 9/11, many people recognize that both parties dropped the ball to some extent.
Second, to the extent that people do blame national Republican lawmakers, it won’t be those lawmakers who will be challenging incumbent Democrats. It will be people who have earned popular trust by their conduct in local and state offices, like Brown in Massachusetts.
Of course the Republicans will make gains in November. The out party almost always gains in the off year, and the very size of the Democrats’ majorities means they are holding many precarious seats in red states and districts. The Democrats own the economy now, which many improve by November but probably not by a lot. And that’s before the argument over whether any swing voters are troubled by Obama spending a quarter of the national income.
OTOH I agree that regaining the majority in either house is a long shot.
which many improve by November
Darn. In case it’s not obvious, that was supposed to be ‘may improve’.