The gravity of the problem — and the challenge — facing the GOP heading into the upcoming elections is underscored by this post by John Hinderaker at Power Line:
Last night, I wrote a relatively optimistic post about the fundamental strength of the Republicans’ position going into the election. Take a look, though, at the poll results from yesterday and the day before, compiled at Real Clear Politics. It’s a sea of blue, with the Democratic candidate leading in just about every race for every office, nationwide. The polls can’t all be screwy, and if this batch are anywhere near right, they foretell a rout of astonishing proportions. Maybe that’s what the voters want; the Republicans have three weeks remaining to focus Americans on the serious issues at stake in the election.
If the GOP does indeed go down to a significant defeat, we predict that when the votes are counted it will show that the Republican party suffered a massive defection of independent voters. The idea of “mobilization elections” where its assumed independents are actually partisans who don’t want to admit it and therefore just focus on getting out your base is what has driven the White House and GOP strategy.
That isn’t really the case. In recent weeks, in travels throughout California and elswhere, yours truly has met a lot of independent voters and also disgruntled Republicans. The independent voters are quite angry. The question is how many of them will cast protest votes — straight anti-GOP votes down the line — or split their tickets and vote for Republican candidates that they feel are independent in thinking. Some Republicans also talk about casting a vote so that their party will be shaken up and have to make some changes.
BUT Powerline’s Hinderaker is correct: it would be foolish for anyone — Republican or Democratic — to try to sit down now and pre-write the election results in a post or story about a massive Democratic victory. Polls are snapshots; unforeseen events are bolts of lightning.
But there has been little effort by this administration, in politicaly stylistic terms, to reach out to independent voters — let alone to Democrats. The larger issue is whether getting elected and governing by polarizing the country is good for the country or democracy. People will disagree on this but here’s one undiplomatic view: it has been and is poison.
If you’ve read posts on this and other sites over the past few months, you’ve noticed that many Goldwater-type conservatives and people linked to the first Bush administration don’t like the way this administration operates politically or diplomatically.
If the Republicans go down to defeat bigtime it can be attributed to local factors but it will indeed be a verdict on the style of this administration — which has been more a Talk Show Administration than a Unity Government Administration.
When listeners don’t like a polarizing talk show, they can switch to another station.
The question is whether voters switch to another station on Election Day in sufficient numbers so the ratings of the rejected talk show go down enough that The Powers That Be might realize another format might be wiser.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.