The Angry Left Loses Again
It won't be official until June, but Democrat Francine Busby--championed by MoveOn.org, Daily Kos, et al.--appears headed for defeat in her bid for California's 50th Congressional District, left vacant by the resignation of Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Although Busby finished first in yesterday's special election, she failed to break 50%, which means she will face a runoff against the second-place finisher. If current results hold, that will be former congressman Brian Bilbray, who has 15.15% of the vote.
Busby won 43.92% of the vote as of the latest tally, but she was one of only two Democrats on the ballot (the other got just 1.32%). Fourteen Republicans divided up a majority of the vote, and it seems highly unlikely that Busby will be able to manage a runoff majority in this GOP district. Jay Cost of RealClearPolitics.com has analysis:
The Democrats had everything going for them in this election. They had a corrupt felon-incumbent, they had low turnout, they had a well-financed challenger, and they had a divided Republican field. They had a district that has, in the last 10 years, skewed Republican less and less. And they only managed to get about 8% more of the vote when they needed 14% more. In 2004, Busby pulled in 36%. This time around she won 43.9%.
This is roughly equal to how both Kerry and Gore did in the district in the last 6 years--and roughly what you would expect a Republican-leaning district to do with an open seat election: stay Republican by a slightly smaller margin than when the incumbent is running. . . .
This is the type of seat the Democrats need to capture to take the House. As a matter of fact, they will have to win tougher seats than CA 50. With a Democratic loss there, it will become harder to see a Democratic victory in open seats like IL 06, MN 06 and WI 08. These are similar in their partisan composition to CA 50--but, unlike CA 50, none of them have a Republican incumbent tarnished by scandal and none of them have 13 Republican candidates fighting among themselves. These open seats need to switch to the Democrats for a change in control. A Democratic takeover of the House with CA 50, IL 06, MN 06 and WI 08 off the table is unimaginable.
From the other side, Markos "Kos" Moulitsas, noting that turnout was low despite "netroots" efforts on Busby's behalf, strikes a similar theme:
The Democratic leadership thinks that the GOP implosion will ipso facto translate to Democratic victories in November. But the electorate is universally disenchanted with politics.
The GOP has proven, time and time again, that it is incapable of governing. But Democrats have not shown they are any different. They do not paint any bright lines between them and us. And they do nothing to motivate the Democratic base to turn out and vote.
My sense of pessimism for November's elections only gets deeper the more elections show lower and lower turnout.
This seems right to us. Democrats keep hoping they'll win by default, and maybe they eventually will. But Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich did not win by default, though the public was quite dissatisfied with Democrats in 1980 and 1994 and with Republicans in 1992. They won by offering an appealing alternative. A Democratic candidate may emerge who can do that for them in 2008, but it's hard to see Harry Pelosi and Nancy Reid achieving it this year.
The refrain that Republicans are "incompetent," or, as Kos puts it, that they "are incapable of governing," is also problematic for the Democrats, for a couple of reasons. First, the constant repetition of it suggests that it probably isn't true. If the Bush administration were manifestly incompetent, it would hardly be necessary to say so at all, much less to shriek about it 24/7. The simple-minded and shrill cries of "Incompetence!" seem designed to drown out reflection about the difficulty of the challenges the country has faced during the past five years, from 9/11 to Iraq to Katrina.
The claim that Republicans "are incapable of governing" also poses an ideological problem for liberal Democrats, at least to whatever extent they remain committed to expansive and activist government. If it is true, as Kos claims, that one of the two major parties is "incapable of governing" and that the other one may well be too, that is a very powerful argument that government itself is too big and unwieldy. The Angry Left's cynicism about Republicans may be feeding public cynicism about government, diminishing the left's chances of realizing its ideological vision even if it one day manages to win some elections.
BY JAMES TARANTO
Wednesday, April 12, 2006 1:22 p.m. EDT
opinionjournal.com |
