An August 14-17 poll of Ohio voters by Strategic Vision shows Bush/Cheney leading Kerry/Edwards by 49%-46%. But the trend since July 17-19th indicates that undecided voters declined from 8 to 5% and Kerry/Edwards increased from 44% to their current 46%
Thanks for signing up!
TDS Strategy Memos
Latest Research from:
tds-wwc-roundtable
Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
-
April 17: A Closer Look at the “Uniparty” Fable
RFK Jr. and MTG are using the same dismissive term for major-party differences. I took at look at this phenomenon at New York:
Partisan polarization has been steadily growing in the U.S. since roughly the 1960s. Ironically, during this time, the complaint that the two parties are actually too alike has become increasingly prevalent. For years, right-wing Republicans have called people in the GOP who don’t share their exact degree of ideological extremism RINOs, or “Republicans in name only,” suggesting they’re basically Democrats. Left-wing Democrats occasionally echo these epithets by calling (relative) moderates “DINOs,” “ConservaDems,” or — back when maximum resistance to George W. Bush was de rigueur — “Vichy Democrats.”
Today the term “Uniparty” has come to denote the idea that Democrats and Republicans are actually working for the same evil Establishment enterprise, their loudly proclaimed differences being a mere sham. This contention was the culmination of a five-page letter Marjorie Taylor Greene recently sent her Republican colleagues calling for House Speaker Mike Johnson’s removal, unless he changes his ways instantly. She wrote:
“With so much at stake for our future and the future of our children, I will not tolerate this type of ‘leadership.’ This has been a complete and total surrender to, if not complete and total lockstep with, the Democrats’ agenda that has angered our Republican base so much and given them very little reason to vote for a Republican House majority …
“If these actions by the leaders of our conference continue, then we are not a Republican party – we are a Uniparty that is hell-bent on remaining on the path of self-inflicted destruction.”
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also leaned heavily into the Uniparty idea in his recent speech introducing running-mate Nicole Shanahan:
“Our independent run for the presidency is finally going to bring down the Democrat and Republican duopoly that gave us ruinous debt, chronic disease, endless wars, lockdowns, mandates, agency capture, and censorship. This is the same Trump/Biden Uniparty that has captured and appropriated our democracy and turned it over to Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard, and their other corporate donors. Nicole Shanahan will help me rally support for our revolution against Uniparty rule from both ends of the traditional Right vs. Left political spectrum.”
The Uniparty claim is ridiculous, of course, as FiveThirtyEight’s Geoffrey Skelley demonstrates:
“[O]ur current political moment is arguably farther away from having anything resembling a uniparty than at any other time in modern U.S. history. Based on their voting records, Democratic and Republican members of Congress have become increasingly polarized, and both the more moderate and more conservative wings of the congressional GOP have moved to the right at similar rates. Meanwhile, polling suggests that Americans now are more likely to view the parties as distinct from one another than in the past, an indication that the public broadly doesn’t see a uniparty in Washington. Although there are areas where the parties are less divided, the broader uniparty claim is at odds with our highly polarized and divided political era.”
Kennedy’s subscription to the Uniparty notion is understandable on two points. The first is that his candidacy is vastly more likely to tilt the 2024 presidential campaign in the direction of one of the two major-party candidates (likely Donald Trump, according to most of the polling) than to actually succeed in winning the presidency. Maintaining that it really doesn’t matter whether it’s Biden or Trump running the country is essential to maintaining RFK’s appeal as November approaches and the futility of his bid becomes clearer. Second, Kennedy’s pervasive conspiracy-theory approach to contemporary life lends itself to the argument that the apparent gulf between the two major parties is a ruse disguising a sinister common purpose.
MTG’s Uniparty contention also reflects dual motives. In part she is simply echoing Trump’s weird but useful contention that he’s an “outsider” battling a Deep-State Establishment that secretly controls both parties, which is pretty rich since he dominates the GOP like Genghis Khan dominated the Golden Horde. But there is a marginally more legitimate sense in which key elements of the two parties really are in line with each other on isolated issues that happen to obsess Greene, such as aid to Ukraine. If you are a hammer, as the saying goes, everything looks like a nail.
The same is true of other implicit Uniparty claims, particularly those made by progressive pro-Palestinian protesters who adamantly argue that the need to smite “Genocide Joe” Biden for his pro-Israel policies outweighs all the reasons it might be a bad idea to help Trump return to the White House (including the fact that Trump is palpably indifferent to Palestinian suffering). If the two parties do not appear to differ on your overriding issue, then the fundamental reality of polarization can fade into irrelevance.
So we’re likely to hear more Uniparty talk even as Democrats and Republicans head toward another highly fractious election with very high stakes attributable to their differences.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4436481,00.html
“Democrats who say they are concerned with how the world views the nation have formed a group to run television ads and campaign against Bush. Advisers to the group, Safer Together 04, include former Clinton national security adviser Anthony Lake.
The group will run a TV ad starting Friday initially on cable channels in Washington, D.C., before expanding to battleground states next week. The ad, to air during the Olympics, features a lifelong Republican who says he won’t vote for Bush again. It counters an Olympics-themed ad Bush is running”
Its obviously beginning to happen. People are banding together is cells and are doing cooperative things to make this system work.
The scientists have also banded and are asking for a meeting with both Bush and Kerry. Kerry says he is ready. Bush’ team is yet to comment.
This is the best approach towards making things happen for November. Now, each cell and target a different message and a different sector of the electorate and yet, each cell’s message will cross fertilise because each segment of the electorate has multiple interests.
If this trend picks up momentum and is joined by the efforts from the 527s and the DEMs and the Kerry campaign, then the coming months will be full of great things. You can also bet that things will get so nasty that we might have to turn off the TV when the kids are around. Lies will flow like a stream after a torrent of rain and it will all add to the excitement.
In truth and in fact, if the cell concept of the Kerry supporters gets a roller coaster effect, then the republicans will have to rally their troopers quickly and get a response in place… and it just might be late.
I still think that the process must continue and that the rank and file still need to ensure that they chat a bit with the neighbours and the aunts and uncles and make sure that everyone gets a ride to a booth… there is must that can be done.. and I am sure that the rank and file will get even busier in the coming weeks.
I am enjoying the fact that there are a number of small groups (cells) who are carrying the message and refuting the Bush claims.
Cheers
heroditus, I wonder that, too. Another poll in Ohio has Kerry up 2 among likely voters, just like Gallup.
heroditus, I wonder that, too. Another poll in Ohio has Kerry up 2 among likely voters, just like Gallup.
Economist weekly poll out (Aug 16-18):
Kerry over Bush 48-41 in 3-way race.
See:
http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/YouGovG.pdf
Also, Bush has broken another barrier, down to 39% approval. If that holds, he’s sunk.
I would appreciate it if someone would discuss the credibility (or lack of it) of Strategic Vision polls. This is an out and out Republican outfit which has started deluging the world with its polls in the past month or so. It seems to me quite likely that it is just another arm of the Bush re-election campaign which has been assigned the task of making it look like he is not sinking like a rock. It bothers me that so many blogs seem to give it credibility. On Ohio, for example there are a number of other polls just out which show Kerry with a lead – in the case of Gallup a 10 point lead among registered voters. I think people should consider whether or not they want to give Strategic Vision any credibility and any publicity. I think it is a fraud.