Having closely watched congressional developments over the last few weeks, I’ve concluded that one much-discussed Democratic tactic for dealing with Trump 2.0 is probably mistaken, as I explained at New York:
No one is going to rank Mike Johnson among the great arm-twisting Speakers of the House, like Henry Clay, Tom Reed, Sam Rayburn, or even Nancy Pelosi. Indeed, he still resembles Winston Churchill’s description of Clement Atlee as “a modest man with much to be modest about.”
But nonetheless, in the space of two weeks, Johnson has managed to get two huge and highly controversial measures through the closely divided House: a budget resolution that sets the stage for enactment of Donald Trump’s entire legislative agenda in one bill, then an appropriations bill keeping the federal government operating until the end of September while preserving the highly contested power of Trump and his agents to cut and spend wherever they like.
Despite all the talk of divisions between the hard-core fiscal extremists of the House Freedom Caucus and swing-district “moderate” Republicans, Johnson lost just one member — the anti-spending fanatic and lone wolf Thomas Massie of Kentucky — from the ranks of House Republicans on both votes. As a result, he needed not even a whiff of compromise with House Democrats (only one of them, the very Trump-friendly Jared Golden of Maine, voted for one of the measures, the appropriations bill).
Now there are a host of factors that made this impressive achievement possible. The budget-resolution vote was, as Johnson kept pointing out to recalcitrant House Republicans, a blueprint for massive domestic-spending cuts, not the cuts themselves. Its language was general and vague enough to give Republicans plausible deniability. And even more deviously, the appropriations measure was made brief and unspecific in order to give Elon Musk and Russ Vought the maximum leeway to whack spending and personnel to levels far below what the bill provided (J.D. Vance told House Republicans right before the vote that the administration reserved the right to ignore the spending the bill mandated entirely, which pleased the government-hating HFC folk immensely). And most important, on both bills Johnson was able to rely on personal lobbying from key members of the administration, most notably the president himself, who had made it clear any congressional Republican who rebelled might soon be looking down the barrel of a Musk-financed MAGA primary opponent. Without question, much of the credit Johnson is due for pulling off these votes should go to his White House boss, whose wish is his command.
But the lesson Democrats should take from these events is that they cannot just lie in the weeds and expect the congressional GOP to self-destruct owing to its many divisions and rivalries. In a controversial New York Times op-ed last month, Democratic strategist James Carville argued Democrats should “play dead” in order to keep a spotlight on Republican responsibility for the chaos in Washington, D.C., which might soon extend to Congress:
“Let the Republicans push for their tax cuts, their Medicaid cuts, their food stamp cuts. Give them all the rope they need. Then let dysfunction paralyze their House caucus and rupture their tiny majority. Let them reveal themselves as incapable of governing and, at the right moment, start making a coordinated, consistent argument about the need to protect Medicare, Medicaid, worker benefits and middle-class pocketbooks. Let the Republicans crumble, let the American people see it, and wait until they need us to offer our support.”
Now to be clear, Congressional GOP dysfunction could yet break out; House and Senate Republicans have struggled constantly to stay on the same page on budget strategy, the depth of domestic-spending cuts, and the extent of tax cuts. But as the two big votes in the House show, their three superpowers are (1) Trump’s death grip on them all, (2) the willingness of Musk and Vought and Trump himself to take the heat for unpopular policies, and (3) a capacity for lying shamelessly about what they are doing and what it will cost. Yes, ultimately, congressional Republicans will face voters in November 2026. But any fear of these elections is mitigated by the realization that thanks to the landscape of midterm races, probably nothing they can do will save control of the House or forfeit control of the Senate. So Republicans have a lot of incentives to follow Trump in a high-speed smash-and-grab operation that devastates the public sector, awards their billionaire friends with tax cuts, and wherever possible salts the earth to make a revival of good government as difficult as possible. Democrats have few ways to stop this nihilistic locomotive. But they may be fooling themselves if they assume it’s going off the rails without their active involvement.
The premise of the argument you cite from Alan Abramowitz is flawed (“If you assume that Democrats, Republicans, and independents in their LV sample voted about the same way as Dems, Reps, and indies in their RV sample. . . .”).
Why assume that? We know that the population of registered voters is wealthier and more educated than the voting age population as a whole, and hence more economically conservative, and I think that it is a reasonable assumption that the same holds true for the difference between a wealthier and more educated group of “Likely Voters” who will eventually vote compared to everyone on the rolls (“Registered Voters”).
But this assumption is what Abramowitz’s own assumption (i.e. “if you assume”) flatly contradicts!
If RV’s are “assumed” to be as proportionately partisan as the LV’s, well, then the game is up right away. We democrats can then just “assume” that the lower polls figures for LV’s don’t matter — and ignore them!
After all, if the partisanship of LV’s and RV’s is identical, or assumed to be so, then why record the LV’s at all? Just do RV’s only and “assume” that’s such is an accurate measure of the predelictions of who will show up on Election Day!
But no pollster, certainly after Labor Day, would ever dream of doing that! Are we then to believe that concrete differences between RV’s and LV’s in the data are explained by some other factor than partisanship, and unrelated to it? And what factor might that be?
If the Democrats want the partisanship of those who will vote on Election Day to more closely resemble the partisanship of the population of Registered Voters (RV’s) as a whole, not to mention those of voting age as a group, then its candidates will do well to move the focus away from the National Security and more toward kitchen-table economics as we approach that day.
Assuming that RV’s and LV’s are of similar partisan composition is to blind oneself to the strategy needed for a good democratic turnout, and to guarantee disapppointment at the polls, when the difference between the opinions of Registered Voters and those of actual Voters is decisively and finally measured.
My main worry about this is that BCO4 have clearly been following a strategy of “activate the base”. I think they think that the swing voters are a lost cause. Maybe that’s just what they want us to think, but why else all the fuss about gay marriage? While I’ll admit that this poll seems an outlier, just how well IS the base activation plan working?
Normally, it’s a loser’s strategy, but Karl Rove is well above average when it comes to message.
It would be more effective if you simply wrote one sentence:
“Why is the Washington Post ignoring polls that show the race tied, and why it is using polls with slanted methodology?”
Like Kerry, you say too much and obfuscate your message.
If I’m offensive, I don’t mean to be, but I don’t have much time right now. I like your intention, but brief things said with PUNCH get printed and/or heard.
recognizing everthing said about the polls what i notice is the absolute inalibilty of kerry to make a simple point. listening to the sound bites on NPR today, bush made conscise points(even if they are basically lies) and kerry, even with the new W=wrong cheer, manges to deflate the emotion and add something extraneous,unneccessary, almost a non-sequitor, to each and every statement he makes, thus deadening the whole rhetorical pitch. maybe he ad libs, or the speeches are poorly written, i don’t know.
and may i add as a loyal democrat i could not tell you one thing kerry believes in , including his real opinion on iraq.
one more thing: i live on south johnson street, san marcos tx. ring any bells? LBJ lived in the house next door when he taugh school here. after 6 years as governor and 4 years as presidnt i can say with real authrity that bush exhibits all the criteria for a DSM-IV diagnoses of narcissitc and borderline persoanlity disorders.
I welcome feedback on the following draft letter to the Editor (in my case, to the WashPost), which I will probably send out tomorrow. Thanks in advance.
To the Editors:
What editorial standards does the Post use to decide which polls to report and what background information to provide to readers interested in understanding what they really show and don’t show?
It is bewildering as a reader to try to make heads or tails out of all manner of polls the Post reports, showing widely divergent results on where the race stands. Some use likely voters, some use registered voters. Is one a more reliable measure than the other? What assumptions do polling organizations use to determine at this point who is likely to vote, anyway, and are some of these more reasonable than others? What is the track record for different polling organizations in predicting past results, and does that figure into the Post’s editorial decisions about which ones to report?
Generally the only background context provided in the reporting of most of these polls is the dates on which they were taken and whether they were drawn from likely voters or registered voters. I’m trying to educate myself on what conclusions can reliably be drawn. But I don’t receive any help on this from the Post or, for that matter, most of the major media print and TV outlets. Instead, they seem to act as if they are in a race to see who can “report” first the latest poll–better, worse or worthless.
(end of draft letter)
Weeell… I don’t think so.
And I don’t think any polls are heavily rigged. There’s just a huge amount of flawed methodology around. And the media are happy to go with big differences and sudden turn-arounds.
Let’s just hope they’ll soon get tired of the “Bush has already won” story. After all it’s still almost two months to go. What do write about within one week, two weeks? “Bush is ahead, and he remains ahead. Isn’t it amazing how ahead he is..?” Yawn.
I guess by now they’d happily take any poll measuring some swing to Kerry. I’m actually not that worried if Kerry comes to the first debate as the underdog. Expectation game, expectation game!
Not that I’ve got any trust in the “liberal” media, of course. But in November 2000 they almost got tangled in their own spin about “loser Gore”. Those darn 350 votes in Florida!
OK, here’s a conspiracy theory for you: the media really are on our side, just like the conservatives have been saying all along! They’ve been spinning the polls heavily in Shrub’s favor so as to make the GOP overconfident, and to try to light the fire in JFK’s belly. Fox is naturally trying to counteract that.
Any better ones?
I think it’s kind of funny that Fox/Opinion Dynamics polls have consistently given Bush a smaller-than-average lead in recent horse-race matchups. I suppose you could concoct some switcheroo reverse-psychology conspiracy theory to explain this, but I think it supports Eugene “Pollkatz” Thiel’s recent conclusion that while these polls all have systematic biases, most of them are not intentional.
Gabby’s got it right. The key is not letting these polls discourage our voters. I’ve thought for a long time that the LV sampling is wrong–but how to get it across? I think the best thing is emphasizing how wrong the polls got it last time.
Rob
Three polls show it tied, including Fox and a Republican pollster, Rasmussen.
Zogby will show Bush with a 3-4 point lead tomorrow in his.
Bush did get some kind of bounce, but the way it is being exaggerated by the media, through their choice of this poll versus that poll, and the way it is being treated as conventional wisdom that Kerry has lost because of this, it is all very disturbing.
Whether or not Bush got the kind of huge bounce that Gallup and the media are trying to portray seems less important than the way it is being spun. Bush might actually gain support and Kerry lose support because of the spin that is being put on this.
It would be nice if we could get an alternative view on this into the media, but it doesn’t seem to be happening. All we hear is Matt Dowd’s spin.
Ruy, thanks for doing what you are doing. Keep it up. Please.
Read Ruy’s comments until you understand why your premise remains faulty.
Do you have nothing to say about the latest Post/ABC poll?
In any case: I appreciate your analyses of the polls, which are accurate and teach me how to read them. But don’t you get tired of it? WHATEVER the polls say, it’s OBVIOUS that Kerry left himself open to the RNC death-fest by not taking clear and compelling positions on terror and security. It’s OBVIOUS that he’s in trouble–obvious from the way he speaks, from the way Bush speaks, from the scope and tenor of the entire debate between them.
More interesting than the polls are Kerry’s recent attempts to take firmer stands and turn his campaign around. Do you think he’s going to get traction with his new strategies? Or is it too late to convince people that he represents a real and compelling and heartfelt and angry and focused national security alternative?
If it is too late, he’ll lose in the only polls that matter.
I get the argument about LV screens giving artificial boosts to Republicans, but why would Gallup and CBS (RVs) and Time and Newsweek all oversample Republicans? Could it be that the horrifying, lie-packed, but apparently effective, GOP convention convinced some previously independent or D respondents to consider themselves Republicans when pollsters called? This would “account” for Republican “oversample” but validate their results. (Maybe when the bounce fades, they’ll go back to calling themselves Ds or Is.)
You seemed happy to accept the poll a couple months ago that had a large portion of Democrats and wasn’t balanced for that. Now that not balancing for party shows Bush doing better, this is obviously bad methodology?
The convention gave a bounce to Bush because of how positively it conveyed his message. This isn’t hard to believe. So, the convention gave a bounce to Republicanism because of how positively it conveyed the Republican message.