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.
While Gallup is finding Bush comfortably ahead of Kerry in Wisconsin, Sen Russ Feingold (D-WI) is ahead by more than 20 over his GOP challenger. I know we’re famous for ticket-splitting, but it’s not very likely that we’d go overwhelmingly for a liberal like Feingold AND go for Bush. Gallup is no longer worthy of reading or reporting.
Dana, you speak of the love that I dare not speak its name – the SWEEP.
I hope it is coming, and I agree with your logic.
I’ve been telling anyone who will listen we are going to win by 5 million votes.
I hope we have enough to take back the House. We have to stop those crazy rightwingers by rooting out their nest.
The intensity on both sides is intense. I doubt that there will be a Democratic majority in either the House or the Senate.
But the intensity on the side of the Democrats is a good thing. The Republicans have had good turnout for years, but not the Democrats. I’m hoping that there will be some surprises on Nov 2nd.
Excerpt from James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans:
“We have decided that we’ll try Rumsfeld working with Gallup. He went to school with George [Gallup] Jr. at Princeton,” Colson told the president in July 1971. Nixon and Colson were eager to try to influence the results of major pollsters, notably Gallup and Harris, perhaps getting them to phrase their questions or to present their results in ways that were helpful to Nixon. “I mean, if the figures aren’t up there, we don’t want them to lie about it,” Nixon explained to Colson at one point. “They can trim them a little one way or another.” [Note 40: Nixon phone call to Colson, July 23, 1971, conversation 6-197, Nixon tape collection, National Archives.] …
RUMSFELD: Say, I want to just report, sir, about my conversation with George Gallup [Jr.].
NIXON: Oh yeah, you went to school with him, didn’t you?
RUMSFELD: I did. And I kind of want to be awful careful about telling people around the building that I’m talking to him. Because all he’s got in his business is his integrity.
Rumsfeld then informed Nixon an upcoming Gallup Poll would show that the president’s popularity had recently gone up. [Note 41: Nixon conversation with Rumsfeld, October 19, 1971, conversation 11-135, Nixon tape collection, National Archives.]
http://www.ufppc.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=759&Itemid=2
Okay, call me paranoid, but maybe Gallup is deliberately”gaming its polls to give cover to the Republicans who appear to be doing their dead-level best to steal the election in Florida and in Ohio. If Bush “miraculously” pulls ahead by four or five points on election day, the media will simply point to these convenient Gall-up polls, announce Bush would have won anyways—look at those Gallup polls–tell Democrats that they should just Get Over It.
I’m predicting a Kerry victory—I think just too many Democrats will show up in the polls for the GOP to scare off or intimidate or spin away. And I also predict that Gall-up won’t be short of clients. CNN will continue to buy their services. Or (worst-case scenario) Gall-up will lose a few media contracts, but be more than compensated by all the new right-wing think tank business.
Question: Has any pollster come up with a methology for correlating the intensity of support for a candidate or party with final results?
In 1994 polls showed a fairly close Congressional election, but there was great intensity among Republicans (remember the “revenge of the white men?”) and they won Congress.
In 1986, however, there was greater intensity among Democrats, something not found in polls, and you had some huge upsets, like Wyche Fowler in Georgia.
My own guess on intensity shows it off the charts on the Democratic side, slightly elevated on the Republican. This points toward a huge Democratic swing, absolute control of Congress and a landslide for Kerry.
But I’m not a statistician, and I don’t know how you could measure it with a poll.
Any thoughts?
The Bushites are scared. Bush visited WI again today. Even the Rep that was on NPR admitted that WI appears to be trending towards Kerry Edwards.
Isn’t the best evidence that this is total horse—– the fact that Bush is campaigning frenetically in these states. I would have thought that 9% would mean going somewhere really close.
CNN & USA Today must fire Gallup
If this election proves that the Gallup methodology is flawed and their flaws show a tilt to one side then we should compell CNN & USA Today to fire Gallup. Recently CNN interviewed Gallup and asked him about the poll discrepencies…his answer was that their LV model was better. When asked about the ‘bandwagon effect’ (do polls effect how people view the candidates and do they become a Self-fulfilling Prophecy Frank actually said “would that be a bad thing?..people should factor polls into their decisions”.
Therefore if they turn out to be ‘idiots’ we should immediately do to CNN & USA Today what we did to Sinclair and force them to drop Gallup
Ok, it’s only a week before the elction and my paranoia is running rampant. Could it be that the Gallup poll is providing cover for rampant electronic voting fraud?
Happy Halloween!
Kilroy
Gallup is really walking the plank on this election. But a lot of the blame rests on CNN and USATODAY for spreading the baloney poll results around and paying Gallup a lot of $. An important goal is to try to get CNN and USATODAY to dissociate themselves from Gallup. It’s impossible for this election, but possible for the future.
Actually they will look like geniuses or SHILLS. I don’t think there’s a lot of doubt about which, but we’ll know in a week.
Read The Vulcans. There is chapter about Rumsfeld’s rise during the Nixon Administration. One of his duties during Dick’s re-election was to game the Gallup brothers. While Rummie wouldn’t get the Gallup poll to lie, he would get advance warning of the poll’s findings.
Seems this year, he is getting the Gallup poll to lie.
Their huge pro-GOP sample bias in Florida certainly speaks for itself. However, what about the latest Gallup poll for Ohio, which was released a day after their latest Wisconsin poll:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/polls/2004-10-21-ohio-poll.htm
It showed Kerry up 48-47 among LVs, and a startling 50-44 Kerry lead among RVs! Huh? Most Ohio polls are looking pretty good for Kerry, but 50-44? Isn’t that a bit much?