Why Republicans Aren't Worried

The attempted destruction of Obamacare has been halted. The government shutdown and the phony debt ceiling crisis are over for now and Democrats are feeling pretty good about themselves.  As the self-inflicted spending and debt crisis unfolded over the past weeks, I've received emails from progressive organizations saying how vulnerable the Republicans will be in the 2014 elections because of their shutdown.  The most optimistic of these groups speak of 30 vulnerable House seats. 

The logic seems sound.  Republican Party approval rates are its lowest in history.  The damage from the shutdown is real and continuing.  The financial ratings agency Standard & Poor estimates that the shutdown has taken at least $24 billion out of the economy.  The "shutdown caused it to cut its forecast of gross domestic product growth in the fourth quarter by at least 0.6 percentage point. The agency lowered its estimate for GDP growth to close to 2 percent from 3 percent." [Huffington Post, October 16]  Viewing the larger picture of the crisis-driven government that we've had since the Republican victories in the 2010 mid-term elections, the research firm Macronomic Advisers estimates that "the resulting fiscal policy uncertainty has directly harmed the American economy by increasing the unemployment rate by 0.6 percent, or the equivalent of 900,000 jobs."  The report also notes that that the "fiscal drag, in combination with heightened fiscal uncertainty, has slowed the annualized rate of growth in the nation's gross domestic product by as much as 1 percentage point since 2010." [CNBC]

Unfortunately, history leads to another conclusion.   In just 3 of the past 21 mid-term elections has the President's party gained seats in the House. The most seats ever gained by the President's party in these twenty one mid-term elections is 9. That was in 1934, in the early years of FDR's administration, in the midst of the Great Depression.   As for other government shutdowns, the 1996 presidential elections came less than a year after one of the more memorable (Gingrich vs. Clinton). Democrats picked up just 2 seats in the House. Add to this historical background the well-financed Republican campaign to pass voter suppression laws - laws aimed specifically at restricting the vote of Democratic Party constituents, their successful redistricting to maximize the number of safe Republican seats, and the Citizens United decision ... well you get the picture.

 

So, much as I'd like to believe the rosy predictions of progressives about the coming demise of the Republicans, I really don't think Republicans are too worried about the 2014 elections.  Memories are short and those affected the worst were probably going to vote Democratic anyway.  There are plenty of wedge issues that can be used to divide the country and Republicans are the proven masters of this.  The continuing resolution will only take us through January or February.  There will be plenty of time before the elections if the lunatics and extremists that control the Republican party want to shutdown the government and threaten another debt ceiling crisis.  I hope I'm wrong but this may not be the last we see of crisis-driven government or attempts to destroy "Obamacare."