What I don't get is: Congress is less popular than Bush because they didn't stop the war/stand up to Bush etc.The Democrats won Congress by replacing the Republicans in the South with Blue Dog Democrats.
But Bush should be less popular because he's the one persecuting the war in first place!
Is there something about U.S. citizens that I fail to grasp? Is it because they don't sympathise with people they view as wimpy (e.g., Congress).
Those Democrats who won in the South promised not to damage the war effort. This has disgusted 1/2 the Democrats. The Republicans are disgusted to begin with. The other 1/2 of the Democrats are disgusted with the disgusted Democrats and no one is interested in solving the overspending problem.
So you have the Republicans who still support Bush - 24% and no one who supports Congress.
There is also the wimp factor which underlies the attitude of the Southern Democrats. They come from a martial culture. It transcends Republican/Democrat.
In many ways the Republicans won the last election. Southern Democrats are closer to the Republicans than they are to San Francisco liberal Democrats.
Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values
As you note, the Dems did not take the House -- or the Senate -- because they won the ideological debate.
ReplyDeleteThey took the Congress because they ginned up three essentially meaningless scandals in the closing weeks of the campaign: Abramoffgate, Foleygate, and Macacagate.
Without the very small but significant incremental effect of those trivialities in a few key races, the GOP would have held both houses.
And you are right that many of the people who voted for a Dem candidate were voting for a conservative candidate, and not for the Reid-Pelosi clown show.