A Catastrophic GOP Victory The Press Corps Decides That Republicans Lose Even if They Win.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/a-catastrophic-gop-victory-1414018921
The election trend must be moving toward the GOP because the media are predicting a disastrous result for Republicans on Nov. 4—if they win. The latest media trope is that Republicans are in such dreadful political shape that even victory would really mean catastrophic defeat.
The New York Times started this off a few weeks back with a piece arguing that a Congressional GOP sweep would be wonderful news for Hillary Clinton . She could then run against Congress in 2016. The success-is-failure theme has gained steam and in the latest iteration, by the liberal journalist Ron Brownstein of the Atlantic, the looming midterm results are “an obvious problem for Democrats—and perhaps an even larger one for Republicans.”
The arguments are that lower voter turnout in the midterms will cause Republicans to embrace the illusion of a mandate and ignore that they are doomed demographically as minorities become a larger share of the electorate. They will overreach on policy, dance to their no-compromise wing, and set up their 2016 nominee for inevitable defeat.
So Democrats will win if they keep their Senate majority but they also win if they lose it. You almost have to admire the ideological brass at work here, and it is always possible that this pre-defeat spin will turn out to be right.
Then again, imagine what the media will say if Republicans don’t take the Senate on Nov. 4. The immediate analysis will be that the GOP is so disliked, its “brand” so damaged, that it can’t win even when a Democratic President is unpopular, when the issues break their way, and when government incompetence is manifest. We suspect Republicans would prefer the agony of Senate victory to the ignominy of such a defeat.
We can’t predict how well Republicans would handle control of Congress. Perhaps they would be foolish enough to think they can govern solely from Capitol Hill and overreach. Or perhaps their Senators likely to run for President, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul , would play to Iowa-caucus conservatives in a way that makes it impossible to pass anything. The talk-radio right could frighten Republicans into another anti-immigrant binge.
But holding both houses of Congress would also open new opportunities that Harry Reid ’s Senate has blocked for four years. It would mean the end of a free pass for President Obama ’s judicial nominees, including for the Supreme Court. It would also mean Republicans could pass a budget that includes their priorities with a mere 51 Senate votes.
Above all, it would mean a chance to change the direction of America’s political conversation. That’s what happened in 2007 after the Pelosi-Reid Democrats swept the House and Senate. They revived spending as Keynesian stimulus, passed an energy bill that doled out billions in green-energy subsidies, and began investigations portraying business as villains that needed more regulation. They greased the policy wheels for a Democratic President in 2008.
A President can use his veto pen, but he also has to pick his spots lest he become the main obstructionist. A shrewd GOP leadership would be able to make at least incremental progress toward the party’s goals of faster economic growth, rising incomes, and more health-care choice.
The media know all of this, which may be the real reason so many are so eager to portray a GOP victory as defeat even before the votes are counted. Their real worry is that Republican gains in the House, and a sweep in the Senate, would represent a repudiation of six years of liberal governance. Their fear is that a GOP Congress might even succeed.
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