With fewer than 100 days left before the Nov. 7 election, certain assumptions can now be made, contingent upon the absence of a cataclysmic event.
First, the political climate will be extremely hostile to Republican candidates. Second, while Republicans benefited from turnout in 2002 and 2004, this time voter turnout will benefit Democratic candidates. And third, the advantages that the GOP usually has in national party spending will be significantly less than normal.
In terms of the political climate, the facts are clear. All of the traditional diagnostic indicators in major national polls taken in the past 10 days show numbers consistent with an electoral rout.
In the latest Cook Political Report/RT Strategies poll, conducted last Friday through Sunday among 809 registered voters, only 27 percent said the country was headed in the right direction and 63 percent said it was off on the wrong track. In polling for NBC and the Wall Street Journal, conducted July 21-24 and for CBS and the New York Times, taken July 21-25, the right direction numbers were 27 and 28 percent, respectively, while wrong track results were 60 and 66 percent respectively. These numbers are about the same as they were at this point in 1994 and going into Election Day that year.
In the past I've been hesitant to believe this, but given this latest minimum wage nonsense by the Congressional Republicans I'm ready to believe it.
It is interesting that cook mentioned the 1994 election (often called the "Republican Revolution") that swept the GOP into majority power in both houses of Congress. Back then the Republicans were promising Americans principled conservatism. Lower taxes. Less government regulation. Less government spending. Less government period, and more individualism and personal responsibility.
What have we gotten? Well, Republicans have made progress on some of those things, but mostly it seems as though the conservative Republicans who were swept into office in 1994 (along with those who have been elected to office since) do little more than pay lip-service to the core conservative principles they campaigned on.
While not necessarily the worst of the government spending problems, earmark spending has been rampant in the Republican-controlled congress with Republicans themselves (see: Senator Ted Stevens and his "bridge to nowhere") requesting the worst of it. Entitlement spending (the worst of the government's spending problems) has also grown under Republicans, with President Bush backing - and the Republican-controlled Congress passing - the largest increase in entitlement spending in several decade in the Medicare prescription drug program.
Add into this the fact that Republicans have made almost zero progress on important issues like Social Security and tax reform, and have largely departed from the wishes of their conservative base on immigration reform, and you can begin to see where the GOP's electoral problems are coming from.
So what do Congressional Republicans do to fix all this? As a way of sticking it to the Democrats right before the 2006 campaign season begins in earnest? They create legislation that sticks American businesses across the nation in exchange for cutting the estate tax.
Now don't get me wrong, I oppose the estate tax and think it should be eliminated, but do I want to see it eliminated at the expense of having to deal with a massive hike in minimum wage? Absolutely not.
If the idea of putting control over the war on terror in the hands of people like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin and Ted Kennedy didn't make me want to hide in my basement and cry I'd abandon the Republicans altogether, because given recent developments they are not the party of conservatism.