I Told You So!

Always in great demand, the ol' Bloviator is off again to speak to somebody about something or other, but before he goes, he couldn't resist stopping by to say that for once his venture into prognostication has not ended in total disaster. Up until Tuesday, the Democrats held 255 seats in the House of Representatives to the Republicans' 178 (with two seats vacant.) The OB ventured that, when the smoke cleared, the GOP was likely to wind up just south of the Democrats' total.  Sure enough, with several races yet in doubt, the Repubs are sitting at 242 to the Dems' 185. In the Senate meanwhile, while yours very truly foresaw the Republicans grabbing hold of six new posts, they actually claimed only five.  Here in Georgia, the ethics-challenged former Congressman Nathan Deal bested his Democratic opponent Roy Barnes by 10 points, signaling that where statewide offices are concerned the Dems are pretty much dead meat hereabouts.  Up yonder in Delaware meanwhile, the goofball Sarah Palin wannabe Christine O'Donnell lost by a 16 point margin, a divide still much too narrow to instill any confidence in the wisdom or intelligence of the electorate in those parts. Much as the OB further prophesied, 22 of the 61 House seats taken over by the Republican are in the South.  This brings the southern Democratic membership in that body down to 37, meaning that nearly half the Dixie delegation is now black.  As I said two years ago, you never know what one election means until the next election has come and gone.  I should've added that even then you can't really be certain, of course.  Still, from the looks of the foregoing numbers, (plus the New York Times breakdown showing that 393 of 435 congressional districts nationwide voted more Republican Tuesday than they did two years ago), I'd say there's at least reason to suspect that we may have made too much of the 2008 results which seemed to suggest a pronounced shift to the left.  In a classic example of wishful thinking posing as journalism, a few days after the 2008 vote New York Times writer Adam Nossiter declared with ill-concealed satisfaction that the South had once again been banished to the margins of American politics, where it's so obviously belonged. With its white voters "leaving the mainstream so decisively," Nossiter predicted, "the Deep South and Appalachia will no longer be able to dictate that winning Democrats have Southern accents or adhere to conservative policies on issues like welfare and tax policy."

            In reality "the Deep South and Appalachia" had never been in a position to "dictate" the accent or policy stance of a Democratic presidential candidate even when Carter won the nomination in 1976. Moreover, although Bill Clinton had carried four southern states in both 1992 and 1996, his successful appeal to moderate whites outside the region as something other than the traditional Democratic "tax and spend liberal" meant that, like the broad-based Republican triumphs of the previous decade, neither of his victories required a single southern vote.  My point here, however, is not that Nossiter's history was off, but that so-called political analysis is also very susceptible to wishful thinking.  While the Democrats have every reason

to engage in some sober soul-searching after Tuesday, I'd say the Republicans may have less to celebrate than they think.

 

P.S.  The OB apologizes for the shameless plug, but he will be at Barnes & Noble on the Atlanta Highway here in Athens next Tuesday, November 9 at 7 PM talking about and signing within his new book.  He welcomes his faithful followers to stop by just to say "Howdy" even if you don't choose to buy a book, thereby denying the OB the wherewithal to buy his precious new grandson a suitable Christmas present.

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This page contains a single entry by Jim Cobb published on November 4, 2010 10:13 AM.

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