This may be a little dated, but Jim Geraghty has absolutely captured something that conservatives need to remember as they listen to liberal-media outlets forecasting doom daily for the GOP in the midterms. Remember how every week in 2004 seemed like a bad week for Bush, save the week President Reagan died and the week of the GOP convention? Every week, the media suggested everything was another problem for Bush, and Kerry's weaknesses were ignored, or downplayed, or wiggled around, or were a vicious, lying, Rove-inspired attack? Geraghty reminds us not to read the media's wishful-thinking tea leaves into despair:
I don’t doubt that the GOP base is cranky and dissatisfied, and that most Democratic voters are as angry as the lovely lady the Washington Post profiled on Saturday.
I look at the Post this morning, and I read:
“Anger at Bush May Hurt GOP At Polls; Turnout Could Favor Democrats”
“Santorum Facing Multiple Obstacles In Reelection Bid; Ties to Bush May Hurt GOP Leader”“Pink Is The New Red; As President Bush's Popularity Falls, the Nation's Color Divide Adds a Few Hues”
Okay. I’m sure that’s the honest take of skilled observers of the electorate. But let me observe something.
Mickey Kaus loves to recall the New York Times story from the final Sunday before Election Day 2002, when the Times and CBS News released their final poll. They found that after months of Democrats and Republicans running neck-and-neck on the ‘generic ballot’ question, the GOP had jumped to a 47 percent to 40 percent advantage.
Six paragraphs in, Times reporter Adam Nagourney addressed the Republicans’ seven point bounce:
“That question, known as a generic ballot question, is a measure of national sentiment, and does not necessarily reflect how Americans will vote in the governor's races around the country and in the handful of close Senate and House races that will ultimately determine the control of Congress. The concern among Democrats about the nation's direction and the economy suggests that Democratic voters might be more motivated to cast their ballots on Tuesday and respond to the ambitious get-out-the-vote drives that have been organized by the Democratic Party, aimed in particular at voters who are distressed about the economy.”Similarly, the Election Day 2002 assessment of the political staff of ABC News, in their daily roundup of news and gossip called ‘The Note,’ was “Democrats start this day with ... a bit more mojo in the tight contests.”
So, in 2002, the storyline was, “Democrats were very motivated, their base was mobilized, and they’re set for some big wins.”
In 2003, the biggest race of the year was the California recall; as Mickey Kaus observed, two days before the vote, the Los Angeles Times declared, “Davis did get a boost this weekend: less than a week after two polls showed the recall and Schwarzenegger succeeding by a healthy margin, a Knight Ridder and NBC poll has detected a change in the tides.” A month before the election, the Times reported, “many voters are deciding the recall is unfair to Davis.” Two weeks before the election, the Times told readers, “aides to Gov. Gray Davis said they increasingly feel that they are within striking distance of saving the unpopular governor's job.”
The recall passed, 55 percent to 44 percent; Arnold won 48.6 percent to Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante’s 31.5 percent. So, in 2003, the storyline was, “Democrats were very motivated, their base was mobilized, and they’re set to pull out an unexpected victory against Arnold.”
In 2004, John Zogby declared, “the race is Kerry’s to lose,” on May 9. Chuck Todd of the Hotline wrote in the Washington Monthly that the election wouldn’t be close and that, “If you look at key indicators beyond the neck-and-neck support for the two candidates in the polls — such as high turnout in the early Democratic primaries and the likelihood of a high turnout in November — it seems improbable that Bush will win big. More likely, it’s going to be Kerry in a rout.”
ABC’s The Note declared on August 11 that it was “Kerry’s contest to lose.” The last day of the campaign, Jacob Weisberg wrote in Slate: “The Kerry campaign staff is confident, and it appears to be genuine, rather than bluster… By Monday evening, reporters from news organizations that have colleagues traveling with Bush started saying that the Bush folks have clammed up, or that they seem unusually tight. Kerry’s final events had a giddy air.”
So, in 2004, the storyline was, “Democrats were very motivated, their base was mobilized, and they’re set for some big wins.”
Are we starting to detect a pattern here?
