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Tuesday, January 31, 2017

A Really High Stakes Bet

As I posted a few minutes ago, the Democrats in the senate are taking the low road.  They are actually boycotting a committee vote to prevent the approval of two cabinet nominees.  Meanwhile, they are in perpetual melt-down mode in response to everything that President Trump does.  It is a very high stakes bet that they are making.

In 2018, there will be 33 senators up for re-election.  These 33 include only 8 GOP senators with another 25 who are Democrats.  That makes the 2018 elections a very hard road for the Democrats to travel.  Even worse for them, there are ten states in which the senator up for re-election is from one party and the state was carried by the presidential candidate of the other party in 2016.  Nine states have Democrat senators but were carried by Donald Trump.  One state has a Republican up for re-election but was narrowly carried in 2016 by Hillary Clinton.  There's also one more state (Maine) that split its electoral votes in 2016 but which has a senator who caucuses with the Democrats.  If things are going favorably for the country in November of 2018, this could be a recipe for disaster for the senate Democrats.

Think of it this way:  any election for the senate would always be affected by the national trends.  Individual senators, however, would be able to point to their achievements or principled views to try to keep a majority of state voters supporting them.  After playing everything like shrieking crazies and using childish tactics, however, it will be impossible for them to pretend suddenly to be principled, calm and thoughtful senators who are willing to work with the other side for the good of the country.  If the Democrats' attempts to stop Trump and the Republicans are perceived as moves that hurt the country, they will go down quickly in a big, big loss.  On the other hand, if the Democrats are seen as being successful in preventing the Trump agenda and that is considered a bad thing, they will also go down.  Only if the Democrats convince the American people that they have successfully stopped a dangerous plan that would damage the country will their candidates succeed. 

The real question is how many people out there across the country will see the screaming and crying and childish moves as something to support and approve.  We've watched the collective meltdown on the left after the Trump order on stopping terrorists.  For the Democrats, it seems to be the first step towards Armageddon.  For voters across the country as a whole, however, Trump's move is something supported by a margin of 57 to 33% according to the polls.  The outbreak of crazy opposition may play well to the Democrats' base and their big financial supporters like George Soros, but it will alienate voters across the country.  While that may all be forgotten by 2018, continuing nonsense like today's committee vote boycott will have an impact.  The elections in 2018 could easily see Republicans pick up six, seven or more seats in the senate.  That would leave the Democrats with little chance to regain control for years to come.  As I said above, the Democrats are placing a very high stakes bet.  Right now, it sure seems that the odds are against them.

1 comment:

fastcarken said...

In a poker game I would not want to be holding the DEM Senators cards.
The WILD card WAS Elected and He is holding 4 ACES and a Wild Card
-------TRUMP Card--------