TNR’s Michael Crowley noted today that Republicans are already trying to preemptively spin Democratic election victories, insisting that the Dems’ success will come without a mandate. From the far-right Washington Times:
“If the Democrats win, it will have all the elements of a Forrest Gump victory. In other words, things swirling around them over which they were barely aware,” independent pollster John Zogby said, referring to the slow-thinking movie character who always succeeded, but without any grand design in mind.
“There will not be a proactive agenda that wins this for them. I don’t know if the electorate sees the Democrats as having an alternative to the Bush plan. They’ve put it out, but the party’s leadership hasn’t led with it.”
Three points. First, I’ll concede that the winds may be at the Democrats’ backs this year, but most of that is a result of public disgust and disappointment with the GOP. Dems are clearly more popular than in previous years, but that’s probably because Republicans are doing such a bang-up job of making us look good.
Second, it’s true that the Dems’ policy agenda hasn’t gotten much in the way of ink, but does that really matter? As Tim Grieve noted, in the run-up to the 1994 elections, less than a third of the country have even heard of the Contract with America, and far fewer actually liked its tenets. It didn’t much matter. People wanted a change, so they voted for one.
And third, does the right really want to debate the merits of governing with a mandate? If memory serves, their guy came in second in a presidential election and governed as if he’d won 48 states. If Dems take control of Congress, questions about whether the party has a mandate will be laughable.
That doesn’t mean we won’t hear them, of course, but they’ll be pretty ridiculous.