With Labor Day disposed of, you could say the political season is now in full flower, if you choose to compare a season promising to engulf us in nasty negative advertising to a sweet-smelling garden.
If not at all sweet, the season will be short, a mere 56 days between Labor Day and Election Day. This is considerably and mercifully shorter than the pre-season politicking that feels as if it began with the election of a new president nearly two Novembers ago — because it did.
As the season began, we were treated to two very different predictions of likely outcomes. We were given the awful-for-Democrats analysis of the celebrated prognosticator Larry Sabato, the University of Virginia political scientist who is rarely wrong, and the rosy scenario of Connecticut’s own John Larson, who claims his party can overcome the odds and do what Harry Truman did to Tom Dewey 62 years ago.
Sabato is a nonpartisan analyst, who, as we noted, really knows how to analyze. Larson is a pure partisan, who represents a Congressional district that has been safely Democratic since 1958 and mostly Democratic for the 50 years before that. He is also the fourth ranking Democrat in the House and has a lot to lose in the event of the anticipated Republican takeover of that body.
But, claimed Larson just before Labor Day, as he paraphrased another well-known Hartford resident and occasional Democrat, Mark Twain, “reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated.â€
Perhaps clinging to the adage that voters dislike all members of Congress but their own, Larson sees his party retaining both the House and Senate by individualizing each campaign, fighting each one, “race by race across the nation.†He is entitled to his vision.
Sabato has a rather different view and, as noted above, his prognosticating record is something to behold. In 2006, when the Democrats regained control of Congress, he had the exact number of Democratic gains in the House and Senate. Two years ago, he was one point off in the final electoral vote count for president.
And whether they individualize the races, district by district, or disinvite President Obama from their turf or pander to the Tea Party, Sabato sees Democrats losing 47 seats in the House and eight or nine in the Senate.
This would mean President Obama would have a House Republican majority that won’t work with him, rather than a House Republican minority that didn’t work with him.
The Republicans need to pick up 10 seats to have technical control of the Senate, but with eight or nine more votes, the party’s irresponsible use of the veto would only intensify.
It’s hard to argue with Sabato’s reasoning: “Conditions have deteriorated badly for Democrats. The economy seems rotten with little chance of a substantial comeback by Nov. 2. Unemployment is very high, income growth sluggish and public confidence quite low. The Democrats’ self-proclaimed ‘Recovery Summer’ has become a term of derision.â€
The good news, then, for Congressman Larson, is only personal. Even with his party losing 47 House seats, his won’t be one of them. The bad news is that if 47 Democrats lose their seats, his company of fellow Democrats in the Connecticut delegation will probably be severely reduced — to Rosa DeLauro.
Dick Ahles is a retired broadcast journalist from Simsbury. He may be reached by e-mail at dahles@hotmail.com.
