Re-Election Prospects of Tea Party Freshmen in Congress

This critical election
(H. Brandt Ayers, Editorial, The Anniston Star, June 24, 2012)

The Kennedy-Johnson years changed American domestic life permanently and Ronald Reagan championed policies that were to install the wealthy as sovereign among the classes.

In the contest this year, those two broad sweeps of policy are in contention, Barack Obama as a devotee of the Kennedy-Johnson philosophy of helping the common man find a path to the middle class versus Mitt Romney, the Reagan disciple of the wealthy classes as guardians of the public treasure.

Democrats believe that if the Tea Party obstruction is removed they can restart the economy, repair our crumbling roads and bridges, start an Asian-style train system and use a portion of increased taxes to pay down the national debt.

On the other hand, the thoughtful conservative David Brooks writes, “This is the source of Republican extremism: the conviction that the governing model is obsolete. It needs replacing.”

The method for achieving fiscal and moral health chosen by over-the-moon, Tea Party conservatives is metaphorically similar to Medieval surgeons — keep cutting the patient to release the poison in his blood.

It would be wonderfully clarifying to have the voters choose by decisive margins which of the two policies will govern us for the coming decade or so.

Unfortunately, the numbers point to a close election, which means we’ll stumble along, the Tea Party holding Congress in a headlock, getting nothing done.

Unless … unless public disenchantment with the Tea Party turns to anger at the obstinate GOP minority holding its own leadership and the entire country in hostage to its narrow vision for the nation.

That vision is to give up on social programs and take our medicine like good Greeks or Irish. Austerity is good for you.

I’ll leave untangling the Greek situation to competent authorities, but the facts fall in Nobel economist Paul Krugman’s favor. He points out that the government has already shrunk.

He writes that “private-sector job growth has more or less matched the recovery from the last two recessions; the big difference is the unprecedented drop in public-sector jobs, which is now about 1.4 million less” than the average in the Bush years.

If we took our medicine as the Irish did, it would be the U.S. equivalent of losing 1.9 million teachers, police and firemen. Austerity did not bring recovery to Ireland, where the unemployment rate is 14 percent.

“Ireland’s experience shows that austerity in the face of a depressed economy is a terrible mistake to be avoided if possible,” according to Krugman.

Given an economic situation that seems to offer Obama only a choice between pain and more pain, is his defeat as much of a sure thing as Gov. Dewey’s was over Harry Truman in 1948?

Romney needn’t start writing his inaugural address quite yet. The country doesn’t really know him. His true beliefs are a mystery as he has taken positions on both sides of issues as governor of Massachusetts and presidential candidate.

Romney also is stuck with his endorsement of Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget, which calls for a 10 percentage-point reduction in taxes for the rich that would be paid for by a 66 percent reduction in spending for the old, the young, the poor and the sick.

The fall campaign will provide an opportunity for the cruelty of Ryan’s budget and for Romney’s revolving position on every side of every public controversy to be drilled into the public conscience, where moral and political judgments are made.

Further, although Obama’s own public approval is just short of 50 percent, more than 60 percent of the public disapproves of Congress. In addition, 28 percent strongly disapprove of the Tea Party while 46 percent have no opinion. That 46 percent is open to conversion.

It is hard to envision Obama replicating Truman’s whistle-stop campaign that assailed that “Do Nothing, No Good 80th Congress,” with crowds encouraging the embattled, down-to-earth president with shouts of “Give ’em Hell, Harry!”

But Obama can appeal to the majority that believes Bush was the author of our economic miseries. I can imagine a thousand crowds being exhorted, “Give me a Congress and we’ll end this Bush recession.”

Whether we have a clarifying election or not, it seems to me that it depends on how 46 percent of the voters regard the Tea Party — as patriots or a bit psycho.

GOP 'freshmen are in good shape'
(By Susan Davis, USA TODAY, July 3, 2012)

The overwhelming majority of the 87 Republican lawmakers who swept into Congress in 2010 and took control of the U.S. House are likely to be re-elected this year, according to strategists and an analysis of redistricting changes.

That wave — fueled in large part by Tea Party momentum and campaign pledges of fiscal conservatism — is unlikely to recede in 2012 far enough to give Democrats the opportunity to regain control of the chamber.

"A lot of the freshmen are in good shape," said David Wasserman, an election analyst for the non-partisan Cook Political Report.

Republicans control the House 242-191. Democrats would need a minimum net gain of 25 seats to win a majority. The Cook Political Report's June House forecast expects no more than an eight-seat gain for Democrats.

Leading Democratic strategists say the freshman class and its Tea Party association is an electoral weakness for Republicans. "The same Tea Party wave that swept several House Republicans into office in 2010 will sweep them out in 2012, after voters learned what their Tea Party agenda really was," said Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., who chairs the Democrats' campaign effort.

Democrats are seriously targeting about two dozen GOP freshmen as part of their broader effort to put 75 seats into play this November.

Those efforts were hindered by the 2012 redistricting process, the once-a-decade requirement to redraw congressional districts based on population shifts, which resulted in the GOP shoring up many freshmen who could otherwise be vulnerable to Democratic challenges.

Ten freshman lawmakers are running in districts that are significantly more Republican by 5 or more points because of redistricting. The clearest winner is Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, who defeated Democratic incumbent Solomon Ortiz in 2010 by fewer than 800 votes but is running in a district that election forecasters view as out of reach for Democrats.

Just three freshman GOP lawmakers, Illinois Reps. Joe Walsh and Robert Dold and New York's Ann Marie Buerkle, are running for re-election in districts where Democrats are clear favorites.

Walsh said he is "as confident as I can be" in his race against Democrat Tammy Duckworth, in which he continues to embrace the Tea Party ethos. "I would never run from that. I still firmly believe the Tea Party movement in this country is the silent majority," he said.

Nine freshmen are running in districts rated competitive with no clear advantage for either party, and a dozen are running in districts in which they have the edge but that could become more competitive as the election year unfolds.

In total, about two dozen of the freshman class's 87 members face uncertain paths to re-election, while the remaining lawmakers are favored to win.

A small group of the freshman class self-identifies with the Tea Party, but the House Democratic campaign operation counts on other freshmen being vulnerable by association.

Democrats criticized Rep. Chris Gibson, R-N.Y., a top target in a competitive seat, for having an "extreme Tea Party agenda" after his GOP primary victory. However, Gibson is not one of the 16 freshmen who joined the Tea Party Caucus in the House, and he has focused on issues not closely aligned with the Tea Party movement, such as Lyme disease awareness.

"There's this concession out there that these freshmen were all Tea Partiers, and that's actually very far from the truth," Wasserman said. "The best kept secret of the freshman class is that many freshmen in vulnerable districts want nothing to do with the Tea Party and never did."

The public's view of the Tea Party hasn't shifted much.

The latest Pew Research Center poll, out June 21, gave the Tea Party a 21% approval rating, while 25% disapproved and the majority, 52%, had no opinion. It is almost identical to the same Pew survey a year earlier in which 20% approved, 26% disapproved, and 50% had no opinion.

With McCotter out, another tea party vs. GOP bout takes shape
(By David Eldridge, The Washington Times, July 7, 2012)

On one side, a political newcomer with ties to the tea party. On the other, a veteran Republican lawmaker who's clearly the preferred pick of the party establishment.

It's a scenario that has played out in race after race across the country since 2010, and it's taking shape again in the congressional contest in Michigan's 11th District, a seat that Republicans had considered safe before Rep. Thaddeus McCotter's implosion.

The five-term GOP congressman resigned Friday after botching the relatively routine political process of turning in the proper number of signatures to get his name on the Aug. 7 primary ballot.

Mr. McCotter's absence sets up a showdown between Kerry Bentivolio, a high school teacher and tea party activist, and former state lawmaker Nancy Cassis.

Mrs. Cassis, a former state senator with the backing of many of the state's Republican leaders, launched a write-in bid for the nomination last month after Mr. McCotter's departure left Mr. Bentivoloo as the only Republican on the ballot.

A veteran who served in Vietnam and in Iraq, Mr. Bentivolio, 60, has said he's a fan of Ron Paul and the Texas congressman's ideas on closing overseas American military bases.

That libertarian streak has some Michigan Republicans uneasy — Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson called Mr. Bentivolio's views "extreme" and Ms. Cassis, 68, has said her opponent "doesn't sound like mainstream Americans."

The attempts by some in the state's GOP establishment to derail his insurgent campaign isn't sitting well with the part-time Santa (his sleigh is pulled by reindeer Mr. Bentivolio raises on his small Milford farm).

"I did the right thing and went out an got my signatures," he told the Detroit Free Press. "If they [Republican leaders] wanted somebody else, they should have gone out and gotten their own signatures."

"It is unfortunate that rather than unite behind the only Republican on the ballot, they have chosen to manipulate the process," he said in a fundraising letter to supporters.

The winner of the GOP primary in the overwhelmingly Republican district will face one of two Democrats, Dr. Syed Taj or William F. Roberts in November.

Can voters fix a broken Congress?
(Rick Holmes, Editorial, MetroWest Daily News, October 7, 2012)

The 112th Congress faces the voters next month with a historic distinction: Its 13 percent approval rating is the lowest this close to an election since Gallup started asking people.

This unpopularity is earned. The Tea Party Congress elected in 2010 simply can’t get anything done. It has enacted just 173 laws, about half the production of a typical Congress, and less than half the laws passed by the Congress that served from 2009-2010.

Its members haven’t passed a budget. They crashed into the debt ceiling and broke the nation’s credit rating. They failed to enact either President Obama’s jobs proposals or any proposals of their own. They failed to do anything about expiring tax cuts or the doomsday deficit-reduction bomb set to go off Jan. 1. Their failures to make decisions have created uncertainty that is an additional drag on the recovery. You could call them acts of economic sabotage, and Obama should.

Will any incumbents be punished by voters for this abysmal performance? More important: Will the 112th Congress do any better when it returns after the election for a lame-duck session? And will the 113th Congress be any less paralyzed when it opens in January? This unpopularity is earned. The Tea Party Congress elected in 2010 simply can’t get anything done. It has enacted just 173 laws, about half the production of a typical Congress, and less than half the laws passed by the Congress that served from 2009-2010.

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Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Worcester, learned how to forge bipartisan deals from his mentor, Rep. Joe Moakley. But the problem isn’t just the culture of the place, he told me this week. It’s the ideology of its newest members.

“The Tea Party doesn’t believe in the public sector,” McGovern said. There was always bipartisanship on things like transportation and farm policy. Everyone wanted government help building roads and bridges in their districts, taking care of the farmers and the farm food consumers in their districts.

But it’s hard to trade favors with someone who doesn’t think the government should do anything for anybody, even for their own constituents.

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The voters have interceded before, punishing Republicans for shutting down the government over a budget impasse in 1996 and for devoting the better part of 1998 to impeaching Bill Clinton.

If the voters don’t send a strong enough message and Congress allows the country to fall off the fiscal cliff, the next Congress may prove even less popular than this one.