Oh If Only You Could Run As A Generic Partisan

Generic Republicans are leading generic Democrats in Congressional polling by ten points.  This would be remarkable news if the United States voted for parties rather than individual candidates.  To be sure, the President’s party traditionally takes a hit in midterm elections and with the economy the way it is, the hit will be harder than usual.  But I’m sticking with my prediction that the Democrats maintain a narrow hold on both houses of Congress. Democrats may have demonstrated that their idea of good government is to deficit-spend even more and get the same results as the last guys, but gerrymandering and incumbency are still pretty powerful.

And the Republican insurgents are weighed down by the lingering truth that P.J. O’Rourke pronounced twenty years ago: Republican candidates campaign on the platform that the government is corrupt, bloated, inefficient, ineffective, and expensive, and then once they get elected they work as hard as they can to prove that those claims are true. Any Republican candidate needs to explain why she won’t be like the ones who got thrown out of power in 2006 if entrusted with actual power. As for me, I’m disgusted with campaign platforms that amount to “Free Beer!” and “Freer Beer!”

I’ve yet to hear a politician of either party, other than Paul Ryan and Gary Johnson, even address the topic of how we’re going to get ourselves out of debt in anything like a meaningful way.