THE MID-TERM ELECTIONS MAY NOT GO AS PREDICTED

 

 …The elections in November are up for grabs.

 

Polls are showing that the GOP may not be pre-ordained to take home the big prize in November.

I guess that even though I am an avid follower of American politics, I am still confused as to why the country is so down on the current president.  Oh, I know, that as it usually is with 2^nd term presidents, there is always a level of political fatigue when it gets around to the last two years of a lame-duck president.  But the president has a less than 45% approval rating, and he also has a low approval rating in California, (Obama’s most loyal state.) and that has become very confusing.

I say confusing, especially when you look at what has occurred over the past 5½ years under the Obama administration:

·       When Obama took the helm, the previous administration in the White House was losing 700,000 jobs every month.  After Obama’s first six months, there has since been a continued history of private industry job growth every month.  If the do-nothing Republicans in Congress would do their job, the overall job market could take the jobless rate down another 3 points.  In addition, we would be rebuilding our roads, bridges, airports, schools, and other areas of the nation’s infrastructure. But this is an issue against the GOP, not the president.

·       As to those individuals on Wall Street that took the country into financial disaster, today those guys are “happier than clams” as the Dow Jones and NASDAQ have both continued to break records.

·       Even though the GOP has done everything they could to stop or impede the nation’s reconstruction, plus stoping any serious job growth and anything the president wanted to do, the nation’s economy has still continued to slowly improve.  The jobs have increased, Wall Street has improved, and the Affordable Care Act is working while millions for the first time, now have some level of health care.

·       As he promised, Obama has taken the country out of one war and is dialing down another.

·       The nation’s financial deficit has been dropping at the fastest rate in history.

·       After ten years of failing to get Osama bin Laden, the president gave the order for successfully going after and killing the al Qaeda leader.

·       Due to some of the banking regulations re-instated after the market crash, most American’s 401K’s and IRA’s are back to where they were before the crash.

·       Home values have recovered, or are in the process of recovering.

Apparently, America’s short memory for these things is really showing through.

I know that there are actually many more items that have improved under the president’s leadership.  In fact, you can Google Obama’s successes and you can find up to 100 different things that most people have no idea about.  These items were completed by the Obama administration just for making life better for most American's.

Yet, if you only watch FOX News, you’d think the president was acting like a King or a terrible dictator, or was a totally inept world leader.

 

…The way FOX NEWS sees President Obama

Yes, for months, due to their continued attacks on the president, the conservatives have been saying that they were expecting great things from the mid-term elections.  For months they have been predicting that they will keep the House and will also take the Senate.

So, with Obama having his current low approval ratings and the Republicans bragging that they are going to do so great this November, why are the polls not showing that the Republicans have “sealed the deal” for the mid-terms?

As an example, of the nine US Senate races, the GOP has been saying they expect to take at least five of them.  However, today, the major national polls agree that only 2 months from the election, these nine Senate races are now all a, “toss-up”.

The real indication of the trouble that the Republicans are in is shown by the man who wants Harry Reid’s job as the Senate Majority Leader. The current Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, he is currently in the toughest race of his political career against the young Democrat, Alison Lundergan Grimes.  As of today, the polls show them in a dead-heat and Mitch McConnell is the most unpopular senator in the country with an approval rating in Kentucky of only 35%.  For the man that has been the number one Republican against Obamacare, it is his state of Kentucky where the Affordable Care Act has been the most well accepted.  He knows he can’t run against the ACA/Obamacare in Kentucky, so he can only run against the president himself and the president’s actions.  If McConnell wins, it will only be by the skin of his teeth.

The reason for this disparity with the GOP has become very simple.  All the Republicans can say is “no” to everything, but the conservatives offer nothing for replacing all that they are saying no to.

Oh, they will blast Obama for what they mistakenly call his “failed leadership”, and this is of course one of the Republicans guaranteed applause lines.  But all of the GOP candidates are totally unable to articulate what the president should be doing differently…?  When asked what would the Republicans offer versus the Democrats, they are dumbfounded and most of them just stammer with nothing to say.

In addition, the Republican Party has not been able to developed an economic message that goes beyond their familiar standbys of: tax cuts, spending cuts, and government deregulation.

Because of the GOP’s stalling of everything that the president has been trying to achieve, the American public has clearly not been thrilled with the state of the nation’s economy.  Yes, the growth is up and unemployment is down, but we all know that without the Republican ‘s foot-dragging in Congress, it could be much, much better.  The sitting president will always take the hit for these kind of negatives, regardless of who is at fault.  This is reflected in Obama’s current low approval ratings. The good news for the Democrats is however, that the GOP’s claim that Democratic policies will inevitably lead to ruin, now rings completely hollow.

But his doesn’t mean the Democrats will continue to hold the Senate after the November elections.  It is still an up-hill slug-fest.

With all that’s gone on at the nation’s southern border and with what went on in Ferguson, Missouri, the nation’s minorities are as invigorated as they have ever been to register and make their choices at the polls, and most of those individuals historically will vote Democratic.  This is one of the reasons for the latest poll ratings.

…A sign on the US southern border

Everyone now knows that Obama is considering executive action that could give legal status to possibly millions of undocumented immigrants. In the 2016 vote, will that inflame conservatives and drive Republican turnout through the roof, or will it excite the Democratic faithful, especially Latinos, giving them a real reason to vote?  I guess only time will tell.

The president has now announced that he will hold off on any executive immigration decisions until after the mid-term elections.  What effect will this latest decision have on the final results of the November mid-terms?

Looks like this November could become a very interesting month.

Copyright  G.Ater  2014