Jay Leno recently summed up conventional punditry on next week's election: "Halloween [is] the scariest day of the year -- unless you're a Democrat. Then that would be next Tuesday." Comparisons to the '94 election, which saw a 52 seat swing to Republicans, are almost as common as calls of "hope" and "change" were in 2008 (as a senior advisor to the McCain campaign, I should know). But while Republicans may benefit from current discontent, they would be remiss to take the results as a resurgence of faith in the party.
Rather than being an endorsement of Republicans -- or exclusively a rebuke of Democrats -- Tuesday will be the culmination of a decade of brewing discontent with politicians who favor friends over constituents, enact irresponsible legislation and treat the American people like children who can't handle the hard truth.
Likewise, it would be unwise to assume that voters just have another case of "throw the bums out" syndrome.
Do voters still think that someone needs to bring change to Washington? Yes. Are they mad at the people in charge? Absolutely. But are they ready to vote for almost anyone without a "D" next to his or her name? In general, no. While only 33 percent of Americans believe that most members deserve to be reelected -- even fewer than the 38 percent who thought so in '94 -- very few people are confident that either party is capable of addressing our most pressing challenges.
The most disillusioned group appears to be independents. In 2006, 59 percent said that Democrats could "bring about the changes this country needs." Today, that number has plummeted to just 34 percent. Some of President Obama's most avid fans are equally unhappy, although for a slightly different reason. As the First Lady recently put it, for many of his supporters, "change has not come fast enough."
There's no mistaking it -- in 2008, the public said "yes" to a message of change. The problem for Democrats is not that they failed to deliver; rather, the majority of Americans simply do not like what they got.
When it comes to passing legislation, just because "yes, we can," that doesn't necessarily mean we should. Democrats would probably be in a better position -- in terms of both policy and politics -- if they had instead said, "actually, let's not." For example, a recent poll shows that 53 percent of Americans favor repealing the health care bill. 43 percent strongly favor repeal. This sentiment extends to the stimulus -- 68 percent of Americans think the "money the federal government has spent...has been mostly...wasted." Just 29 percent think it has been "well spent."
But Americans feel like they have been burned by both parties. On President Bush's watch, Congress passed an unsustainable expansion of Medicare and increased federal spending dramatically (when Congress was held by Republicans and when it was held by Democrats). President Obama has done little to address simmering discontent -- his proposed budget would double the national debt by 2020. It doesn't take much to realize that change is still needed. Unfortunately, only a third of the public thinks that members of either party have a "clear plan for solving the country's problems."
This feeling has become all too apparent to some big name politicians; just ask Senators Reid, Feingold, Murray, Lincoln, Bennett and Murkowski. Or some of the most powerful committee chairmen in the House, like Congressmen Oberstar, Frank, Spratt and Skelton. They have all faced unexpectedly hostile electorates. Usually non-freshmen incumbents are heavily favored to win, but his year, half of all incumbents that seem headed for defeat have been in Congress for two or more terms.
Rather than wanting to "throw the bums out," voters simply want politicians to treat them like adults, to be honest about the problems we face and concrete in their proposed solutions.
Instead, we've seen the White House and Congressional leaders engage in a noisy game of "Who Funds It?" while ignoring the issues that Americans really care about -- jobs, the economy and government spending. Continuous attempts to paint the tea party movement as inorganic have failed -- according to a CNN poll, half of voters say they are likely to choose a tea party-backed candidate and 60 percent have either a favorable or neutral opinion of the movement. Despite conventional wisdom that elected officials who are honest about difficult trade-offs will be punished politically, people like Gov. Chris Christie have been rewarded with well-above-average approval ratings.
Come Wednesday morning, north of 45 House seats and at least seven Senate seats will likely flip from D to R. Hopefully, for the sake of all Americans, our newly-elected leaders in both parties will start focusing on the issues, governing responsibly and spending within their means.