Wednesday Thread

by Chris Bowers, Wed Dec 13, 2006 at 08:41:11 AM EST

Here are some items that caught my eye:

Jefferson kept off Ways and Means seat. Thank God. This committee will be a focus on investigations in 2007, and the last thing we needed was Jefferson holding a visible place on the committee that was investigating Bush.
The new congressional map becomes even bluer. As great as the new map looks, I would be lying if I said I didn't long for at least a dozen more seats. We can't let our hunger dissipate even though we now have a larger majority than Republicans have had in 60 years.
Speaking of Bill Clinton's legacy, Americans currently view his presidency quite favorably. Certainly, he blows the Bush away. However, he is not dramatically ahead of either the first Bush, or of Carter. That is demonstrative of a generally ineffective job of building the image of his legacy after the fact. This is a problem we have to solve. The nation really should be viewing Clinton's presidency at least as favorably as Reagan's, given that the two had comparable approval ratings during their time in office (see Reagan's and Clinton's). Hell, Clinton's approval was actually typically higher than Reagan's at equal points in their presidencies. If Clinton is not thought of on at least equal terms now, that shows our weakness in defining the two Presidents after the fact.
Adam B tells us who Used It, and who did not. We need to make these lists, and check them twice, in order to find out who was naughty and who was nice.
Iraq is so unpopular, even Cheney is distancing himself from bush on the subject.
Craveguy has Kucinich's announcement speech. I will be adding him to future Presidential polls.

This is an open thread. Discuss these and other topics.

Tags: Bill Clinton, Bill Jefferson, Dennis Kucinich, House 2006, Iraq, Open Threads, polls, Use It (all tags)

Comments

9 Comments

Sort by

permalink

Re: Wednesday Thread

I haven't been able to find good numbers, but I think the statistic is that the Democrats won more seats in the election than the Republicans ever did during their recent majority period. Unfortunately some party switching did bring their numbers to 236, I believe, early on after 1994. So we still need to get 4 more seats, one way or another.

by KCinDC 2006-12-13 09:16AM | 0 recs

permalink

Dem majority of historic proportions

The place to find the number after each election is http://clerk.house.gov/histHigh/Congress ional_History/partyDiv.html, the history page of the Clerk of the US House.

The last time the Republicans won more than 232 seats in an election was in 1946, when they won 246. That was the infamous "do-nothing Congress" that Truman lambasted in 1948, and the voters rewarded the Dems with 263 seats in that presidential election year. A cautionary tale.

CQ Weekly Report is the best source for the week-to-week party balance. A quick skim thru the CQ database turned up a late-1996 article saying that 5 House Dems switched to Republican in 1995. That would have brought Newt's majority up to 235.

I don't have the 1995 or 1996 CQ Almanac at hand, but that would be the best source. Anybody?

by DFLer 2006-12-13 10:20AM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Dem majority of historic proportions

Were there any special elections that affected party control of a seat? I've seen the number 236 in a few places but no good sourcing.

by KCinDC 2006-12-13 10:52AM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Defining legacies

For instance... the present president.

We might not appear to have much to overcome in defining him as the most disastrous president in living memory. But we should give it some thought, and work at it as an easier trial run on how to define legacies in the next decade.

And Heaven forbid that 10 years from now, the image of Bush with the bullhorn in NYC has become the symbol of, say, "his bold early years, when the country was united." We need to be sure to define each era of his administration, from his corporate grubbing in 2001 to his flushing of popular sentiment in 2002 to the tragic foppery of his 'Mission Accomplished' moment.

A key challenge will be explaining how he was re-elected despite a disastrous first term -- and blaming it on Kerry's weaknesses won't cut it, as that ignores the brutish politics that brought and kept Bush in power, even if the lack of a coherent opposition was one result.

by bruorton 2006-12-13 10:28AM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Defining legacies

Per the Onion, "I Am Ronald Wilson Reagan, King of Kings. Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, And Despair."

Defining Clinton like Republicans define Reagan is one of those tricky emulation problems. Just as we want to emulate Republicans in their communications savvy but not their deceptiveness and chicanery, so we want to emulate them in looking out for our boy but not in elevating him to god-like status. Recall that establishing Reagan's legacy has involved attempting to name everything the government touches after him and projecting all of everyone's ideals onto what was actually a pretty mediocre record.

by I voted for Kodos 2006-12-13 02:09PM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Wednesday Thread

What's a bit interesting to me is not so much how many pickups there were, but where. I can't find a map of where the House pickups were, but the Senate pickup map places all the new Democrats at the edge of what was already "blue America", and my understanding was that the chief victims of the 2006 elections were moderate Republicans serving in areas that you wouldn't have been too surprised were they Democrat to begin with. The 2006 elections were surprising in a lot of ways, but regardless they didn't seem to have broken many stereotypes. Is this more or less correct? (Incidentally, I'd be curious to see how many of the Democrat pickups in 2006 were just reversing Republican pickups from 1994.)

On the other hand, a lot of the margins in the areas that weren't pickups, even in very stereotypically "red" areas, were incredibly close. I wonder how many of those areas become real possibilities for the Democrats if the congressional Democrats manage to impress over the next two years.

by Silent sound 2006-12-13 10:54AM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Wednesday Thread

Remember how many progressives were annoyed at Clinton for DLCish ways? For incrementalism? For not building the party? For strengthening his own political position at the expense of the Dems?

If you want to talk about the failure to build a legacy there are certainly reasons, namely that a substantial slice of his own party disapproved of his actions.

by MNPundit 2006-12-13 05:22PM | 0 recs

permalink

Re: Wednesday Thread

I dont beleive bill clinton will ever top reagan.when clinton was pres I loved him,but now that ive matured politicly ,I no longer have the love affair with his policies that I once had.clinton was the one who convinced me to want free trade,and that was a big mistake,and so was monica.I think both bill and hilary realy let this country down when it comes to iraq.how could al gore get it so right and the clintons get it sooooo wrong,I think they played politics with the war and if they did,I for one will never foregive them.liberal democrats have both morals and a consience,I think bill and hillary lost theres a long time ago.they seem to be evolving into republicans more and more every day.bill was better than reagan,but not much.

by idahojim 2006-12-14 03:10AM | 0 recs