Democrats Counseled To Avoid Direct Contact with Constituents Going Into the 2010 Midterms - Fear and Loathing of Democrats trumps Courage

TheNew York Times ran an interesting piece on yesterday on incumbent Democrats and Town Hall Meetings – apparently, most Democrats won’t be holding any meetings this summer where they may run into too many constituents. According to the article, there are 255 Democrats who spent last week in their home districts, most of which attended closed “meet and greets” with “party leaders” advising them to hold events in “controlled settings”. Apparently, the party that promoted dissent when the proverbial shoe was on the other foot prefers to stifle dissent if it is aimed in the direction of an incumbent Democrat.
One is reminded of the old Ostrich with its head stuck in the sand, the premise, if one can’t see the danger it does not exist. That strategy may work as far as keeping those incumbents from the reality of the looming November elections.

Massachusetts, which was known as the “bluest state” when it came to all levels of government is experiencing shocking change. The Massachusetts Democrat Convention, held in Worcester this past weekend, attracted 3,500 attendees, or shockingly only 400 more than those attending the Massachusetts Republican Convention held in April.(source: Boston Globe). In addition, the Republican Party in Massachusetts has 37 out of 175 state and federal candidates, vying for nine of the 10 Congressional Seats in Mass. It will be the first time many of the Democrat Incumbents have had to actually campaign for their seats, and true to form, they are not sticking their necks out to meet with the general public. In addition, the Globe article reporting on the number of Republican Challengers, noted that:

“The nonpartisan Cook Political Report considers nine of the state’s 10 congressional seats “solid D’’ in its most recent round-up, updated May 24. Only Delahunt’s former seat is labeled a toss-up.”

One problem with the Cook Political Report’s analysis is that the designation of “solid D” is based on past performance and district makeup – that was then, this is now. Polling the voting public might produce a different scenario, and with the sudden interest in constitutions reported on by local district newspapers, by near invisible Congressional Representatives such as Richard Neal, Barney Frank and every representative with the exception of Capuano (who is unchallenged), one can bet there have been internal polls telling them there is a problem in River City. As September and the primary challenges are past (some Representatives such as Barney Frank, face competition from within their own party as well as from the Republican Party), the heat in the kitchen is going to increase. At that point, as it was with the Scott Brown/Martha Coakley Race, one will most likely see national polling take place when it becomes glaringly apparent that all is not well for the Democrats in the State of Massachusetts. Polling on the Brown/Coakley special election was not even a national consideration until three weeks prior to the polls, when Rasmussen jumped in and blew a hole in the Boston Globe Poll giving Coakley a 15 point lead. This was followed by polling from Public Policy Polling, which confirmed Brown was neither down nor out - and still, both the Boston Globe and the Democrats continued to believe - until Brown's 5 point lead held steady from the morning till the final precinct reported.

Massachusetts is not an anomaly, with all fifty states in play, in both the House and the Senate, as the administration with a Congress in concert, leads the nation further into debt, while the unemployment figures continue to trend near 10%, with only a point or two variance from month to month. In the last report for the month of May, only 41,000 private sector jobs were created, versus the 400,000 public sector jobs. The nation may not score the highest globally in math and science scores, but it does not take a genius to conclude that 41,000 private sector jobs cannot, in taxes, support 400,000 public sector jobs – ergo, the nation must go deeper in debt.

It is the anxiety that is present and the fear of the current administration and its congressional minions, being unable to fix the problem, (or the gulf oil crisis, which is now being counted in days, reminiscent of the Carter Iran crisis) that is going to translate into a changed political field in 2010 and going forward into 2012. Perhaps it was right to counsel those incumbents to avoid reality, at least for the time being.

Addendum:

Charlie Cook of the Cook Report has taken the time to correct the characterization of the Cook Report's Congressional Surveys used in this blog: Noted: The house editor, David Wasserman, analyzes all of the Congressional races, in fact, there were 25 races rated and updated since April 15th. The individual race analysis is by subscription only. The opinion formed by this blog was based on the “free” information available to the general public. This is not to say that this blog agrees with Mr. Wasserman’s analysis of the Massachusetts Congressional races.