Tugging On Superman's Cape

Karl Rove has finally played fast and loose with the wrong guy's facts:  Nate Silver's.

It's not as though one should expect honesty and integrity from Karl Rove, but it's disappointing when his duplicity involves you personally. In a memo at his website, Rove.com, he carelessly misrepresents my arguments about the Democrats' 2010 electoral picture, while going on to demonstrate a superficial understanding about the underlying dynamics of the race.

Here's what Rove said that I said:

On the blog fivethirtyeight.com, Democratic booster Nate Silver recently suggested the 2010 midterms won’t produce an anti-Democratic swing of the same magnitude of 1994 because “unlike in 1994, the GOP remains quite unpopular.”

And here's what I actually said:

It's not that I'm at all optimistic about the Democrats' electoral fortunes in 2010. The general consensus that they'll lose between 25 and 35 House seats strikes me as generous, for instance. I'd put the modal number at somewhere in the low 40s instead, although with a very wide range from as few as 20 Republican pickups to as many as 60. [...]

Clearly, 2010 will be to some greater or lesser extent an anti-Democratic year. The question is to what extent it might also be an anti-incumbent year [...] Unlike in 1994, the GOP remains quite strongly unpopular. Also as compared with 1994, the Republicans are less cohesive, and that could result in their nominating a sub-optimal candidate in Kentucky, New Hampshire, Florida or Arizona.

It's pretty rich to be characterized as a "Democratic booster" for having written an article in which I argued that (i) the general consensus on the number of seats that the Democrats will lose in the House is too optimistic (ii) my best guess would be for a loss in the low 40s instead, and possibly as high as 60, which would eclipse the Democrats' 54-seat loss in 1994.

What I do think, however, is that while the results might wind up being pretty similar to 1994, the parameters driving those results are rather different, in much the same way that losing a football game by two touchdowns can be very different between a 14-0 shutout and a 45-31 shootout.

Nate may be splitting hairs...but that's what Nate does.  He's the master of political stat crunching and once again Karl Rove finds himself getting his ass kicked by good ol' logic.  Nate completely admits that 2010 could be worse than 1994...in fact Nate's mode number has the GOP eking out control of the House by a handful of seats right now.

That's not good if you're the Dems.  On the other hand, there are a lot of opportunities that could damage supposedly safe Republican seats merely because they are incumbents.  The Republicans clearly understand this, which is why they are more than happy to throw their own incumbents under the bus in red district/state primaries if it means putting in a Tea Party candidate on the ticket and saying "Behold!  We no longer have the millstone of incumbency!"  (Ask Charlie Crist or Trey Greyson.)

And, as Nate points out, Republicans are far less popular than they were in 1994.  An incumbent seat vacated by a Republican in a Red district is not a 100% guarantee that the people will put a Republican back in the seat.

In other words, there's still time to go.  I personally think the GOP has peaked, and if the Dems are smart enough to get a public option bill through reconciliation, they will suddenly find that the GOP is the team in trouble.