The 2010 Elections

Pretty much everybody who writes about politics is predicting that the upcoming 2010 midterm elections won't favor the Democrats. Most predict a loss of 2-3 Senate seats and 20-30 seats in The House of Representatives.

It's a combination of several factors:

• First off, midterm elections have almost never favored the party of the President (save for 2002, when "9/11" and war was still on everyone's mind).
• Second, demographics for midterm voters have always tended to be (1) older and (2) whiter than Presidential elections (although younger and nonwhite voters have been steadily climbing in these numbers recently).
• Third, Democrats haven't been playing a particularly strong hand in Congress, and Republican attacks on them have been relentless and have definitely penetrated the American political consciousness to some extent.
• Fourth, while the stage may (or may not) have been set for economic recovery, chances are that a year from now, Americans will still be unhappy with the state of the economy, and will blame the party in power.

Therefore, nobody will be surprised if Republicans regain some lost ground in next year's elections. Unfortunately (and please excuse the concern trollingcouching one's disparaging of an adversary in the form of friendly / supportive advice), Republicans may mistakenly view these expected gains as a general-public repudiation of Democrat plans or the so-called "liberal agenda", and mistakenly believe that it represents a confirmation that their current political views are, after all, not in dire need of adjustment.

That, of course, is short-sigtedness akin to an ill person having a few days of good health and considering himself cured. The Republican party is losing young voters, minority voters, and voters in pretty much every region of America outside of the Southeasetern states. The single data point of the 2010 midterm elections will not contradict this, and the 2012 Presidential elections (when all of the young/non-white people who skipped the midterms come back to vote again) will prove this.

My opinion is that if the Republicans walk away from the 2010 elections with more seats in Congress, but having learned the wrong lessons from their gains, then in long-run, it will be worse for them than having gained no seats at all.