Posted by
Bill Crawford on Wednesday, May 05, 2010 10:45:10 PM
David Obey has decided that being being Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee doesn't do it any more, and is not running for a 23rd term. He is "tired, and wants to spend time with his family".
And here is your reality check, folks. Conservatives, who regard life as a leash on government as some sort of privation, retire back to life. Liberals, who see government as some sort of religious call, stay on the floor and keep voting until the oxygen tank they drag around with them doesn't cut it any more.
That is, unless they realize that they aren't going to win.
There is polling, and there is polling. If the party is supporting you, or you can afford it yourself (and Obey can), you do two deep polls during campaign season. Deep, meaning a better sample of respondents, more cross referenced questions, better and more topical internal questions. They do get expensive quickly.
The first one is usually done after all primary opposition has been dispatched, and it is clear that you are the party nominee. This is done not just to let you know where you stand, but where you need to allocate precious campaign resources. The final one is usually a rolling weekly that ends around Halloween, when most of the voters have made up their minds. If you are still competitive, this one will give you a clearer picture of even more precious resource allocation- or it will let you know you are cooked- in which case you are supposed to save any unpromised funds, keep plugging away on the trail and take it like a man, so you show you are ready for next time.
Well, Rep. Obey obviously found out he was dead meat. He is that way for the same reason many Democrat incumbents will be this Fall. It's not so much because their agendas are that far off the cliff. It's because unemployment is still double digits and they spent a year and a half focusing on health care. In David's case, the unemployment rate is approaching 15%, the highest in the nation.
That isn't the only thing that will drive the Democrats off like lemmings. The Rahm Emanuel strategy from 2006 was to run relatively conservative Dems in swing districts- which, along with the GOP civil war over immigration, gave them majority status. Many of them survived two years later because Hurricane Obama blew them through, but now they have to defend a President who grows more polarizing by the day. The only thing that can stave them off from disaster is the Republicans creating a circular firing squad, which, given their recent history, is always a possibility.