Darn. In case it’s not obvious, that was supposed to be ‘may improve’.

The voters may be stupid but they are not stupid enough to not realize who it was who got them into this mess in the first place.

Two points.

First, I don’t think the blame for ‘this mess’ can be laid wholly on the Republicans. The Democrats have had majorities in both houses since 2006. It’s not as if any Democratic leader saw the crisis coming and proposed preventative measures that Republicans thwarted. Also, Democratic fingerprints are on some measures that arguably contributed to the housing bubble. I think that as with 9/11, many people recognize that both parties dropped the ball to some extent.

Second, to the extent that people do blame national Republican lawmakers, it won’t be those lawmakers who will be challenging incumbent Democrats. It will be people who have earned popular trust by their conduct in local and state offices, like Brown in Massachusetts.

Of course the Republicans will make gains in November. The out party almost always gains in the off year, and the very size of the Democrats’ majorities means they are holding many precarious seats in red states and districts. The Democrats own the economy now, which many improve by November but probably not by a lot. And that’s before the argument over whether any swing voters are troubled by Obama spending a quarter of the national income.

OTOH I agree that regaining the majority in either house is a long shot.

As I’ve said before, entitlement reform will come when it has to, and both parties will give each other cover. In the meantime, the best course for fiscally conservative politicians is to talk up the goals of cutting both taxes and the budget, without making themselves targets of special interests by getting specific about where to cut spending.

I used to be sceptical of ‘starve the beast’ tax cutting, but I think recent history has vindicated it. The Reagan era tax cuts led to the Perot movement, which put pressure on both parties to cut the deficit. This led to the relative fiscal conservatism of the Clinton era, with the budget at least nominally balanced and the federal bite of the national income falling to 18.4%.

Instead of worrying about the irrelevan Republicans why not think about the shifts in the Democratic Party. Will more left leaning progressives begin to replace moderates or will more moderates win election. Will the CBC and CHC moderate their stances or become more radical?

Until someone can demonstrate a model where the Republicans are relevant into the future, who cares what if the Republicans win a couple of seats. Just because the Democrats are having problems in accepting responsibility for governance, does not mean that the Republicans have become relevant again.

Americans are not centrist, they are bipolar.

The problem with both parties is they try to govern between 40 and 60, when not doing things like giving taxpayer largess to banksters so they can get bonuses. But they need to be 80 or 20.