Liberal Media Bracing For Democratic Losses Tomorrow

I just read an article by Liz Sidoti of the AP and it looks like the liberal media is bracing for Democratic losses tomorrow and was all ready to write about it but Kathryn Jean Lopez of NRO beat me to the punch.

Actually, I won't let that stop me because while K-Lo linked to the article her commentary was limited to the byline.

So let me begin with Sidoti's opening paragraph:

For Republicans, an election win of any size Tuesday would be a blessing. But victories in Virginia, New Jersey or elsewhere won't erase enormous obstacles the party faces heading into a 2010 midterm election year when control of Congress and statehouses from coast to coast will be up for grabs.

Of course, Republicans will have their challenges. They can ill afford to have any more Dede Scozzafavas on their hands. But let us not never forget that a week in politics is a lifetime and a year can be an eternity. If President Obama can't get his agenda through or if he does get his agenda through and it makes things worse voters are going to take it out on Democrats in 2010. It might not cost them either House of Congress but Democrats will sit up and take notice. Democrats can ill afford to assume that they have things all sewn up.

Still, with Democrats in control, the onus is on the GOP to get its act together. George W. Bush, the president many Republicans came to see as an election-day albatross, is gone, but the party troubles born under him linger.

If George W. Bush was such an "election-day albatross" then why did the GOP increase their majorities in both Houses of Congress in 2002 and 2004? Sure, Bush left office very unpopular. But if Obama falters in Afghanistan then Bush's surge with Iraq demonstrates his willingness to do the right thing even if it wasn't the popular thing to do at the time.

Fiery talk show hosts like Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have become the angry white face of the party, filling a vacuum created by Bush's departure as the its standard-bearer and the lack of one single person to emerge as its next generation leader.

Ah yes, no liberal analysis of the Republican Party is complete without using the words angry and white together in a sentence. So if one happens to be born with white skin are your grievances against the government without legitimacy? It depends of course. If you protest against the War in Iraq or Afghanistan you are exercising your fundamental right to dissent. If you protest aganst President Obama's ecnomic policies then you're a racist teabagger.

What's more, the GOP's ranks are thinning: Only 32 percent of respondents called themselves Republicans in a recent AP-GfK survey compared with 43 percent who called themselves Democrats.

Sidoti also can't differentiate between Republicans and conservatives. Not only were Limbaugh and Beck not enthusiastic about John McCain they haven't always been enthusiastic about Bush either. In fact, they discussed their displeasure with Bush when Beck interviewed Limbaugh last spring.

While there might be fewer people who identify themselves as Republicans, more Americans identify themselves as conservative than they do moderate or liberal according to a Gallup Poll that was taken last June.

Still, Republicans sense opportunity — at least in the short term.

The bloom is off the Obama rose, and the public is giving the Democratic-controlled Congress low ratings.

Economists say the recession is over but jobs aren't reappearing and unemployment is still expected to hit 10 percent. The war in Afghanistan continues, and the public is deeply divided over it. Obama's expansion of government and budget-busting spending isn't sitting well with most Americans. And independents are tilting away from Democrats.

All that raises this question: Can the GOP take advantage of such conditions — or are the problems the party faces too great? Stay tuned to 2010 for the answer.

If the GOP does take advantage of those condition in 2010 then look for Sidoti and her ilk in the liberal media to downplay those electoral triumphs just as they will downplay any triumph the GOP and Doug Hoffman of New York's Conservative Party might have tomorrow evening.