Publius' Forum

-By Warner Todd Huston

Testing a Theory...

By now, we have all seen this business where the Media Dinosaurs are touting the upcoming midterm elections as already in the bag for the Democrats. But, we are also starting, just this week, to see stories disputing that assumption.

Rove and Bush are said to be strangely buoyant and upbeat about the chances of the GOP keeping their majorities. Several pundits and magazines as well as some pollsters are beginning to say that, while the GOP will lose some seats, the Party won't lose all power in some great midterm Democratic landslide.

So the question becomes, how could all the leftist pundits, poll skewers and Democratic Party fellow travelers be so far off with their predictions for a total Demo take over?

Maybe they aren't. Well, not in private anyway. Maybe they have known all along that this is going to be but a mildly successful Democrat Party election, with the Dems taking a few seats in both houses of Congress. But maybe they know full well that this won't be a tidal wave of Demo success.

And, maybe they are misreporting it all on purpose?

Why would they do that, you ask? To further the false claims they have spouted since the 2000 election that the system is "rigged" against them, that's why. They know full well that the American electorate has been leaning centrist to moderately conservative since 1980 and they also know full well that their ideas are dragging them further left every year.

So, how do they reconcile their steady decline as a leading Party in the country? Do they alter their stance and drive to the middle to try and satisfy the electorate? No, they drive further to the left and then try to blame the system for rigged elections.

So, perhaps this whole mantra of a Demo landslide is being misreported so that when it doesn't actually occur the left can then come back and claim that it is all just more "proof" that the system is rigged against them.

Again, why do that? Well, if the Dems can undermine the trust people have in the system, this will alienate moderates -- or swing vote -- who might stop voting out of disgust (taking part of the GOP's votes with them in the process) and they can anger their base enough to come out full force to "get even" with the evil Republicans who are rigging the vote.

Scotching the centrist vote in a time when elections are so often won by 3 and 4 percentage points is quite an interesting and possibly successful strategy. Get rid of the people that could vote either way and gin up your base with inflammatory claims of GOP vote fraud and you get a won election as well as the elbow room to continue your drift left without being slapped by the electorate for it.

And who can doubt that the mainstream media would fall all over themselves to assist such a plan? Or, if they aren't necessarily in on the plan from the beginning, who can doubt they will at least be inclined to slavishly report Democratic Party happy-talk since they so lovingly root for their pals in the DNC anyway?

So, there goes my theory. The MSM and the Demos are over reporting a success in November so that they can then come back afterwards, after it doesn't pan out, and say they have further proof that the system is "broken" and "rigged" against them in order to drives centrist or moderate voters out of the electorate. This, in turn, will eliminate enough GOP votes and pump up their own base enough to win close elections in the future.

The Dems are trying at their own concept of a "Rovian battle plan". Unfortunately it is a plan that doesn't deal honestly with the electorate. But who could be surprised at that?