Clip job or a beheading on Election Day?

By Wayne Dawkins
 
The Democrats are going to lose seats on Tuesday, but is the party going to get a trim or a beheading?
I see evidence that losses will be the former, not the latter.
 
For months, the media buzz has been dominated by coverage of the tea party and how its anger-fueled movement will bury incumbents, the majority of them Democrats in the House and Senate.
 
Many Republicans have hitched their wagons to the tea party caravan, but will the GOP have buyer’s remorse on Wednesday? Tea partiers are independent, volatile, and, flaky. Their anger could turn off thoughtful independents who are economic conservatives, but not social issue extremists.
 
Here in Virginia, independent voters made the difference in electing Democratic governors in 2001 and 2005 despite conservative Republican majorities in the legislature. Last fall, Republican Bob McDonnell won the office because he ran an effective campaign that presented him as reasonable instead of extreme.
 
Speaking of reasonable, fake news anchor Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington, D.C. Saturday was a big hit [Co-star Stephen Colbert’s “Keep Fear Alive” rally was the counterdemonstration]. About 215,000 people showed up. That turnout was 2 ½ times the turnout of Glenn Beck’s overrated Rally to Restore Honor in August.
 
The Stewart-Colbert duo avoided partisan cheerleading. Nevertheless, the motley gathering should have encouraged independent and left-leaning voters who have been drowned out by tea party hype.
 
And an annoying but earnest, phenomenon tells me that an underground movement promises to make a difference on Election Day. I’ve gotten more than a dozen Facebook “button” messages from friends asking for my promise to vote Tuesday. I’ve resisted clicking the buttons; I don’t want to share my profile with strangers, but I have e-mailed many of those solicitors privately to assure them that I was voting.
 
One exasperated colleague in Philadelphia messaged, “enough with the buttons already! I’m voting.”
Indeed, civic duty can get on ones’ nerves, but I admire the tenacity of the callers.
 
For the Democrats, 2010 is not 1994. Back then they were smug and unprepared for the conservative tidal wave that flipped both houses of Congress. This time Democrats will absorb casualties and could lose one of the Congressional chambers to the GOP, but I doubt they will be massacred.
 
Every president – Republican or Democrat – dating back to JFK in 1962 has witnessed their party incur losses at mid term.
 
With 48 hours until Election Day, factions on the right, left, and yes, center, are using social media to lock in votes.
 
Nov. 2 results could fool the punditry.