Apr 22 Gloomy Outlook Predicted For 'Historic' Democrats

Based on this column by the WSJ's Daniel Henninger and this column by the Weekly Standard's Gary Andres, 'history-making' Democrats are in deep trouble. Here's what Andes wrote:

The American suburbs fueled the emergence of the Democratic congressional majority in 2006 and then helped expand it 2008. During those two election cycles, Republicans lost 24 incumbent or open seat races in these cul-de-sac filled districts.

But now suburbanites are shifting again. As a result, many of these districts could swing back to the GOP, providing more than half of the forty seats Republicans need to capture the majority in the House.

The battle for the suburbs will determine if President Barack Obama continues to work with his own party as the congressional majority or if Washington reverts to divided government.

That doesn't sound good for the Democrats. In fact, it sounds downright ominous. Here's what Mr. Henninger wrote:

A Pew Research Center report just out, the one that says trust in government is at an "historic low" of only 22%, looks like the something else.

Dig past the headline of the Pew study and one discovers why Bill Clinton is insinuating that "demonizing" government could cause another Oklahoma City bombing. If these numbers are at all close to reality, something one can hardly doubt just now, the American people have issued a no-confidence vote in government, at both the national and state level. To the extent one believes in the "consent of the governed," consent is being eroded.

This report isn't bad news for the Democrats. It's Armageddon.

The survey compares views sampled in 1997 with now. The "now" is the Democrats' problem. The survey took place this mid-March. After one year of the charismatic, ever-present Barack Obama, after passage of the party's totemic health-care bill, after spending zillions on Keynesian pump-priming, the American people, well beyond the tea partiers, have the lowest opinion ever of national government.

A year ago, 54% said government should exert more control over the economy; a year later it's 40%.

This precipitous drop isn't surprising, given this administration's incompetence and the Congressional Democrats' corruption. In fact, I wouldn't have been surprised if the drop in the federal government exerting more control would've been bigger.

SIDENOTE: This ties into the fact that Democrats ignored the American people. "Consent of the governed" isn't a quaint slogan. It's that the American people demand to be part of the loop.

Right now, the Senate is working on the financial regulations bill. It's apparent that the government didn't do its job of policing Wall Street. Adding new agencies to make really, really, really sure that the enforcement agencies do their job in the future doesn't inspire confidence.

The reason why that's important is because people are suspicious that this legislation won't solve the problem. It'll only help Congress thump its chest and that they fixed a crisis situation when they've done nothing of the sort. If they pass this bill without radically altering it, they won't have fixed anything.

If the McDonnell victory taught us anything last November, it's that people are thirsty for principled leadership and solutions. Putting the word reform into a bill's title doesn't mean anything to the American people because they don't trust that government will do the right thing.

If Democrats think that passing bills like health care and financial regulations will win over voters, then they're foolish. We want the real thing. We won't tolerate legislation that pretends to fix problems.

Democrats could cite one passage in Pew to mitigate this dire portrait. Historically, the report notes, whichever incumbent party is standing next to a big disaster gets pulled down in the undertow. Thus Bush and the Iraq war and Katrina. They can argue that Mr. Obama and the Democrats are getting hit with the legacy of the Bush downdraft and the after-shocks of the financial meltdown of September 2008. Once that passes, and after the inevitable November losses, the economy will stabilize and by 2012 the playing field will reset to normal.

I don't buy this. Something unique happened in the first Obama year, about the last thing the Democratic Party needed: The veil was ripped from the true cost of government. This is the ghastly nightmare Democrats have always needed to keep locked in a crypt.

Mr. Hennniger is right on the money. I don't buy the notion that the Democrats' unpopularity is based on the economy or the first midterm of the Obama administration's tenure.

Yes, people are upset with the economy but it's much deeper than that. It's about the Democrats not keeping faith with the American people. It's about campaigning on the promise of going "line by line" through the budget to root out wasteful spending, then actually going on the biggest spending binge in American history.

It's one thing to have policy differences between an administration. Those differences aren't fatal. When people stop trusting an administration, which it's done with the Obama administration, and when the Pelosi-Reid Congress first trashes, then ignores the American people, the disconnect becomes irreparable.

It takes time and effort to build trust. It only takes a moment to destroy that trust. More than anything else, that's what this administration has 'accomplished'.

That's why the Democrats are facing a harsh awakening this November.

Comments welcome at LFR.