[Peace-discuss] Fwd: USA Midterm Elections-Past and Present' by Jack Rasmus, teleSUR English, October 27, 2014

[David Johnson via Peace-discuss]

This time voter response could be even worse, given the overlay of 
other, additional legitimate grievances by large voter constituencies 
that previously voted for Democrats.

A close look at the 2012 elections shows that Obama won re-election 
largely because of Hispanic, student youth, and union labor votes 
delivered him the key states that made the difference in his U.S. 
electoral college vote results. In addition to the continuing economic 
legacies of 2010, these key constituencies now have additional 
grievances with the Democrats.

Millions of Latino immigrants and Hispanics who had high hopes that 
Democrats and Obama would address their needs and grievances no longer 
believe Democrats and Obama can deliver a solution. Millions of students 
with a combined more than $1 trillion in loan debt, who are now paying 
tens of billions a year in excess above-market interest to the U.S. 
government no longer believe meaningful debt relief is possible, even 
though it could with a mere stroke of Obama's pen.

And union workers who delivered key Midwest states to Democrats and 
Obama in 2012, and have received virtually nothing from Obama since 2008 
in return (except perhaps the very real prospect of losing their 
negotiated health benefits in the next few years due to the Obamacare 
health act) have seen the Obama administration reject their unions' 
every appeal for assistance and reconsideration since 2012.

It's not that these key constituencies will vote Republican. It's that 
they will likely not vote Democrat. They will vote with 'the seat of 
their pants', as they say, and stay home. And that means the loss of the 
Senate for Democrats next week.


teleSUR*teleSUR English***

*USA Midterm Elections: Past and Present*

*By Jack Rasmus*

Published 27 October 2014

U.S. President Barack Obama takes part in early voting at a polling 
station in Chicago, Illinois October 20, 2014 (Photo: Reuters)

*U.S. President Barack Obama takes part in early voting at a polling 
station in Chicago, Illinois October 20, 2014 (Photo: Reuters)*

With the USA midterm Congressional elections barely a week away on 
November 4, it appears now almost certain that Republicans will win the 
minimum six key Senate races they need in order take control of the U.S. 
Senate from the Democrats and the Obama administration.

In a previous essay written in September, when the Democrats and the 
U.S. mainstream press were still maintaining the Democrats would hold on 
to the U.S. Senate, this writer predicted that "Obama and the Democrats 
face the very real possibility of losing control of the U.S. Senate in 
November" (see 'Barack Obama as Jimmy Clinton', teleSUR English, 
September 28, 2014).
Now it is almost certain they will.

*Why Democrats May Lose the US Senate*

Republicans need to take back only 6 seats from the Democrats in the 
Senate to gain control of that institution. A week before the elections, 
they now hold comfortable leads in at least six and are favored to win 
in two more. The final outcome could be as high as ten Senate seat 
losses for the Democrats, as Democrats hold only slight leads in 
traditionally Republican states like North Carolina and Louisiana.

As the election comes down to the wire, Democrats are becoming 
increasingly desperate, pinning their hopes on long shot wins in 
historically Republican bastion states like Kansas and Georgia. Even 
lead editorials in the New York Times now raise the specter, in bold 
headlines, of a 'The Democratic Panic' now in progress. Elsewhere high 
ranking party insiders, like Jim Manley, former spokesperson for the 
Senate Democratic Party leader, Harry Reid, are quoted publicly saying 
that "There is a decent shot that we are going to lose the Senate".

With the U.S. House of Representatives already firmly in control of the 
Republicans, and dominated by their ultra-conservative Teaparty faction, 
should Republicans in 2014 now also take the Senate the U.S. Congress 
will quickly become even more aggressively pro-corporate, pro-military 
adventurist, and even more anti-US worker than it has been to date.

It is estimated that spending on the 2014 midterm elections will exceed 
$4 billion, about $2 billion raised each by Republican and Democrat 
candidates.

For that $4 billion, the American public can expect a new policy 
aggressiveness to emerge immediately after the election, driven by a 
newly confident, even more conservative, pro-corporate right wing with 
firm control of both houses of the U.S. Congress.

With the U.S. House of Representatives already firmly in control of the 
Republicans, and dominated by their ultra-conservative Teaparty faction, 
should Republicans in 2014 now also take the Senate the U.S. Congress 
will quickly become even more aggressively pro-corporate, pro-military 
adventurist, and even more anti-US worker than it has been to date.

High on the agenda of new policies that will quickly emerge from the 
midterm elections, should the Republicans take the Senate, will be the 
following policy initiatives: new tax cuts for U.S. multinational 
businesses, harsher treatment of immigrant workers in the USA, more 
anti-environmental actions favoring shale fracking, offshore drilling, 
pipelines, and CO2 industrial emissions rollbacks, renewed attacks on 
the Medicaid health system for the poor and Medicare health services for 
the retired, proposals for more funding for wars in the middle east, 
demands for more aggressive military support for the USA engineered coup 
d'etat government in the Ukraine, and perhaps even a renewed attack on 
social security retirement benefits in the USA.

Strategists for both Republicans and Democrats agree that the 2014 
midterm election is about jobs and the economy. While the stock and bond 
markets in the USA continue their five year surge to new record heights, 
providing even more capital gains income to the wealthy and their 
corporations, the bottom 90% of USA households continue to languish 
after more than five years of so-called economic recovery.

While the rich get ever richer and corporations ever more profitable, 
the Obama administration and the mainstream press daily trumpet that 
more than six million new jobs have been created since 2009. However, 
that same mainstream press remains conspicuously silent about the real 
facts about jobs and incomes in the USA. For example, in a Bloomberg 
News interview this past week, it was reported that 76% of the U.S. jobs 
created since 2009 have been what is called 'contingent' jobs---i.e. 60% 
part time and another 16% temporary jobs. Jobs that are paid 50%-65% 
less than full time jobs. Jobs with no benefits, substandard working 
conditions, and no job security.

Furthermore, while 6 million jobs have been created, according to the 
mainstream press, little or no mention by that same press is made about 
the 8 million USA workers who have dropped out and left the labor force 
altogether, disillusioned they could ever find work sufficient to 
support themselves. If the latter 8 million were considered in the 
unemployment rate in the USA---which they are not given the way the USA 
underestimates its jobless---the true unemployment rate in the USA would 
be in excess of 12% today instead of the current official rate of about 
half that.

That's 8 million potentially unhappy voters. Add to their ranks the 4.5 
million who were able only to get part time and temp jobs; add the 
millions whose homes have been foreclosed since 2009; add the millions 
of union workers who now increasingly realize they will get no benefit 
from Obama's health care act and instead will have their own costs of 
health insurance doubled; add the millions of students now in debt to 
the tune of more than $1 trillion in the USA; add those millions fed up 
with the continued militarist policies of the administration; and, not 
least, add to all the above the key constituency that more than any 
other enabled Obama to win a second term in 2012---i.e. the tens of 
millions of Hispanic workers in the USA that Obama has recently turned 
his back on once again.

*The Strategic Latino-Hispanic Vote*

The Obama administration since 2009 has deported more undocumented Latin 
American immigrant workers, and broken up more of their families as a 
result, than all preceding presidents combined. More than 2 million have 
been deported on Obama's watch. 438,000 in just 2013, which was 50,000 
more than 2012, which in turn was 30,000 more than in 2011. That's 
millions of potential family members and friends who will not forget the 
hurt come November 4.

And after promising to end deportations and take executive action 
himself on immigration earlier this year, Obama has since retreated this 
past June and put all promises about immigration reform on hold.

Not surprising, a September 2014 NBC/Telemundo poll showed only 13% of 
Latino voters in the USA felt "very positive" about the Democratic Party.

The Hispanic vote was key in 2012 to winning those states that put Obama 
back into the White House. Today it is those same states---Colorado, 
North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, etc.---that are the key swing states 
up for grabs in the race for the Senate.

It is those same states in which Democrats running for the Senate are 
trailing well behind in voter polls. And if most Latino and Hispanic 
voters stay home and don't turn out to vote, which appears the likely 
case next week, then Democrat Senate candidates are doomed in those same 
key states and Democrats will lose the U.S. Senate 'hands down', as they 
say.
Indicative of this likelihood was the headline in a Wall St. Journal 
this past week that declared 'Hispanic Voter Frustration Threatens 
Democrats Most'.  The story included a report by organizers of the 
National Council of La Raza, who talked to prospective Latino voters 
house to house in Florida. The story noted that "many seemed to not be 
paying attention to this election. 'We've been let down so many times, I 
don't know who to support', said Maria Molina, 'I don't  know if I'm 
going to vote'."

*A Tale of Two Midterm Debacles: 2010 and 2014*

The two midterm elections---2010 and 2014--- are linked. They are part 
of the same dynamic and process, begun in 2010 and continuing to this 
day.  And both the loss of the U.S. House in 2010, and likely the U.S. 
Senate in 2014, have their roots in the policies adopted by the Obama 
administration in the summer of 2010.

Obama's token fiscal stimulus in 2009, which was barely 5% of USA GDP at 
a time the U.S. economy was declining 15% in 2008-09, was insufficient 
to ensure a sustained economic recovery. (Compare his to China's 15% of 
GDP fiscal stimulus package at the time).

By the summer of 2010 more fiscal stimulus for the U.S. economy was 
clearly called for, as the 2009 stimulus began to dissipate and the U.S. 
economy to stall out. Unemployment began to rise once again by the tens 
of thousands every month throughout the summer of 2010. 25 million were 
still unemployed. Homeowners' foreclosures were accelerating at an 
average rate of 300,000 a month. Economic output was slowing everywhere, 
with business, consumer, and local government spending in retreat.

But despite this 2010 summer scenario, the Obama administration ignored 
the rising housing foreclosures, turning it over to the States' 
attorneys general deal with the problem. Concerning jobs, he appointed 
the CEO of the General Electric Corp, Jeff Immelt, to head up his 'jobs 
program'. Immelt's jobs program turned out to be more free trade, more 
tax benefits for multinational corporations, and patent reform. Job 
losses and home foreclosures not surprisingly continued to rise.

Instead of directly addressing the continuing dual jobs and housing 
crises at the time, Obama turned to providing even more free money to 
bankers and investors. Following the 'quantitative easing' (QE) U.S. 
central bank program of 2009 that bought $1.7 trillion in bad assets 
from bankers and wealthy investors, Obama had the U.S. central bank 
provide an additional $600 billion in late 2010.  He then proposed 
another $800 billion more in tax cuts for business as well.

In just two years, 2009-2010, bankers and big capital would receive at 
minimum a total of nearly $4 trillion in direct subsidies, tax cuts, and 
free 'no interest' money. (Since 2010 they have received at least $500 
billion dollars more in further business tax cuts, $2.2 trillion more in 
QE free money, and hundreds of billions more in direct subsidies).

This focus on recovery for bankers and big business, while doing 
virtually nothing to address working and middle classes crises in jobs, 
housing, and declining wages and income, was not lost on American voters 
in the fall of 2010. With business and investors being bailed out 
without limit, working and middle class America were receiving little, 
if anything, in terms of jobs, housing rescue, or any other substantive 
assistance. The November 2010 elections consequently resulted in a 
debacle for Democrats, who lost control of the U.S. House of 
Representatives by historic margins.

Democrats also lost the majority of State governorships up for election 
in 2010.  2010 was a census year. That meant the states, now mostly 
under Republican rule after the 2010 elections, could and did proceed to 
'gerrymander' safe jurisdictions for Republicans in future U.S. House 
elections. Gerrymandering would ensure Republicans would hereafter have 
to worry little about ever losing the U.S. House again.

The jobs crisis in the USA has therefore still not been solved. There is 
only a massive 'jobs churn'---from full time to contingent jobs, from 
high pay to low pay, and from new entrants to the labor force to 
millions leaving the labor force.

The same Obama policies in 2010 that led to the Democrats loss of the 
U.S. House of Representatives in that year's midterm Congressional 
elections still continue to haunt Democrat Senate candidates this year, 
2014: Jobs, housing, stagnant and declining working class wages and 
incomes, rising working class debt, and slowing consumption by the vast 
majority of U.S. households.

While Obama and the Democrats repeatedly refer to 6 million jobs having 
been created since 2010, they are silent on the fact that 4 million of 
those are part time, temporary, and thus low paid. Nor do they mention 
that 8 million have left the labor force altogether. The jobs crisis in 
the USA has therefore still not be solved. There is only a massive 'jobs 
churn'---from full time to contingent jobs, from high pay to low pay, 
and from new entrants to the labor force to millions leaving the labor 
force.

Nor has the Housing crisis been solved---at least for working and middle 
class Americans.  A brief period of housing recovery in 2011-12 has 
resulted in a new slowdown. In the interim, housing sales were mostly to 
the wealthiest households or to institutional investors and foreign 
buyers---not the normal middle class buyer. Meanwhile, median working 
class families' wages and incomes have continued to decline 1%-2% every 
year for the past four years, and household debt levels for median 
families have continued to rise.

This basically stagnant state of economic affairs affecting the vast 
majority of U.S. workers and households has not been lost on the average 
voter today, in 2014, any more than it was lost on the same voter in 2010.

This time, in 2014, the large number of Senate seats that were won by 
Democrats in 2008 are up for re-election. Those Democrats won Senate 
seats in 2008 from what had been historically traditional Republican 
seats in pro-Republican states. Now, in 2014, most of those seats will 
likely revert back to Republicans again.

*The Legacies of 2010 + New Grievances*

The Obama and Democrat policies and programs of 2010 that led to their 
midterm 2010 election debacle have never really changed.  Those policies 
in 2010 did little to create jobs, ignored the foreclosure crisis and 
failed to generate a sustained housing recovery, and did nothing about 
working families' steady decline in wages and incomes.  That cost the 
Democrats the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010.

Today in 2014 little is fundamentally different after four years, except 
that the key voter constituencies Democrats are courting in 2014 Senate 
races---i.e. Hispanic, student youth, and union workers---have been even 
more abused in the interim. This time voter response could be even 
worse, given the overlay of other, additional legitimate grievances by 
large voter constituencies that previously voted for Democrats.

A close look at the 2012 elections shows that Obama won re-election 
largely because of Hispanic, student youth, and union labor votes 
delivered him the key states that made the difference in his U.S. 
electoral college vote results. In addition to the continuing economic 
legacies of 2010, these key constituencies now have additional 
grievances with the Democrats.

Millions of Latino immigrants and Hispanics who had high hopes that 
Democrats and Obama would address their needs and grievances no longer 
believe Democrats and Obama can deliver a solution. Millions of students 
with a combined more than $1 trillion in loan debt, who are now paying 
tens of billions a year in excess above-market interest to the U.S. 
government no longer believe meaningful debt relief is possible, even 
though it could with a mere stroke of Obama's pen.

And union workers who delivered key Midwest states to Democrats and 
Obama in 2012, and have received virtually nothing from Obama since 2008 
in return (except perhaps the very real prospect of losing their 
negotiated health benefits in the next few years due to the Obamacare 
health act) have seen the Obama administration reject their unions' 
every appeal for assistance and reconsideration since 2012.

It's not that these key constituencies will vote Republican. It's that 
they will likely not vote Democrat. They will vote with 'the seat of 
their pants', as they say, and stay home. And that means the loss of the 
Senate for Democrats next week.



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