Have just returned from a week in Washington DC at an international symposium on health policy, where I had access to the sorts of health big wigs from the UK that I would never get in the UK - so kind of interesting. More to follow on this on "publishing".
DC is a wonderful city (or at least the NW sector around government is). Much that is fantastic, including an airport which is 10 minutes from the White House by Tube (Reagan National) and a beautiful green lung with all the monuments and the White House and the Capitol. The contrast from New York (which I disliked) was marked. NY is all about money; DC is all about power. I guess power must be a greater besetting sin for me than money as I found the atmosphere exhilarating (while the company was quite terrifying).
Thursday was spent in the Senate building. I was amused by the elevator for "senators only". There were none there of course - all off campaiging.
I suppose I ought at this point talk about the mid-term elections properly. The following points I think are what I have gleaned about American politics.
1 The Republican coalition is splintering: the small government libertarians are off (see Andrew Sullivan); the neo-cons are discredited over the complete lack of a plan over Iraq; the religious right are not the power they were (see point 2).
2 The religious right is a weakening force for the following reasons.
The decent if (in my opinion) misguided footsoldiers are disillusioned (Kuo, lack of actually doing anything about abortion rather than just talking about it).
The fanatically pro-republican leadership is increasingly shrill and discredited with their followers because they have become just politicians with all the compromises, hypocrisies and dirty dealing that that implies.
There is the beginnings of a "religious left" in the states challenging the assumption that the only moral issues are abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage.
I suspect that Catholics will not vote republican in large numbers, a lot of evangelicals in the "evangelical" denominations will sit on their hands, and the evangelicals in the "mainline" and black denominations will vote Democrat (as they traditionally have done - at least prior to 2004).
3 The Republicans as a party are suffering from a perception of incompetence. The wonderful PJ O'Rourke (who manages to say things that I fundamentally disagree but make me roar with laughter at the same time) has a great line that while Democrats believe that government is the answer to every problem, Republicans believe that government is a fundamentally bad thing, and every time they are elected they set about proving it. And I think this is what has happened. The qualification for appointment to a senior role in the current administration is ideological purity rather than knowing anything about the subject you are supposed to be dealing with. This makes for a genius in winning elections, as the instinct for judging a policy is on how this will motivate the loyal voters, but for very bad government as those making the decisions have no capacity and no interest in making an objective decision about how this will affect society as a whole.
4 The Republicans as a party are suffering from a perception of sleaze. This relates to both money (Abrahamoff) and sex (Foley and now - by proxy at least - Haggard). This is probably inevitable and the result of being in power for so long (really since 1994 in Congress). It is also probably unfair to point the finger too hard, but the problem is when you set yourself up as purer than pure... British readers might spot a parallel.
5 The Democrats as an opposition are pretty useless. They are divided, unclear about their direction, the centrists in power are disliked by the more extreme activists, and they lack a coherent set of policies. They are depending upon the dislike of the government rather than having a coherent alternative programme. They have one charismatic young star. British readers might spot... you get the idea.
6 Race still plays, at least in some places. The tight fight for Tennessee has widened considerably in the last week since a campaign ad implied (not very subtly) that the black Democratic candidate had a penchant for white women. Really profoundly depressing.
As far as predictions - I always look at what they bookies are saying as they rather than the pundits are disinterested. The bookies' only interest in being right. As of last Thursday they made the Democrats heavy favourites to win the House and the Republicans moderate favourites to win the senate.
My bet is that each party in the senate will end up with between 49 and 51 seats, and the Democrats will win the house by about 5-15 seats. And if I'm wrong Diebold have fixed it again!
