So he presents two theories. One theory is that if the people are mad at the President, they take it out on the members of his party who are running for the House of Representatives. This theory is pretty popular, but bad for Republicans. So let's move on to theory number two.
Hypothesis One was developed by political scientists and psephologists over many years. Hypothesis Two is one I developed myself, and it's based only on the elections of the last 10 years. In the five House elections from 1996 to 2004, there has been very little variation in the popular vote percentages for both parties.Oh, I forgot. Barone uses "hypothesis" where I use the much cooler and more succinct word "theory."
Anyway Barone's thesis boils down to being meaningless jargon, but the core of it is that we are so politicized that the question isn't which party is doing the best job, or would do the best job. It's which party do you hate more.
He points to the recent election in California, which trended (if you add all the Republican Candidates together and take the leading Democratic candidate by herself) exactly the same as the last general election.
Frankly the whole article smacks of a certain amount of desperation. I'm not in favor of counting chickens before they hatch, but if the Republicans are reduced to this sort of mish-mash to bolster their courage, well, that has to be good for Democrats, doesn't it?
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