Scott Grizzard – Personal Website

Does anyone remember the newsstand from November 1994? The Republicans took the House and Senate from the Democrats, and Time ran a cover cartoon featuring an elephant charging forward, trampling over a donkey. The headline read, “G.O.P. Stampede: Special Report“.

The pundits think it will happen again – with the Democrats taking control at least of the House. This view is echoed in a front-page article in today’s Wall Street Journal titled “Support for Congress Slides Further, Dimming Outlook for Republicans.” ¹ The article states: “In October 1994, with the public fed up with scandals and his party’s failure to deliver in key areas such as health care, voters said by a six-point margin ‘ 44% to 38% ‘ that they wanted Republicans to take control. That compares with the 15-point margin today in favor of Democrats taking the reins.”

However, there is one big difference between 1994 and 2006: in 1994, the Republicans had a message that was something other than “Not the President; Not the current Congress”.² Today, the Democrats don’t have a coherent message beyond “not George”, and the Republicans still have a message.

The Republicans can weather the discontent if they stick to a single theme: Democrats will raise taxes.

¹Subscribers to the Wall Street Journal can find the article here.

²For a good discussion of the Republican Victory in 1994, see Dick Morrisâ??s book, The New Princewhich, while I do not agree with all of his arguments in the book, makes a good case about the ’94 election.