Election Season Is Now Open, Let the Games Begin... Robert Elisberg, Huffington Post

[Stuart G]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-elisberg/election-season-is-now-op_b_707120.html


Robert J. Elisberg.Columnist
Posted: September 7, 2010 08:56 AM


Election Season Is Now Open. Let the Games Begin



Comments 16 Republicans have been doing a poll dance in expectation of taking back the House and Senate in November. Yet every election cycle I write the exact same thing that always happens: the public doesn't start paying attention to elections until after Labor Day. They're on vacation, kids are out of school, some candidates have not yet even been decided. Early polls are an indication of sentiment, to be sure, but not results.

Mainly, we're seeing the honored traditional of the "out" party relentlessly bashing the "in" -
daily, unchallenged. So, of course Democratic numbers would go down. Only after Labor Day is there reason to finally respond. When the campaign begins.

(Just look at what happened in Arizona last week. Finally, the gubernatorial campaign officially started and had a debate -- and Republican Jan Brewer had an on-air meltdown, only to run away, literally, afterwards when questioned for the first time by her opponent. One debate, and already her campaign is stumbling.)

Republican poll numbers have been high all summer. But a political admonition is not to peak too early. The thing is, summer is early. Whether it's too early, that's what campaigns are for.

There's another admonition to remember. First, though, some background:

During the summer, periodic victories by "Tea Party" candidates have garnered headlines about its supposed growing power. But what we've seen are primary victories solely within the cloistered walls of the Republican Party. It's the political-equivalent of preaching to the choir.

A radical, far-right agenda that includes killing Social Security might be a winning argument in a GOP primary, but stepping outside the protection of those insulated walls and arguing the same thing to the rest of world is a completely different matter. And it risks disaster.