Democrats controlled Congress for forty years then lost "Big Time" in '94

[Toots]

Why???? What were the majority of reasons given to oust them from office. Was it mainly abortion? What did the Democrats do to piss off America so much as to get thrown out on their butts in '94. I really can't remember. I think this is something I should know and remind myself daily not to do whatever it is that pissed America off. Was it arrogance? I remember something about a postal scandal. Congressmen were selling off the free postage granted them for cash but that doesn't hold a candle to the selling off of America by Republicans and yet I'm not sure the same will hold true for them. What did we do wrong and how do we keep from doing it again? :shrug:

[Cobalt Violet]

1. Welfare, Gun Control.

Repukes promised to "end welfare as we know it".

The middle class sheeple fell for it hook, line and sinker.

[marmar]

2. Perception management (or mind-fucking, more crudely and accurately)

The 1994 election is sometimes dubbed by pundits as the "revenge of the white males." Repugs convinced its core demographic that it was under threat from liberalism, feminism, people of color, gay rights etc etc and it got them to the polls en masse. Meanwhile, Dems did nothing to counter all this media manipulation.

[Poppyseedman]

24. "revenge of the white males."

The pundits call it that because they were stupid, insipid, mindless dickheads that missed calling this earth shattering political event.

What do you do in the media when everything you think is going to happen is wrong. You blame the messenger.

Of course, there was some fear mongering going on, the GOP is always mongering something, but the american people were sick of the lazy, corrupt congress in charge.

[Cobalt Violet]

3. Contract On America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_with_America#Content_of_the_Contract.

[baldguy]

4. Can't let the queers get married.

But you can kill my son in some nameless desert, and send my job to China.

[KharmaTrain]

5. A Great Repugnican PR Effort

In retrospect, the only major issue in '94 was "Hillarycare"...a far cry from the war, high gas prices, crappy economy and other disasters we face today. Newt and the right wing spin machine found a way to take this issue...scare people into thinking the government was going to tax them into oblivion for health care for minorities and then demonized Hillary as the real "power behind the throne". Throw in the ratcheted up Whitewater noise at the time that was the feeding frenzy of a new corporate media and you had a "perfect storm" that Gingrich and his cronies exploited.

Throw in the rise of Rushbo...both on radio and TV...along with an explosion of right wing religious stations and preachers...all spewing how Repugnicans were godly and Democrats were evil.

Lastly, give credit to a messed up Democratic party where corrupt top leadership made it easy to demonize as well. While Rostenkowski was a piker compared to DeLay, he still got nailed and Rushbo and his ilk made him the posterboy for the need for change...along with characterizing Foley as a lazy bum and Ted Kennedy as the face of the Senate (right after his nephew's trial). Democrats...especially the DLC...ignored the mood of the country and paid a price.

It's easy to look back then through today's lens and lose perspective. For 20 years, the Repugnicans had been chipping away at the Democrat's control of the House. It was more of an obsession for them than winning the White House...and now we can see why. By turning the House into a circus, they've furthered the right wing agenda that made a lot of today's problems reality. And they still get a free pass on all their hypocrisy...or at least they have...we'll see how things shake out in November...and if they've lost touch with voters like the Democrats did in '94.

[bullimiami]

14. exactly. they Rs launched an all out pr campaign promising better times.

it was all very smart, the contract with america, the framing, the language.

unfortunately, it was all lies. it was a contract on america.

[benEzra]

28. Hardly...

In retrospect, the only major issue in '94 was "Hillarycare"

Hardly. It was an issue, but the gun issue was HUGE in 1994. President Clinton even noted the number of Congressional seats lost over the Feinstein ban.

[KharmaTrain]

29. Good Point

Being 12 years in the rear-view mirror, it's hard to remember what was really a "big issue" in the days when we didn't have wars, high gas prices or other calamities around.

The NRA became very active that campaign...thank you for bringing up that point. It played into a bigger playbook where Repugnicans energized their various interest groups and were able to energize their base to the polls like never before. Also, with Perot out of the picture, a lot of votes that went his way in '92 came back to the GOOP in '94.

Also, don't forget the tax increase of '93...the one that set up the eventual reducing of the defecit (which Repugnicans screamed for, but now avoid talking about) as being this massive tax hike. The "tax and spend" meme was also in prime form in those days and with the Democrats in control of the budget for all those years, this one worked very well. A difference now is with the wreckless spending by this regime, it's hard to find a "true" conservative who believes the GOOP is fiscally responsible either.

[FloridaPat]

6. I seem to remember lots of times when people were so fed up with

congress, that the object was to throw whoever was in out. The Southern states have been moving towards repub for years. That might have had someting to do with it. And wasn't the stupid Contract with America that year? I don't really believe most voters heard about it. I read it then and got a good chuckle out of it. And the repubs by that time had found dozens of "scandles" the Clintons were involved in. Of course the fact that none of them panned out was never put on the front pages of the newspapers that put the scandle there first.

[Baselinereality]

7. You're Talking About the Loss of a Handful of Seats

The Democratic Party lost touch with its progressive roots in the Midwest. The midwest became swamped by righteous fundamentalism.

Somehow, because of perception or just plain poor planning, the Democratic party stopped connecting to a lot of average Americans in the center of the country.

I just read this in a recent Washington Post article about the Lieberman/Lamont primary, for example:

"Connecticut is a liberal, Democratic-leaning state, by no means a reflection of the rest of the country."

BY NO MEANS A REFLECTION OF THE REST OF THE COUNTRY.

Why the hell not? And who the f*ck does the Washington Post think it is?

I think there are more people leaning toward the Democratic Party than the Washington Post and the rest of the Washington insiders want to acknowledge, but the fundies have the spotlight for now.

I for one say shine that spotlight brighter. Because the more Sam Brownback has the spotlight, advocating for a wall on our border to Mexico while outlawing basic stem cell research, the more he is exposed for the extremist that he is.

I am so very tired of extremists putting on suits, talking in quiet, modulated voices and appearing reasonable while the espousing clearly radical views on everything from tax reform to abortion to the war in Iraq.

By no means a reflection of the entire state.

Well, by God, maybe soon it will be.

I'll be so glad when a reasonable political system is in place so that I can stop being so freakin' concerned about the state of the nation.

Sorry for babbling.

I'm off to eat a chicken pot pie.

[Toots]

12. If you consider a fifty four seat swing a ahndful then yes I guess it is

Fifty four seats changed hands and Democrats lost control for the first time since 1954. Fifty four seats changed...

[WI_DEM]

21. I was just going to mention that

it was 54 house seats and 8 or 9 Senate seats Democrats lost--so it was not an insignificant number. It was a full-blown whipe-out in '94 and hopefully we will see something similar this year, but with redistricting favoring the incumbents it will be more difficult.

[demosincebirth]

8. Working men and women falling for those hot button

issues that republicans can so cleverly make many of us swallow.

[doubleplusgood]

9. gays, guns, god, greed

It was advent of Hate Radio on a large scale, the Christian Coaliton flexing it's power, good marketing in the form of the "Contract for America" plus a visceral, irrational hatred of Bill Clinton that propelled the GOP to power.

Also, the Democratic congress, in particular, the House of Representatives, had lost intellectual steam over the years & had it's share of corrupt politicians in the form of Dan Rostenkowski, Jim Wright & several others. Of course, in hindsight, this corruption pales when compared to the gross, systematic corruption of the entire Republican party apparatus that we see today.

[OnionPatch]

13. As I recall

The mainstream media trumped up a lot of false charges on the Clintons, but I don't believe they were enough to stir up the entire country alone.....Hate Radio did that job.

If I recall, that was right around the time when I started to notice that you couldn't turn your radio dial without hearing some rightwing windbag screaming about how evil we liberals are.

IMO, until we get a fair share of the radio waves in this country, they will always have a big advantage over us.

[jerry611]

15. Clinton escaped because he was moderate

He was moderate and was able to keep the independants supporting him. That's why he was able to keep up his approval ratings even under those media attacks.

But as for why the GOP took over congress...that happened because of key issues like abortion, taxes, gun control, and gays. The GOP won on gun control. We won't have gun control in America for a very long time. They may have won on taxes. They broke even with Clinton on the gays. But they lost on abortion.

[WI_DEM]

25. though at the time of the midterm '94 election Clinton was in the 30's

in his poll numbers. He actually profited from having a GOP congress to use as a whipping boy and from that point forward contrasting what he wanted to do with Newt Gingrich helped Clinton tremendously from a political point of view.

[Warpy]

10. There was a massive PR campaign

to "throw the bums out." Congress was seen as rubber stamping every special interest spending bill that came around, of being corrupt and complacent, and of sacrificing the interest of the people in favor of their contributors. The new members were elected largely on their promise to enact term limits, the FIRST promise they all abandoned as soon as they knocked the dust of their home states off their shoes.

The reformers turned out to be much more corrupt than the old guard they replaced.

Now it's their turn. People here in workaday land are ANGRY and they're starting to figure out it's not just your son of a bitch, their son of a bitch has to go, too.

The only problem remains to convince them to kick Congress out and keep kicking them out every election until they wake up and remember just who they're supposed to be working for.

[Danascot]

20. Gotta fix the system first

Until we get real campaign finance reform corporations and special interests will continue to be able buy congresspersons. Congress won't represent the people until they stop representing their owners.

[Cocoa]

11. tax increases

Clinton's Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 had substantial tax increases on the rich, and the battle was extremely divisive. It passed Congress without a single republican vote.

The republicans were using all kinds of ridiculous hyperbole about how much of a disaster it would be, Dick Armey predicted it would cause another great depression. At the time of the 1994 election, the benefits hadn't become visible yet, the economy was still perceived as very poor and getting worse.

The dems were proven right, of course, but sometimes being right carries a political price.



edit: how divisive was this bill, you ask?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Budget_Reconciliation_Act_of_1993

Vote

Ultimately every Republican in Congress voted against the bill, as did a number of Democrats. Vice-President Al Gore broke a tie in the Senate on both the actual bill and the conference report. In the House the bill passed by only one vote, 218-216. President Clinton signed the bill on August 10, 1993.



http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=103&session=1&vote=00247
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1993/roll406.xml

[derby378]

16. The semi-auto ban caused more damage to Dems than they anticipated

The party of "choice" had revealed itself to be anti-choice in terms of gun ownership, and it left a very bad taste in many Democrats' mouths.

I still get e-mails from newcomers to Amendment II Democrats who tell me "I thought I was alone..." or "Where have you guys been all this time..." in terms of our approach to gun rights and the Democratic Party. There's a strong undercurrent of single-issue voters who would be all too happy to vote Democratic in 2006 if only Rahm Emanuel, Dianne Feinstein, Charles Schumer, etc. would simply concede defeat and let the people decide. I'm trying to work on these voters to keep them from voting Republican, but it'll take time.

[Poppyseedman]

17. The "Congressional Bank scandal" + "House Post Office scandal"

really pissed people off.

The democratically controlled congress got arrogant, corrupt, lazy, unresponsive, scandal plagued and they paid for it.

The bank scandal, I think put the icing on the cake.

You think the American public have a low opinion of Congress today?

Try 17 % according to a CBS poll in April 1992 and for good reason

For those of you who will make a comparison to today GOP controlled mess and think history will be revisited. There is one big difference.

In 92, the scandals were "systemic" and "institutionalized" problems verses personal and individual problems like Delay and Duke Cunningham. In general the mood was throw out all the bums instead of just the the few bad apples.

We will see this Nov how badly the country thinks this mess the GOP resides really is.

[Hidden Stillness]

18. It's as Easy as "D"-L-C

I think it was a combination of propaganda against Clinton, and actual disasters committed by the Wal-Mart Administration. If you think back to 1992, you might remember a very excited, hopeful feeling of change, and reclaiming America after the horrible corporate darkness and criminality of the Reagan-Bush years, and the largest number of indictments and unindicted co-conspirators of any Administration, even Nixon's. Clinton won by a landslide, had huge crowds at the Inauguration, walked along the crowd on the street shaking hands, Maya Angelou read a beautiful poem that then became a best-seller, etc. Then they took office.

Immediately, there started to be scary things said--"a new kind of Democrat," not like the old, not like the saintly Roosevelt, who had saved a Nation; "business-friendly"; "let's not be so associated with unions," etc.--and a huge influx of corporate consultants and business groups the Democrats had never been associated with before. Cliton would go out on these "I feel your pain/fear, etc." tours, then come back and help to deregulate a safeguard we used to have, or lowered corporate taxes and shifted them onto us. There was a frightening feeling that this was not a Democrat at all, but a corporate Republican, with the same ties, doing the same things. For the first time, we in the Midwest, reliant on manufacturing jobs, protections, etc., did not know what these people were going to do to us next.

What year did both the disastrous NAFTA and the disastrous GATT pass Congress, pushed by Clinton and Gore? 1993 (GATT was December; Harry Truman had refused to sign it, and now here it was). This not only decimated our region's manufacturing economy, which has never recovered, but introduced a huge trade deficit that has only exploded since, every time there is a new "free" trade agreement among capitalists. "Democrats" were no longer on our side, but were as corporate Republican as Republicans. None of our issues were ever referred to anymore; there were only corporate deals and fundraising. At this same time, after another uprising of the people over unaffordable health care, the so-called "Clinton plan" (like the recent "Medicare" insurance and pharmaceutical industry Part D prescription mess, that only made all costs worse and shifted profits further to corporations and away from Government regulation), was this 1000+ page mess that moved people onto HMOs--disastrously, incomprehensibly, only to trick them and cut their coverage--rather than take on the God-damned problem and either bring universal health care coverage, or at least put a freeze on prices/profits, tax excess profits, etc. It solved nothing, was so complicated and corporate-driven that there was no support for it, it finally died, and nothing else was done!

This in a nutshell was what happened--I will never forget the kind of frightened, perplexed attitude toward these people, as if--What the fuck kind of "Democrats" are these? What are they going to do to us next? etc. Support for this group dropped off sharply as soon as people knew what kinds of corporate lobbyists they were, that they were never going to address any of our problems, except to give lip service for votes, and that voting for a "D"LC type, was just like a vote for a Republican. The only difference was which corporations they were going to funnel money to. Clinton gave us shit like the "V-chip," rather than regulating the media, then deregulated the media's ownership further with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, just like a fascist Republican, then we were supposed to buy this stupid "chip" from the same capitalists who had disenfranchised us. When the Clinton Administration really showed itself to be completely corporate and anti-middle class, anti-worker, cutting the poor off welfare rather than improving the pay of workers in non-skilled jobs that could still be found after NAFTA, etc., then enthusiasm for this type of "alternative" to Republicans was gone. They never helped us--all we ever heard was "competitive, competitive," which under certain circumstances you only recognize as corporate code; it means "more deregulation coming."

[Cerridwen]

26. How I wish I could recommend your post.

Thank you for watching, seeing and remembering what really went on within the Democratic Party.

Have you seen "One Bright Shining Moment" yet? It shows the struggle within the Democratic Party between the "Establishment" Democrats and the "Populist" Democrats which we still struggle through today; and which was made blatantly obvious during the Clinton administration. Maybe not so blatant as so many people missed it.

Whatever happened to "Power to the People"?

[WI_DEM]

19. alot of the blame was put on Clinton

at the time because of the so-called "Healthcare fiasco", but I think that a lot of it too was arrogance of power--the democrats didn't see it coming and didn't take the proper steps to stem it.

[charlie]

22. The last stages of the Southern Realignment

Perception of an indifferent, crooked Congress -- Wright, Rostenkowski, House Banking Scandal. Collapse of the healthcare iniative, an untested, already embattled and marginalized President. The rise of Gingrich and his cutthroat, media savvy style of politics. Rush Limbaugh's emergence as a national phenomenon. Demonization of the liberal brand and branding of the Democrats as the liberal party was complete.

[AX10]

23. Right Wing HATE Radio greatly assisted the GOP in spreading...

their propaganda, which is now pushed in the MSM. The Democrats need their own echo chamber to counter the effects of the right wing echo chamber.

[benEzra]

27. The 1994 Feinstein gun ban...

accompanied by loud and vocal promises of more draconian bans to come, and the often-stated view that hunting is the only valid reason to own a gun, when 4 out of 5 gun owners are nonhunters.

Dems and the Gun Issue - Now What?

Since rifles and shotguns are very rarely used in crimes (all rifles combined account for less than 3% of homicides), there was and is no rational reason for banning rifles and shotguns with handgrips that stick out. But the rhetoric coming out of Washington about owners of nonhunting guns was downright scary, if you were the target of it.