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November 3, 2014
New York Times Panics - "Cancel The Midterms!"
By Susan Duclos
With every major polling organizations as well as internal polling for both sides of the aisle showing expected Republican gains in the 2014 midterm elections, which historically see a loss for any president's party, the mainstream media, specifically the New York Times op-ed pages this time, has melted down and gone into panic mode, with the blaring short headline "Cancel The Midterms."
As the chart below shows, Democrats suffered a historic loss in the 2010 midterm election, losing 63 House seats and control of the House of Representatives as well as six senate seats. That type of loss has not been seen for any president's party since 1938 when Franklin D. Roosevelt and Democrats suffered a 71 seat loss in the house and six Senate seats.
According to Washington Post's Election Lab, Republicans hold a 99 percent chance of holding on to control of the House of Representatives and a 96 percent chance of gaining enough seats to control the Senate, which would make Barack Obama a "lame duck" president for his last two years of his term.
There was a time when midterm elections made sense — at our nation’s founding, the Constitution represented a new form of republican government, and it was important for at least one body of Congress to be closely accountable to the people. But especially at a time when Americans’ confidence in the ability of their government to address pressing concerns is at a record low, two-year House terms no longer make any sense. We should get rid of federal midterm elections entirely.
Contrary to the idiocy in the NYT piece linked above, midterm elections allow voters the opportunity to put a stop to an agenda they do not agree with or to punish politicians from either side of the aisle for not keeping their campaign promises, or simply acting against the will of the people, which is why midterms often show a major loss for the president's party.
