Health Care BS

The midterm elections are more than six months away, and the Republicans have a special genius for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but Morris makes a pretty compelling case:

Rasmussen has the Republicans ahead by 49-37 on the economy and 53-37 on healthcare. His likely-voter poll shows GOP leads on every major issue area: national security (49-37), Iraq (47-39), education (43-30), immigration (47-34), Social Security (48-36) and taxes (52-34) .

And what precisely is the significance of these numbers? 

When Republicans are winning issues like education, healthcare and Social Security … a sweep of unimaginable proportions is in the offing.

But what if the economy improves? Won’t that save the Dems?

Not very likely. Remember Bill Clinton’s 1994 experience. Even though the recession had officially ended in the quarter before he took office and he proudly pointed to the 5 million new jobs that had been created during the first two years of his presidency, Clinton got no bounce from the jobs issue or the economy.

And Morris scoffs at the contrary prognostications of Stanley Greenberg, reminding us that Greenberg’s incompetence in the 1994 midterms got him fired by then President Clinton.

Morris, on the other hand, has a pretty good track record. He was one of the first to predict, for example, that the GOP would lose Congress in 2006. So, here’s hoping he’s right.