Can the Republicans take the House?

There are many pundits out there who talk of this being a terrible year for the Democrats, and they are correct. However, are the Republicans going to actually take over the House come the November mid-terms?

Here are the reasons that bode well for the Republicans:

1. It's the economy, stupid! Yes, the bleak jobs outlook and slow growth of them always hurts the party in power, no matter who or what is to blame. The Democrats are unfortunate to be the ones in power.

2. Republican Enthusiasm. The voter base for the Republican Party is more likely to vote than the liberal base of the Democratic Party by about two to one. This does not bode well as lower voter turnout favors Republicans, whose base always comes out.

3. Harvesting the Tea Party movement. The Republican Party effectively took control of this situation that could have produced more third party challenges by "merging" with it. This assures the conservative movement will vote for the GOP, and not other candidates. (They learned their lesson from that New York race.)

4. Party of No. The best thing politically for them to do is not support anything President Obama is doing. Then they can run against him and state they have done everything in their power to stop the policies they are opposed to. This way they are the other choice for the voters.

There was an anti incumbency movement that seems to have fizzled out. Dan Coats of Indiana won that primary, and he is a former lobbyist and the ultimate insider. While some were thrown out of office during the primaries, others did extremely well. While there is a feeling of anti incumbency in some areas, it is not as big as has been reported.

Areas not so good for the Republicans:

1. Calling the unemployed bums, lazy, spoiled and a few other choice words is not what people looking for work want to hear. It may play well to the base, but this will cost the GOP some support in the fall.

2. Embracing the Tea Party movement. This positive step is also a negative as it might scare off moderate and independent voters. The base will show up, and the hope is the other types of voters stay home.

3. Apologizing to BP for the $20 billion fund. This was not the best thing to do, and showed the GOP cared more about Big Oil than the people hurt by the spill. This was quickly reversed, but the damage was done.

4. Opposing financial reform. Some polls show as high as 80% of people supporting this, and the GOP opposed it. Wall Street is not liked at all, and this is a weak area for the GOP.

There is another strategy that is going on which might work for now but will hurt in the long run. The idea is to use race (and now Islam) to scare voters. This is not a new idea, and has worked well in the past by both parties. But with these segments of the population growing, it will hurt for national office such as president. Many candidates for the House are running these types of campaigns to play off the illegal immigration problems and the anti Muslim feelings in many areas. When President Obama was running for the office, his staff made some women wearing head scarves to move. This was found out and he was chastised by the liberal blog and pundits (rightly so). This is not just a GOP thing, but also has shown up in Democratic races.

With all this, I am predicting the GOP takes over the House, but by a slim margin.

In an ironic twist, it seems that some Republicans want to repeal or at least change the 14th Amendment. I state this as I wrote part of my commentary about the use of some racial overtones to scare voters into voting for their party. I wonder how the Libertarian/Tea Party activists will respond to this as they are supposedly strict Constitutionalists.

The part they want changed is what they refer to as "anchor babies", children born here from illegal aliens who are automatically citizens. Again, this plays very well to their base voters, but will really hurt them in the long run.

(I also don't like the possibility of taking away citizenship from natural born peoples as it might lead to another group being targeted. But that is another story for another forum.)

The question is will this help them win in November? Stay tuned.