But somehow, things just feel different this time around. Sure, there is still coverage of Jerry Brown's 'whore' flap, Christine O'Donnell's wiccan past, and the pro-wrestling guy's wife and her millions. But the usual enthusiasm is just not there, seemingly on any front. We haven't really seen the gleeful orgy of color-coded, electoral touch maps yet. Newt Gingrich is back on the scene with rhetorical fury, and Tea Party rallies are all over the place, and there are enticing races everywhere -- but still, despite all that, there is an overpowering sense of dread that has put a damper on the whole deal. What's going on here? 

First and most obviously is the economy. Despite the rosy view from Wall Street, which has resumed making money hand over fist, things suck for almost everyone else. Official unemployment is stubbornly stuck at around 9.6%, roughly unchanged since the beginning of the year. More distressingly, there are more than 6 million people who have been out of work for longer than six months, a gruesome sign that 'full employment' is heading for the historical dustbin. And this pandemic of joblessness is cascading through the entire economy in relentless feedback loops, decimating local and state tax bases, resulting in more public sector job cuts, etc. I'm sure that by now, almost all of us have either directly experienced a long jobless stretch, or at least had someone close to us go through it. And the frustrating thing is that we all know this has nothing to do with talent or the willingness to work hard. Sure, there are some lazy freeloaders out there, and there will always be people gaming the system. But endless studies demonstrate, and our own personal experiences should confirm, that the poor and the jobless are not lazy. They are absolutely willing to get out there and roll their sleeves up and work their asses off. It's just that the system doesn't seem to need them any more. Okay, enough on that, we're getting off track.

Alright, so we've got a horrific economic scene, agreed. So why isn't there more oomph in the whole midterm election landscape? Sure, non-presidential election cycles are generally less inducing of enthusiasm, but we're arguably tottering on the precipice of utter economic collapse, and there are amazingly-important policy decisions that need to happen in the next few years. Why are things still so subdued? Even with the Tea Party groundswell, there still does not seem to be a lot of general conservative swagger or excitement at the prospect of a flipped Congress. What gives?

One of the factors here is the prospect of a split government. Even if the GOP sweeps to victory in both houses, the result is still a divided DC, a la the Gingrich revolution of 1994. I think that many people remember the gridlock that followed the Contract with America years, and the squandered time and treasure that went into special prosecutors of blow jobs. Considering that the Republicans have swatted away every olive branch that Obama has extended to them over the last two years, instead opting to label him a Socialist, the prospects of a red Congress working with a blue White House are almost nil. At some level, I think that conservatives realize that even a sweeping victory in November will only result in the GOP continuing their role as the party of "no." We can only hope that a red Congress doesn't go off on some multi-year investigation of Obama's birth certificate or African aunt.

Of course, that may be a slightly 'liberal' interpretation, as would be appropriate for a blog of this sort. But let's flip it around and consider it from the conservative point of view. Of course, a Republican victory next month would result in the GOP being the party of "no." That's the whole point of the Tea Party platform, which has been adapted and melded into the general Republican stance. Conservatives have to be obstructive, because of the massive increases in federal spending and federal debt racked up by Obama. It's only common sense that in tough economic times, you have to limit your spending and tighten your belt. We can't be shoveling cash into Obamacare, Mesopotamian wars, bank bailouts, and federal stimulus, when we don't have even have enough money for decent schools and pothole-filling. Someone must bring fiscal sanity back to Washington. Someone has to stop signing checks that have to bankrolled by present and future generations of American taxpayers. All of this federal bloat will ultimately mean higher taxes for families and small businesses, so the GOP has to step in and say, "we're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it any more!" 

There are several problems with this line of reasoning, and I think that deep down, even the most ardent Tea Partiers know it -- which likely accounts for the proforma nature of much of the campaign excitement.

• Demand destruction -- while there is certainly still a lot of disagreement on this topic, conditions on the ground are staring to confirm that the current economic picture is one of collapsed demand. Businesses are out there, ready to supply more inventory, and huge banks are sitting on wads of cached cash, ready to loan it out. But the business world will not get the supply pumps primed when the landscape of demand is so bleak. Jobless and proto-jobless people on the brink of insolvency are not great spenders. The house-as-ATM days are also over, leaving little prospect for huge new pools of disposable income. Under these circumstances, businesses will just gravitate towards other, safer avenues of investment, like T-bills, instead of laying out loans for increased productive capacity.
• Dangerous Deficit Busting -- In a situation of destroyed demand, the single-minded conservative pursuit of deficit reduction is extremely reckless. Cutting taxes and gutting social insurance programs like Social Security and unemployment benefits will end up exacerbating the demand problem. Tax revenues and social insurance actually do employ people in the public sector, so when we pound the deficit-busting Bible, more people are thrown out of work, further squashing overall purchasing power.
• Business Mythology -- One of the huge blind spots in conservative ideology is that there is a unified entity out there called the "business community," and that this group of noble souls is continually being hounded by the stalking villains of Big Government. In this context, the cutting of taxes and the elimination of regulations is supposed to leave the "business community" free to do what it does best: invest, work hard, and bring creative progress to the economy. In this interpretation, small and big business are conflated, and the assumption is that all companies want and need the same things. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, small businesses and large corporations are totally different entities, and their interests are actually diametrically opposed. Large corporations, because of their massive resource base, are in essence quasi-governmental bodies. Their armies of lobbyists, their huge campaign war chests (now completely swollen and pouring-forth, thanks to the ridiculous ruling of the Supreme Court), and their total control of the mainstream media (on both the 'left' and the 'right') have turned corporations into the government, and vice versa. Corporations get to write legislation, approve 'regulators,' and shuffle their personnel in and out of government posts. They get to wring every last drop of money out of the federal revenue rag, from no-bid contracts to massive tax breaks to favorable subsidies and favors. Oh yeah, and another thing -- large corporations absolutely do not want a level playing field. They want all business law and policy to favor large firms' ability to squash out competition, especially from below, so that prices can be fixed and profits can be maximized. In actuality, small businesses are the enemy of big business, and the playing field is slanted to allow the big fish to gobble up or crush the little ones. So the conservative bifurcation of Business vs. Government is totally bogus. It is simply a fundraising and electioneering trope that obscures the true dichotomy: Centralized Power vs. Local Self-Reliance. Centralized power is the fusion of big corporations and big government, joined together to make sure that all surplus value generated by lower levels gets vacuumed up and parked at the top.
• GOP Track Record -- The mythology detailed above is the backdrop for another note of uneasiness that puts the kibosh on midterm enthusiasm: that is, despite all the conservative talk of cutting taxes, shrinking debt, and returning the economy to bottom-up health, we all know that they did not do that during their last long stretch of control. The Dubya years were filled with bloated budgets, ballooning deficits, and massive insiderism and cronyism. The defense budget, especially, was an open cookie jar for fraud, unaccountability, and graft. You may even remember the fiasco that was Medicare Part D, an enormous prescription drug plan that was deliberately rushed through on a bogus cost estimate, and will be an underfunded albatross around the neck of taxpayers for decades to come -- oh yeah, but it just happened to be an awesome boon to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. We've heard the fiscal responsibility tune from the GOP for decades, but somehow it never seems to quite work as planned.

If the Republicans sweep into power next month, aided by a strong Tea Party contingent, I really do wish them well. I hope that they take their own rhetoric seriously about returning power to the people, and begin the arduous task of stripping the federal budget of every kind of bloat, fraud, graft, favor, and giveaway. But if they really want to do the job, they will have to take on the strongest of interest groups: the massive army of corporate lobbyists, bag men, and lifelong DC functionaries who will immediately attack any policy platform that would turn off the federal money spigot. They will remind the new representatives that their re-election campaign war chests will only start filling up if they get with the program to continue the government-corporate largesse. Will the new conservatives be able to stand up and be the party of "no" with those corporate guys?  I would hope so ---- but I doubt it.