For GOP and Dems, Time to Manage Expectations

Both the Democrats and the Republicans are using the final days before the midterm elections to rally, goad or reassure their bases. Don't believe the hype

By Mark Halperin Monday, Oct. 18, 2010
    • Alexis C. Glenn / Getty Images

    President Obama, left, and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs

    And now it is time to set expectations. Democrats and Republicans — politicians, spinners, pundits and, yes, a certain sitting President — are going to spend a lot of time before Nov. 2 letting the world know what they think the outcome of the midterm elections is going to be. Or rather, offering up some statements that are less reasoned predictions than manipulative machinations.

    This is an age-old practice, owing more to art than science. Sometimes the right play is to express unbridled confidence, signaling to voters that it is time to get on the winning team and nudging the press to believe that momentum is in the house. But at other times, the right play is to suggest that danger looms, to warn your base voters that if they don't get engaged right quick, the other side will prevail — and to assure the media that you know you may well come out on the short end, that you actually expected it all along and that there's nothing to see here, so move along and go cover something else.

    In the past week, there has been a subtle but perceptible change in the relative way the two parties are playing the expectations game. Republicans, cautiously hopeful for months, are now flexing muscle and making taunts: We have the issues, the money, the momentum, and there's nothing the impotent President can do about it. The GOP's strategy is unlikely to change. From now until Election Day — from Fox News to Rush Limbaugh to the party's elected leaders and shogun surrogates like Sarah Palin — expect exultant chest-thumping. You can't stop us now .

    Democrats face a more complicated situation. Ever since White House press secretary Robert Gibbs created an intraparty uproar in July by speculating that Democrats theoretically could lose majority control of the House of Representatives, the party has had trouble finding the balance between brash conviction (which might seem deluded now and foolish on Nov. 3) and wistful realism, leavened by some can-do optimism, in order to get dispirited Democrats engaged to vote.

    Vice President Joe Biden has taken the lead in unambiguously asserting that his party will retain control of both the Senate and the House. Even Gibbs has gotten into the act belatedly, saying Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press that Democrats are showing a "new excitement" that is "shrinking [the] enthusiasm gap" with the GOP, and flatly declaring that his party will keep its Capitol Hill majorities. Other voices, like Obama's former campaign manager, David Plouffe, talk about how tough things are for Democrats in the current climate but encourage the faithful by saying there is still time to prevent a massacre, pointing to some narrowing polls and the need to rally the 2008 troops.

    Of course, all this expectation-setting is as silly as it is meaningless. Election Day is just a couple of weeks away. If you don't have the patience to wait for the actual results, at least ignore the political spin on both sides and focus on America's problems and policies, which will still matter beyond next month. As the lawyer Jaggers says to Pip in Dickens' Great Expectations , "Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule."

    One Nation, Halperin's politics column for TIME.com, appears every Monday.