2006 The midterm election were characterized by an all out democratic takeover. Democrats won the majority of the seats in both the house and the senate, taking 233 seats in the house and 51 in the senate, assuming we count both independents as democrats, based on how they caucus. This massive overhaul was caused by two main sentiments of the public: dislike for President Bush, who serves as the figure head of the republican party, and dislike for congress.Each has had its fair share of widely publicized criticism in the years proceeding the election. The issues covered most by the mass media are the ones which end up deciding the election. From the early 2000s to 2004 the media, and therefore the public, shifted its focus from "moral issues" to iraq, political scandal and the laziness and incompetence of bush and of the members of congress. The republicans lost the 2006 congressional midterm election because of numerous widely publicized incidents which provoked a vote of no-confidence in the executive and legislative incumbency. According to the CNN exit poll from the 2006 election 61% of voters disapprove of how congress is handling its job and because the 109th congress as a republican controlled congress, this reflects very poorly on the republican party as a whole, and correlates to the ousting of republicans from their seats in both the house and the senate. Reasons for disliking the actions of congress include a plethora of scandals and a more general negative public perception of what congress had hone during its tenure. The scandals congress was entangled with included bribery, indecent sexual conduct with children, and cheating of the native americans, among others. On republican representative, Duke Cunningham, was indicted for accepting over 2.4 Million dollars in bribe money. The Washington Post called the Cunningham affair "the most brazen bribery conspiracy in modern congressional history." This blatant display of unscrupulousness disgusted many americans into voting against the current congress. As did Jack Abrimoff's theft from the american indians and all of his other interactions with Tom DeLay and other congresspeople and staffers. There was even one scandal involving a democrat. William J Jefferson's office was raided by the FBI on suspicion of corruption. Despite his status as a democrat, his corruption adversly effected the republicans because it furthered the public view of a corrupt republican controlled congress. When it comes down to it the incumbent party always gets blamed for the actions of the full body. Of all the scandal to hit congress this decade, no scandal was more widely covered or more indicative of the impending republican defeat than the Mark Foley page scandal. Mark Foley, a floridian congressman, had served as the chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children and was ironically and despicably involved with inappropriate sexual communication with minors working on the hill. When AIM transcripts of his behavior were released to the news media, foley quickly became a despised and hated man. The public opinion of him as an individual fed into a distrust of congress as a whole and of the republican party as a whole. Moreover, Not only does the public
distrust congressional republicans because the congressman charged with leading congress in the protection of children, exploited children himself, but two thirds of those aware of the scandal at the time believed that that the Republican leadership in Congress attempted a cover-up according to a TIME magazine poll. The potential of a cover-up is more damning than the actions taken by mark foley himself. It shows that the republican party is not above corruption and is more concerned with protecting its own members than actually being moral. Accoring to the Wall Street Journal this greatly effected the vote of the republican base. As the scandal over former Rep. Mark Foley has expanded to entwine Republican leaders who knew of his emails to underage male House pages but took little action, the party has new reason to worry about two key constituencies: Christian conservatives and suburban soccer moms." (WSJ 2006) The republicans had electoral trouble, not only from independents and democrats, but also from a portion of their own conservative base. In addition to publicizing scandal the democratic party and media elite drew attention to the voting actions and work ethic of congress, labeling it as the "Do-nothing congress," which they intact were if your metrics are based on days in session. "The House of Representatives met for only 101 days in session during the second session of the 109th Congress. The Senate met for only 138 days in session during the second session of the 109th Congress. Thus the House set the record for the fewest days in session in one year since the end of World War II." (Blumenthal) The democratic party website itself, democrats.org, has a section entitled "The Do-Nothing Congress Daily Register," which reports on the many different ways the 109th congress failed to take action during its tenure. Not only is this factual but it has been widely publicized by newscasters. Serving as CNN television news anchor, Lou Dobbs sarcastically asserted "This Republican-led, do-nothing Congress is on its way home for a five-week vacation. I'm sure while there, they'll be glad to explain their to constituents why they need so much rest in a year in which they will work fewer than 80 days." The media and the democratic party were successful in framing the republican congress as lazy and in the end the public doesn't like and wont vote for a crooked, lazy congress. Therefore, because the 109th was not very popular in the news media or in the public eye many of its incumbent members, primarily republicans, were relieved of duty by the 2006 midterm election Possibly the most salient issue of this decade is the war in Iraq. As of election day 2006, 67% of voters believed that the war in Iraq was extremely important or very important to their decision(CNN exit poll). It was also one of the most prominent news topics in the media. With every channel was dominated by 24 hour coverage of the immanent Iraqi conflict, Americans have no chance to decide whether Iraqs threat is important or not. The shear volume of news coverage makes it impossible to overlook. This notion of the media picking important issues and conveying them to the public in such volume that they become dominant issues is reffered to as media agenda setting (Iyengar and Simon, 1994, p.168). With the media agenda
set to the iraq war and with many years of unsuccessful military action Iraq behind us, both the media and the public have grown tried of the war and according to exit polls, voters wanted to see the war end and thought that voting for a democrat would help america take steps towards that end and begin withdrawal from iraq. The iraq war was supposed to be one of George W Bush's greatest achievements. However, it turned out to be a leading factor in the downfall of his party's power on the hill. The stay the course attitude of the bush administration in addition to that of republican congresspeople detracted from the republican vote count because it painted the republican party stubborn and blind to the truth behind the iraq war. Anything that the president does leading up to a midterm election influences the results through the midterm effect. "Midterm elections serve in part as a referendum the presidents popularity and performance in office during the previous two years. Voters may hold the presidents party responsible for unpopular military ventures, economic reverses, or a declining political or moral climate."(Oleszek 106) In this case voters disapprove of bush's, and by extension the entire republican party's, management of hurricane Katrina, social security reform and many other issues in addition to the Iraq war. Exit polls showed that many voters had voted against republican candidates specifically because of personal opposition to President Bush. 57 percent of voters polled disapproved of how George W. Bush was handling his job prior to the election and 59% were dissatisfied or angry when they were asked their opinion of bush.(CNN exit polls). As far as social security is concerned, bush is also quite unpopular. On the front page of the Washington Post back in march 2005 Jonathan Weisman cited a Poll saying that a mere three months after its inception bush's social security plan had a 35% approval rate and "Skepticism of Bush's Social Security Plan Is Growing." Elderly voters hearing about this new plan on the news either don't care or don't want to manage their own money. Whereas the youngest voters, who might want to manage their own capital, are the hardest to get out to vote. Voters also cited bush's abysmally slow and unorganized reaction to hurricane Katrina and he and his brother's improper involvement with the terri schaivo case. Shear dislike for George W Bush and his numerous flawed policies, lead voters to the ballot box with the intent to defy bush and vote against the republican party. In the months leading up to the 2006 midterm election the media exposed the lazy and stubborn ways of congress and bush, the numerous scandals on capital hill, and the public was watching. Democrats won the majority of congressional seats, taking 233 seats in the house and 51 in the senate, not only because voters disliked the actions of the republican controlled 109th congress, but because they were fed up with the actions of the republican figurehead, President George W Bush.
Sources: CNN exit polls: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006 Congress and its Members; 2008 CQ press, Roger H. Davidson, Walter J. Oleszek, Frances E. Lee "Base" Jackie Calmes October 3, 2006, WSJ Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post , Tuesday, March 15, 2005; Page A01 "TIME Poll: The Foley Sex Scandal Has Hurt G.O.P. Election Prospects", TIME, October 5, 2006. "Brazen Conspiracy", Washington Post, 2005-11-29, p. A-20 ABC News/Washington Post Poll. Sept. 27-30, 2007. N=1,114 adults nationwide. MoE 3 (for all adults). Fieldwork by TNS. "The 'Do-Nothing' 109th Congress: The Days in Session for the 109th Congress Compared to Previous Congresses from 1947-2006".Paul Blumenthal The Sunlight Foundation Lou Dobbs, http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/08/01/dobbs.August2/index.html http://www.democrats.org/a/2006/09/the_do-nothing_1.php Iyengar, Shanto and Adam Simon.1994. \News Coverage of the Gulf Crisis and Public Opinion: A Study of Agenda-Setting, Priming, and Framing." in Taken by Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War. ed. W. Lance Bennett and David L. Paletz. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p.167-185.