Managing a political comeback

Politics is filled with incumbents who have been left for dead, plagued by scandal and broken promises, sometimes both, their plans rejected and their approval ratings in the 30 percent range or even lower. Potential challengers in the other party are lining up for what they view as a sure spot to win the election and they believe that the real battle is going to be in the primary. Oftentimes the discussion turns to what's going to happen after the current incumbent is defeated and it becomes a foregone conclusion that all is over for them. But it doesn't always turn out this way. Why? Why do some of these incumbents manage to come back, and what is their secret? Is there any way to predict who is going to come back and who is going to be defeated?

The reason why I say this is that many of them do end up going down to defeat just as its predicted, but some of them do not. I think that the key to it is to consistently apply the right strategy whatever happens with the individual circumstances. Also, getting the unpopular things done early in the term is a big help as well. The conventional wisdom is that there is a "honeymoon period" when the new Governor or President or Mayor (or other offices in other nations) should just bask in appreciation for their new status and try and rack up easy victories. However, I tend to think that the importance of a honeymoon is greatly overrated as the goal should be to put as much distance between the enactment of things that are unpopular and the next election. Its better to be at 30 percent approval with only 16 percent of voters willing to reelect you, and trailing your opponents by 25 points three years before the election rather than one year before the election. The goal should be to give enough time for anger to subside before the next election happens.

I will talk more on this later.

Senators with low approval ratings

According to SurveyUSA there are some Senators who have approval ratings that are quite low, many of whom are somewhat unexpected. Here are the Senators who have approval ratings that are either more negative than positive or that are quite close

Jim Webb (D-Virginia): 42 approve, 47 disapprove
John Cornyn (R-Texas): 44 approve, 42 disapprove
Jim Bunning (R-Kentucky): 40 approve, 48 disapprove
John Kerry (D-Massachusetts): 40 approve, 53 disapprove

There are also others who are not doing so well, such as Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey) but its too early to figure out what's going to happen 6, 4, or even 2 years from now. Still, some of these are surprising.