Political strategist extraordinaire Ed Rollins says Republican Scott Brown’s victory Tuesday in the Massachusetts Senate race indicates Republicans are on the rise and Democrats are on the run.
The GOP is in a position to make strong gains in November’s congressional elections, says the architect of President Reagan’s 1984 campaign.
“It shows there’s a real appetite out there for change,” Rollins told Ashley Martella of Newsmax.TV.
See Video: Political strategist Ed Rollins talks about the crisis Democrats find themselves in after the Scott Brown victory — Click Here Now
“There’s unhappiness about the system in Washington: that it’s going behind doors, drafting 2,000 page bills that are costing trillions of dollars, and nobody knows what’s in it [healthcare reform]. Scott did a very effective job of connecting with those voters.”
And what does it mean for November? “Republicans are very intensified,” Rollins said.
“They feel that Obama is a far worse president than they anticipated and that [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid are taking this country on an agenda that’s clearly out of synch with where America needs to be in a time of economic crisis.”
And Democrats aren’t exactly doing cartwheels themselves. “Most of them aren’t very intense about going out and supporting policies they think are no longer centrist but very liberal and socialist,” Rollins said.
Republicans are likely to pick up at least six seats in the Senate and 25 in the House, he said. Taking back majority control in either body is “not probable, but not impossible.”
And even such minimum gains would push both chambers of Congress back to the center, Rollins said.
The Democrats’ only chance is to focus exclusively on jobs, he maintains. “If they want to continue spending money we don’t have, . . . they will be slitting their own throats.”
President Obama may be in hot water himself two years from now, Rollins says. He doesn’t expect the president to moderate his agenda. “He has a significant political base very unhappy with the Afghan war and not having more of a socialist agenda.”
Although Obama remains popular, Rollins said, his approval rating has dropped dramatically, to around 50 percent. And he has the highest disapproval rating of any president after his first year in office.
“People still kind of like him as a personality. They’re just not sure he’s strong enough,” Rollins said.
Obama won the election because of “tremendous Bush fatigue” and John McCain’s incompetent campaign, Rollins said.
“But at this time his policies aren’t popular,” Rollins said.
“If over the course of the next two years, he doesn’t . . . get to the center, he stays far left, then certainly a Republican has an excellent chance. If the country is looking for change in two years, just as they were in Massachusetts yesterday, this president will be in deep trouble.”
See Video: Political strategist Ed Rollins talks about the crisis Democrats find themselves in after the Scott Brown victory — Click Here Now
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