A Vote Against Government — Election Surprise Coming?

In today’s Wall Street Journal, pollster Scott Rasmussen reports:

… we project that Nancy Pelosi’s party will likely lose 55 or more seats in the House, putting the GOP firmly in the majority. Republicans will also win at least 25 of the 37 Senate elections. While the most likely outcome is that Republicans end up with 48 or 49 Senate seats, Democrats will need to win close races in West Virginia, Washington and California to protect their majority.

Mr. Rasmussen is probably the most accurate of the pollsters. Despite this fact, this year’s election has difficulties that Mr. Rasmussen and other pollsters have likely never encountered. Perhaps they have factored in the necessary adjustments or perhaps not.

This election is not a vote for personalities or parties. Indeed, it is not a vote for anything. It is a vote against — against almost everything of the past two years with ample animus thrown in for prior policies. It is simply stated, a vote against Government.

The policies of the last two years have been so egregious that the complacent citizenry have been awakened from their decades-long slumber. Obama mistakenly kicked this sleeping-dog electorate with his policies. The dog has awakened, angry. The anger goes well beyond Obama.

Voters are voting against the policies of the last two years. They are also voting against many of the policies that were instituted prior to this, during their great nap from reality. This is a NO election. It is a cease and desist election. It is an OR ELSE election. It is a vote that expresses the following: “I liked the country the way it was. Stop this nonsense, turn around and return me to the past.” That past is B.O. as in Before Obama. For some voters, it means Clinton. For others, it means Eisenhower. For the great majority, it means more than two years ago.

Mr. Rasmussen clearly understands that this election is not a vote for Republicans. He also captures perfectly the mood of the people with this assessment:

… voters don’t want to be governed from the left, the right, or even the center. They want someone in Washington who understands that the American people want to govern themselves.

Despite all this, I wonder whether Mr. Rasmussen and other pollster’s methods are capable of measuring the data as accurately as they have in the past. This is no ordinary election. Those who are angry are overtly so and more than willing to express their opinions. Those who voted for Obama and having “buyer’s remorse” seem noticeably silent. In private conversations you can sometimes draw out the fact that they will not vote for him again. But they are unwilling to publicly admit that at a dinner or cocktail party.

Are pollsters overstating the first group and understating the second? My guess is that the latter group is understated because of a reluctance to verbalize their discomfort to pollsters. If so, the pollsters may have understated the wave that is coming tomorrow. I suspect they have.

Soon we will not need to speculate or depend on pollsters.