Why Won't The Angry American Voter Do What The Pundits Say?

There is a serious anti-incumbent mood out there. Americans are fed up with Washington and are ready to change everything. The defeat of such prominent incumbents as Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter and Utah Senator Bob Bennett made it perfectly clear that the Tea Party movement on the right and angry progressives on the left are angry. Except in Arkansas, where incumbent Senator Blanche Lincoln won a run-off for her party’s nomination. Or California, where every single incumbent on the ballot won renomination, and the Democratic party overwhelmingly nominated for governor a man who already served two terms in that office as had his father before him. And also in Iowa where Republicans gave the gubernatorial nomination to a man who served in that role for 16 years during the ’80s and ’90s. So maybe there’s not such an anti-incumbent mood. Except in Nevada, where the Tea Party favorite beat two more established candidates for the right to face Senator Harry Reid in November. It’s kind of confusing! I don’t want to get too crazy here, but could it maybe be that, in a down economy, voters express worry and skepticism about their representatives to pollsters but still tend to re-elect them in the voting booth? And that where you see incumbents fall there are generally local or procedural (or, say, the small matter of party-switching) issues at play that are not necessarily part of a larger national swing? Maybe we could make that the new narrative? Or is that too complicated and not sexy enough? Oh, right. Okay, angry voters it is! Except in those cases where it’s not!