What Wave?

I watch the Albuquerque Isotopes play minor league baseball through the summer months.  I must say, I really hate The Wave, that self-absorbed non-baseball fan activity where people stand and wave in synchrony with the others in their section, one section after another, simulating an ocean wave.  "It's baseball," I yell, "Watch it!"  I keep trying to get those in my section to do The Breakwater by rising early to face the wave with their hands on their hips, reflecting it back into the section from which it came.

Charlie Cook analyzes the possibility of a wave election this fall here.  It's thick with psephologist jargon -- parliamentary voting, nationalized election, etc. -- but it's well worth your study.  He has two main points.  Here is his first:

Using The Cook Political Report's Partisan Voter Index as a measuring stick, our preliminary analysis indicates that the number of strongly Democratic districts­those with a score of D+5 or greater at the presidential level­decreased from 144 before redistricting to 136 afterward. The number of strongly Republican districts­those with a score of R+5 or greater­ increased from 175 to 183. When one party starts out with 47 more very strong districts than the other, the numbers suggest that the fix is in for any election featuring a fairly neutral environment. Republicans would need to mess up pretty badly to lose their House majority in the near future.

In other words, the Dems won't get the House back in 2013.  Not even close.  He goes on to his second point:

If the 24 toss-up races split evenly between the parties, Democrats would score a net gain of just a single seat.

So Cook, one of the most respected seat-by-seat Congressional prognosticators says, "No Dem Wave."

And, as Ron Popeil used to say, "But wait.  There's more!"  Cook's second point indirectly addresses Obama's chances.  That's the meaning of "parliamentary voting," of course.  And "nationalized" elections.  And "Tip O'Neill's 'all politics is local' adage [has] left the building."

Cook says

Minimal partisan change doesn't preclude significant change in the House's makeup, however. In 2008, 85 members won "crossover" districts that voted for one party for the House and the other way at the presidential level. Unsurprisingly, these members show the greatest proclivity to think independently and have the most incentive to compromise. But in 2010, this number was cut in half to 40. In 2012, it could be cut in half yet again to fewer than 20.

That's parliamentary voting, where districts vote for congressional representatives in parallel with their presidential vote.  But wait.  Let's do the arithmetic.  The Republicans now hold 242 seats.  Dems pick up a single seat.  And the President wins 20 or fewer of those....  Hmmm.  So he wins 221 districts.  Max.  That's winning more than half the vote in 3 or 4 more than half the congressional districts in the nation.  And after redistricting, all of those congressional districts are almost exactly the same size, so we're talking about no better than a narrow victory in the popular vote here.

So, if Obama is to win, he can't pile up district victories in just a few blue states, which he almost certainly will do.  Recall that though Al Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 election, he won only 21 states in the narrowest electoral college loss in recent history.  His problem was that most of the states he won had large population.

Cook closes with this on the House:

If you're waiting for a retreat of tea party politics in the House Republican Conference and a resurgence of Blue Dog Democrats in the next Congress, you are likely going to be disappointed.

Who's thinking like that, other than Nancy Pelosi?