Welcome to Bed to BED to Differ.

The Bulwer's weekly roundtable discussion featuring civil conversation across the

political spectrum. We range from center left to center right. I'm Mona Charon,

syndicated columnist and policy editor of the Boulworkwork and I'm joined by our regulars

Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution and the Wall Street Journal, Damon Linker

of the Week, and Linda Chavez of the Niskanin Center.

Our special guest this week is Noah Smith, who writes a column on sub-stack called No Opinion.

He's a former professor of finance and writes knowledgeably about economic matters but not only those.

I would like to choose for our text this week a piece that appeared in the New York Times by Thomas Edsel, who has also been a

guest on this podcast. It was titled, Democrats shouldn't just panic, they should go into shock. And what he was referring to is a series of polls and other indicators that suggest that the Democratic Party is about to get shellacked in the midterm elections of

2022. Let me give you just one or two examples. Of course, it is common for the President's Party to lose seats in off your elections,

but according to a poll from ABC News, the current polling of registered voters shows a 10-point Republican advantage which Gary

Langer of ABC says is the largest advantage for the Republicans since 1981.

So let's start with you, Linda Chavez.

Do you think that the Democrats should be in a complete panic about this and if so what should they do?

Well I think they should what should they do? I'm not sure how to advise them because I have very mixed feelings as listeners to this

podcast know about this phenomena. So I mean generically but for the fact that

Donald Trump controls the Republican Party.

If I were being a voter called and asked who I thought could best handle the economy,

I think that traditional Republican economic policies have benefited the country. I agree broadly with the

Republicans on things like tax cuts and restraints on government spending.

What's frightening about these polls though is that they are not occurring in a vacuum.

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