Bloodless Coup

Is Larry Sabato Right About Vietnam and 1966?

The king of political science soundbites is out with a pithy/overly-simplistic analysis of mid-term elections (what else would you expect from the king of political science soundbites?). I suppose I could knock this piece in a number of ways (particularly his exists-or-doesn't-exist measurement of his key variables), but who has the time, and something else in it bugs me more than his usual desire extreme simplicity and arguments you can fit on the head of a pin. Isn't his discussion of the 1966 election just flat-out inaccurate? I could be wrong, not him - but this doesn't seem right to me at all:

Already by 1966, voters were turning against the president's conduct of the war, and it cost the Democrats 47 House seats and two Senate seats--though not overall control of Congress.

Voters were turning against the war in 1966? Really? And they were turning against the war in such numbers that it cost the Democrats 49 seats in Congress? There weren't domestic reasons for that shift? If I'm wrong, please educate me (and I mean that) - but that sentence (errr, analysis) strikes me as a seriously deficient explanation of the 1966 mid-term election.