Opinionator | The Conversation: Swing State Envy, Anyone?

In The Conversation, David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns every Wednesday.

Gail Collins: David, it's less than five weeks until Election Day. And people are so — um — how would you characterize the mood?

David Brooks: Let's see. Giddy with disinterest. Tingling with unconscious ennui. Quivering with apathy. I'd say the public mood is paradoxical.

Gail: Yet control of the Senate hangs in the balance! And it's all up to the voters in five to 10 states, which neither you nor I inhabit.

David: I'm really glad to have been spared the agony of swing state envy. I've never lived in any state that isn't solidly blue. So I've never known what it feels like to live in a place that has the excitement of competitive races. Hence I don't feel the lack when that excitement goes away. You, coming from Ohio, are not so fortunate. Do you feel pain, perhaps in your wrists and other joints, watching faraway states get all the attention now that you live in a state of political indifference? Swing state envy is like a concussion, not to be underestimated. I think I may start wearing a purple wrist-band as a sympathy statement.

Gail: Our big New York news was that Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who's up for re-election, found it necessary to go to Afghanistan this week. He sort of spun it as an effort to learn more about homeland security. But I honestly think you can do that in the homeland.

David: I'm presuming this was not a hiking the Appalachian Trail sort of thing. Maybe he went to curry favor with the Pashtun population in Rye. Or for the golfing.

Photo Gov. Andrew Cuomo at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan on Sept. 28.Credit Kap Kim/Reuters

Gail: Meanwhile his opponent, whose name recognition is limited to his immediate family, reprised that old Lyndon Johnson "Daisy" ad where the little girl is picking petals off a flower and then suddenly – countdown to Armageddon! In this version, when the nuclear bomb goes off, Andrew Cuomo's face comes out of the cloud.

Did not expect an ad about atomic warfare in the New York gubernatorial race. Possible high point of the political week for me. How about you? I know you've been taking the occasional gander at the big Senate races. What strikes you as interesting?

David: First the money. There's been a ton of it, more than $228 million by outside groups alone so far. But the surprise in this post-Citizens-United era is that the Democrats are winning the money race so easily. I knew that the Democrats were the party of the rich plutocrats, but I didn't realize how big the lead was. In North Carolina, pro-Democratic groups have a spending lead, $13 million to $8 million. In Iowa, the Democrats lead $9 million to $6 million. In Colorado, Democrats lead $10 million to $5 million. And so on in most states. If this continues Democrats are going to start loving that decision.

Gail: I hope it keeps going like this. I'd love to watch Mitch McConnell and John Boehner demand that we do something about the poison of "super PACs."

Meanwhile, on the issues front, I've been fascinated by how much Republicans have come to love contraception. Really, if they get any more enthusiastic they're going to start passing out condoms at the debates.

David: Or wearing them on their heads like Howie Mandel.

Gail: I've heard several Republican Senate candidates announce that they wanted to see birth control pills sold over the counter. This usually starts with a question about Obamacare – and the requirement that employers cover contraceptives in their health insurance plans. Then the Republican says that if birth control pills were sold like aspirin or Tums, they'd be much cheaper. Which may be true, although having them paid for by your insurance is certainly a better deal.

David: That's clearly true. I'm struck, though, by how much the Democrats' war-on-women charge against the G.O.P. doesn't seem to be working. In the last Times poll, women were split down the middle, supporting Republicans almost as much as Democrats, 42-43.

Gail: They were still more Democratic-leaning than men. And I do think it's working in some races, particularly the ones where the Republican candidate supported the personhood amendment. You know, the one that declares all fertilized eggs have the full rights of a human being.

That came up in the Iowa Senate debate, which I am slightly embarrassed to admit I watched from beginning to end.

David: Wow. You do have swing state envy. Are you listening to reports on corn prices too?

Gail: Iowa debates are always worthwhile. I enjoy the moment when the fiscal conservative calls for less federal spending, and then is forced to make it clear that underwriting the manufacture of corn-based ethanol does not count as wasteful.

David: My problem with the ethanol subsidies is purely selfish. You used to be able to drive around Iowa and see some crop diversity. Now it's corn, corn, corn. I bet that even the field of dreams is covered with corn. It's tedious.

Gail: There's been a growing attempt on the part of Republicans to bring ISIS into the campaign. Most of the ads I've seen don't have a coherent theme. It's like, "When terrorists were beheading Americans in Syria, Senator X supported the Obama administration and also missed a public hearing of the Veterans Affairs Committee."

David: I'm just glad to see any foreign policy in this election. We should have at least some form of national debate on ISIS. I guess this is also a Republican effort to nationalize the election. As observers like Sean Trende have noted, earlier in the campaign there was a disjunction between the fundamentals and the polls. The fundamentals — the president's low approval ratings — suggest this should be a big Republican year. But the polls were much closer. Many Democratic candidates were hanging in there, even in states Romney carried. Over the past month the polls have moved slightly toward the fundamentals — that is in a slightly Republican direction.

Gail: People are so angry at Barack Obama. Their ire seems to be mainly about the economy, yet compared to many other countries, the United States is doing pretty well economically. I'm happy to accept the theory that people are angry because of income inequality and the struggling middle class. But the solution to that wouldn't be electing a Congress that's determined to cut federal spending. You'd just wind up with more laid-off state employees, highway construction workers, even schoolteachers.

Want to explain that to me?

David: It's possible that people don't think they're getting their money's worth. It could be they're not crazy about boondoggles like ethanol or gubernatorial trips to Afghanistan. It's possible that they think they could spend money more wisely than Congress does. Can't imagine how they could leap to that conclusion.

Gail: Well, that's Congress. But they're trying to make it all about the president. I'm expecting that Georgia voters will soon be seeing ads in which Michelle Nunn's picture morphs into Barack Obama.

David: What strikes me about this is that the movement is similar across many races, suggesting that there is a national dynamic in place. That makes sense. Over the past five midterms we've pretty much seen national dynamics in place most of the time. There was a wave for one party or another. This year that should favor Republicans, who are trying to build the election around national issues, not local candidates.

Gail: Do you think these elections matter? There's a lot of sentiment that they don't – that if the Republicans take over the Senate, there'll be the same stalemate we've got now. That it might even make it easier for the Democrats in 2016, because there'll still be gridlock and the Republicans will be more clearly to blame.

David: I'm simple-minded. I think winning is better than losing. Remember, once an incumbent gets in, he or she is likely to stay there for a long time. I don't think Democrats should be pre-rationalizing this year's results.

Gail: Me neither. Although it would be pretty interesting if the Republicans won control of the Senate, and we got to spend two years watching them complain about the evils of the filibuster.

David: I can't imagine much legislation will be passed either way. After Obamacare, which was signed into law in March of 2010, I can't think of a major piece of legislation that has passed in any of the last four years, and I suppose we'll go another two in the same stagnation.

Gail: You must be forgetting the Responsible Helium Administration and Stewardship Act.

But about these elections – I admit that I am jealous of the big swing states. If I was in Iowa or Alaska or North Carolina, I'd be obsessed with the senate race. I'd talk about it all the time, and people would run away when they saw me coming.

David: You've got it bad.

Gail: Here in New York, everything's pretty much preordained. Except in Staten Island, where the Republican congressman who threatened to throw a TV reporter over a Capitol balcony might be in trouble.

David: Is that because TV reporters are so light? Throwing a print reporter would be way more impressive.

Gail: Well, he failed to follow through. Maybe his constituents are irked that he was all show and no throw. But he's also under multiple indictments for perjury and tax evasion. And yet his defeat is not a foregone conclusion.