BELTWAY JOURNALIST AND GOP AGREE: REPUBLICANS ARE MORE POPULAR, EVEN WHEN THEY LOSE

National Journal's Shane Goldmacher has just published a gushy, breathless puff piece on Joni Ernst, Iowa's Republican Senate candidate:

What the Republicans ... have going for them this year is Ernst herself, a folksy state senator and lieutenant colonel in the Iowa National Guard who has emerged as one of the breakout stars of 2014. She burst through a crowded Senate GOP primary with an ad touting her farm-girl roots castrating hogs. "Let's make them squeal!" she said of Washington spenders. The ad drew national attention (627,000 YouTube views and counting) and a deluge of donations.

Most recent polls have shown Ernst narrowly ahead and her supporters more energized. She is more liked than disliked by Iowa voters, while Braley's favorability rating is underwater in most surveys....

"She's become a rock star, certainly among Republicans," says [David] Oman, her finance director....

Ernst has excited not just GOP insiders but Iowa voters. A recent NBC/Marist poll showed a huge enthusiasm gap, with more than 60 percent of Ernst backers saying they were actively supporting her, versus 34 percent who were more opposing Braley. The reverse was true for him. More than 60 percent of his supporters were mostly opposed to her, rather than actively for him.

And according to Goldmacher, anyone who thinks Ernst is extreme or fringe-y is just trying to ruin everyone else's sense of delight in her wonderfulness:

Democrats have tried to cut Ernst down with a campaign to cast her as an extremist. They have some politically potent fodder, including video of her speaking about the possibility of privatizing Social Security and her support for "personhood" legislation, which could ban some forms of birth control (Ernst says she is in favor of birth-control access). She's suggested that states could nullify federal law and raised the specter of impeaching Obama. She also suggested that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, before trying to backtrack.

Ed Kilgore is outraged at the notion that calling Ernst an extremist is somehow out of bounds, given the positions she's embraced, and he notes that Ernst's embrace of the insane Agenda 21 conspiracy ought to be disqualifying all by itself. BooMan also finds it appalling that Goldmacher allows her to skate on these matters.

But I want to point out another aspect of Goldmacher's argument. He flatly calls Ernst a "better candidate" than Democrat Bruce Braley -- but he needs an explanation for why she's not running away with the election. His explanation is this:

... Iowa Republicans [are] still smarting from two straight cycles of defeat that they blame on superior Democratic infrastructure. "The Obama machine, organization -- whatever you'd like to call it -- took us to school in 2008 and again in 2012," says David Oman, who cochaired Mitt Romney's Iowa campaign last cycle.

... as they are in Senate races across the country -- Colorado, Alaska, North Carolina, to name a few -- Democrats here are hoping smart tactics can offset a national mood that favors Republicans. And in Iowa, fears of the Democratic machine lurk not far below the surface....

Right. If Braley wins, it's not going to be because that's a genuine expression of Iowa's popular will. He's going to win because Democrats always gin the system with their mysterious, sinister get-out-the-vote tricks and wiles.

This line of argument dovetails nicely with Republican vote trutherism (Democrats win because of massive voter fraud!) and its lite, polite variants (Democrats win because they give so much free stuff to moochers! Republicans lose some elections in the overall vote count, but win the votes of the right people, so, really, the GOP wins!). Either way, America -- or "real Americans," at least -- prefer the GOP no matter what the vote totals say. Democrats don't have a mandate to govern even when they win (because they don't really win), and Republicans have a mandate even when they lose.