…in play? It’s highly unlikely, but that would be filibuster proof. And almost enough for a veto override, particularly with a few Donkeys shocked at events and running scared.
8 thoughts on “Twenty Senate Seats”
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…in play? It’s highly unlikely, but that would be filibuster proof. And almost enough for a veto override, particularly with a few Donkeys shocked at events and running scared.
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You read that wrong. There are twenty(one, he forgot Pennsylvania) seats total in play. Only eleven (actually, twelve) currently-Democratic-held seats are included in that total. It includes Republican seats in Louisiana, North Carolina, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Ohio.
There is no Republican veto override available in this model. On the other hand, the only really competitive Republican-seat senate race right now seems to be Florida – the rest seem pretty safe to me. Although what kind of campaign sees a tool like David Vitter getting a two-digit lead? I mean, I’d vote for him if I lived in Louisiana, but I wouldn’t want to brag about it afterwards.
This is fantasy. I would be surprised if many more than the 5-7 pickups RCP averages predict come true. Crist has probably screwed the R party in Florida by giving a place for Ds to go to prevent Marco Rubio from taking the seat of Mel Martinez (that weasel). What’s going to change that? Why would Democrats throw away their vote on Meek? Rubio has totally maxed out the conservative vote; at this point he’s got to peel off Democrats and independents from a candidate already in the lead. Not likely.
You get 6 pickups if Sharron Angle knocks off Harry Reid, which seems mildly plausible but by no means a done deal. Reid has money and tons will be poured in by national Democrats to prevent the highly-visible defeat of the Majority Leader. Angle is essentially a nobody, and the national Rs don’t have much money to spend on her. Sarah Palin’s endorsement is probably a net positive, but only just. Loads of Is and even Rs don’t like her, or the whole Tea Party phenom.
Illiinois is a weird state, passionately blue in Chicago and burbs, but populist red downstate. Neither candidate has done real well, but the problem for the R (Kirk) is that he’s from the tony north side of Chicago, which I don’t think is going to play real well in Peoria (i.e. farm downstate). I suspect Giannoulias will squeak by, helped along by a little graveyard voting from the Daley machine in Chicago.
After that, you’re looking for pick-ups in deep blue states, like California, Oregon, or Wisconsin, which just doesn’t seem real likely. I would love to have Fiorina instead of Babs Boxer, that airhead, but California is deep, deep blue, and besides Fiorina has a long history of being the best qualified person in the room but somehow blowing the PR and management aspects of high-level jobs. It’s her race to lose, but I think she’s capable of doing so, and, of course, she’s got to spend her own money (and will be hammered for it) while Boxer can count on megatons of union and national Democrat money. Furthermore, I see a split vote for Whitman for governor and retaining Boxer as Senator being not unlikely. Asking a bunch of lifelong Democrats to vote R for both Senator and Governor is asking too much, and they’re likely to be more focussed on California’s problems than the nations — and taking a chance on returning “Moonbeam” to the state helm probably seems more dangerous than keeping Boxer as junior Senator. I think people agree she’s an idiot, but they probably think she’s a relatively harmless idiot, and a reliable Democratic vote (that would, for example, resist real Federal enforcement of immigration law, or cut off Federal life support to California’s state employees and teachers).
Oregon and Wisconsin are just too full of 70s dreamers and government-education complex autochthones to change, khattam-shud.
So even if we throw in a major Tea Party victory in Sharron Angle, plus 1 more from an Act of God / passionate anti-Obama vote, that still only gets it to 7 pickups and the Democrats barely hold on to the Senate, 51-48. That will certainly put a spoke in the plans of Team Obama, but it’s not enough to, for example, undo Obamacare over the President’s veto. The real action will be, must be, in the House.
This isn’t necessarily a bad outcome, either, long-range. Give us an angry Republican-controlled House and a reactionary Democratic Senate, plus Team Obama’s usual tin-earededness, and you can see such an appalling gridlocked mess that produces a one-term Obama Administration and, at long last, a violent purge from the Democratic Party of the Stalinists in 2013 and 2014. I don’t want a thoroughly dominant Republican Party, I want a Democratic Party sufficiently beaten up that it gets rid of its wicked fringe, the way the Rs did after Goldwater got trashed in 64, so that we once again have two thoroughly American parties vying for our vote. I loathe the fact that the Republicans can run almost anybody right now and get my vote, since the alternative is some stuck-up aristocrat representative of the party of universal socialism.
Interesting observations Carl…
I am a bit more optimistic about CA than you are (Boxer is genuinely disliked, while Brown is seens as a fairly harmless nutjob, and one better positioned to protect the unions and public-parasites than Boxer is), though this is clearly a horserace either way. Angle may or may not win (for Reid to still be under 50% given the constant fusilade of negative ads directed at Angle has got to be unnerving for him), and Kirk in IL questionable at best, but you neglected to mention that both Murray in WA and Feingold in WI are facing real challenges. While many Dems may go with Crist in FL, Meeks would have to agree to drop out for enough votes to swing his way (the latest polls have Rubio winning in a 3-way contest, almost out of the margin of error), and I just don’t see that happening just yet.
With all that said, the GOP taking control of the Senate does strike me as something of a long-shot, and even if it could happen, it probably isn’t immediately worth it. A 1-vote majority would still leave the Mushheads from Maine with way too much power, and even if they did cooperate, it would give Obama & Co. an excuse for all things bad over the next 2 years. The House is going to be in GOP hands anyway, and that will put a stake in the heart of Obama and his minions till we can get the WH fumigated in 2012.
Your point regarding the importance of long term health of the Democratic party is absolutely correct (one-party governments are BAD, even if I happen to support that party), though I am not as sanguine about the Dems doing the house-cleaning as you are. The left is all about power, and they will do ANYTHING to hold on to it, no matter how ultimately destructive it is to their own long-term interests. I hope that I am mistaken, but I don’t believe that I am…
Hmmm. Maybe. But the polls here in CA currently show Moonbeam a lot closer to Whitman than Boxer is to Fiorina. Carly has a statistically significant lead whereas Moonbeam and Meg are well inside the error margin. If Moonbeam manages to win, I’ll probably be looking to become a naturalized Texan. I lived in Michigan back in the day and moved here to CA to get away from it. Now CA has all but become Michigan 2.0. Been there; done that; burned the T-shirt.
Carl “I loathe the fact that the Republicans can run almost anybody right now and get my vote, since the alternative is some stuck-up aristocrat representative of the party of universal socialism.”
SO true. The stock issue Rs are statists as well.
Senator Patty Murry has a much tighter race than one might expect from the blueness of Washington State.
I have mixed feelings on a GOP Senate… I keep remembering 1994, When the R’s netted 54 in the House and 8 in the Senate, taking both.
What I’m thinking of is Bill Clinton… The Republican congress gave him a foil (someone to blame) giving him cover with his own base when he cooperated on R measures such as welfare reform, and also someone to blame.
What I do not want to see in a second Obama term. I see little use to the R’s of having control of both houses, because a narrow Dem control of the Senate means a solid R fillibuster, which is IMHO what we most need. (No matter what, the R’s won’t be able to ovverride Obama’s vetos)
So, the result I’d most like to see ir the Dem’s losing the house and a 50-50 Senate, which would be D controlled due to Biden’s tie-breaker (which would also forece the administration into many unpopular tie-breakers)
Maybe I’m contrarian, but that’s why I’m not hoping to see the R’s take the Senate. I don’t see any real benefit compared to a narrow D hold, and it takes away Obama’s ability to “run against congress” for reelection.
Also, to be blunt, the R’s did screw us royally the last time they controlled both houses and the white house. Time after time, they went the pork barrel route, running up the debt, growing government, etc, including massive “entitlement” programs like Medicare prescription drug plan, a cynical attempt to buy votes with our money. My hope is that this time around the Tea Party will keep ’em honest, but I note with disgust the the old guard R’s have yet to admit the error of their ways.
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About Florida, I tend to think that Rubio will win. Crist isn’t exactly beloved, and his move to independent deepens the suspicion (fact!), that he’s an unprincipled opportunist.