That’s money in the bank, right there. I’m not saying it’s impossible for the Republicans to pick up eleven seats, but some crazy shit would need to happen between now and then. There’s nowhere near a 25% chance.
Probably a little closer to reality, but it’s still a bet worth making, IMO.
Ronald Reagan did all the same stuff and didn’t create a Tea Party.
But St. Ronnie was the first to do it. They could still believe that he was starting things off and it would all happen “any day now”. Harder to do that after 30 years of getting bent over with no lube. Even today, if you point out that under Reagan middle class taxes went up, the federal government got bigger, and the federal deficit got huge, they don’t believe. Reality after all, has a liberal bias.
That’s because he was the one who sucked all those people into the Republican party in the first place. Being conservatives, it took them 30 years to realize that they weren’t getting the end of the deal they thought they were going to get by joining the GOP, hence the current discontent.
It’s a marriage made in hell, gone bad.
Wouldn’t the more recent example be NY-23, where Tea Partiers and mainstream Republicans did in fact split the vote enough for the Democrat to win? Now, obviously, the nation as a whole is not NY-23, but it seems dangerous to generalize the reverse.
It seems fairly reasonable that in the Senate a GOP majority seems quite unlikely, but is possible in the House. I think to get that GOP majority in the House, they need another 1994 Contract with America, and Newt Gingrich needs to get out there and create a new vision like he did back in '94 to get a GOP majority.
If something doesn’t happen soon, I’d put my bets on Dems retaining the House but losing seats.
Slight Republican majority in the House and five or six seats gained in the Senate. Possibly this will mean the rise of moderate/Rockefeller Republicans like Brown in Massachusetts, Kirk in Illinois, and Fiorna or Campbell in California.
That could go either way. For example, if you count McCain as a more moderate Republican, he’s in a major primary fight against a well-known opponent coming from the right who claims he is insufficiently conservative. Will the moderate Republicans who win in traditionally blue state areas be offset by the moderate Republicans who may lose in primaries to those farther right in more red states?
Gingrich? Hah! He’s like a tired, long-dead ghost, still clinging to the remnants of memories of a life he once had, having not yet come to grips with the fact that it’s simply time to walk into the damned light already.
If the Repugs continue to be divided by the tea baggers, they’ll lose even more seats.
Their only hope is that the crazies vote with the less crazy. Separately, they can’t win.
Does it matter? Near as I can tell, if one of the security guards is Republican, the Dems will bend over backwards making sure that GOP issues are rammed on through. The only way the Dems could have a “super majority” is if everyone on the planet was in full support of them, otherwise, they cave in like a cheap souffle.
Well McCain has the support of the retirees in Sun City and elsewhere who form a massive voting bloc but don’t usually respond to polls.
Scozzafava dropped out of the race and endorsed the Democratic candidate. Her name was still on the ballot, but she only got 5.7% of the vote.
I thought that post was referring to a more metaphorical version of Newt Gingrich: while the actual man still has some presence in the minds of voters, and a slightly larger one in the minds of Republican voters, there needs to be a charismatic, game-changing leader to reject the policies of the last Bush President as well as the current policies of the current Dem Prez in order for massive shift in the House.
That being said, I think the Heffalumps don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell to pick up more than 7 Senate seats, but probably will get close enough in the House that the five or six special elections we see every two year cycle will become of major importance.
And an absolutely huge presence in the minds of the ‘liberal’ Beltway media, for no apparent reason (really, they’re his main constituency anymore),
Not only is that a pretty thin needle to thread, but is there any sign that either the GOP establishment or the base wants to abandon any Bush policies besides immigration reform?
Charismatic leader or no, there has to be an agenda. Just for fun, try to create a GOP agenda that (a) GOP Congresscritters and Congressional candidates are willing to run on in a general election, (b) won’t get the GOP base hopping mad, and (c) will draw a modicum of support from centrists/independents.
I don’t think it can be done, but I’m starting a thread for people to try.
I’ll agree with the former, but not the latter. For those special elections to start being a big deal, I think the Dem majority has to drop under ~225, and I really don’t think that’ll happen.
There is a strong anti-incumbent sentiment afoot. It has little to do with party affiliation. The electorate is angry and they see their current crop of representatives as being woefully out of touch and far too insulated from their constituency.
That perception of the electorate may be accurate or inaccurate, but it exists nonetheless. That could, and probably will, spill over to some degree at the national level. How much so remains to be seen. For the most part this has little to do with which party one is voting for, and more to do with sheer disgust with the actions and records of those currently holding office.
Looking at the recent jobs numbers does not give comfort to incumbents who are seeking to be re-elected. If things improve economically by November, the backlash will be reduced. Current conditions to not appear to be incumbent-friendly, regardless of party affiliation.
Very few people are so party-loyal that they are willing to forgive/support politicians perceived as working against them. Just imho.
So much for thoughtful discussion in this new forum. :rolleyes:
Is this going to be allowed here Mods? If so I’ll just stick to the pit for my daily dose of this.
Of course, even if it doesn’t get that close, the special elections will still be portrayed as being of major importance. Ooh, the seat from North Takoma’s 17th and a half district changed parties! That must mean that there’s a major wave of anti-incumbent sentiment and that every seat in the country will change hands in the next general election!
I think the facts are somewhat different. I agree there’s an anti-incumbent sentiment afoot, but that’s mostly internecine, and has everything to do with party affiliation. The Tea Partiers are litmus testing everyone for their conservative bonafides. If they don’t pass muster, they’re threatened with competition from tea party approved candidates, most, if not all of whom just happen to be Republicans. The problems the democrats have does not come, for the most part, from any anti-incumbent sentiment, but from Republican desires to destroy any Democrat, no matter who they are, what they’ve done, or what they stand for, which has been SOP for the last 16 or so years.
Not really true, unless you count inaction as an action. Republicans who are being tea-partied out are only vulnerable because they’re considered not to be obstructive enough to anything proposed by the Obama administration. It has very little to do with their records or votes before 2008, which were considered hunky-dory before they did the unforgivable and allowed a black man to become President
This is true, but again, it has less to do with an anti-incumbent sentiment than with the normal cycle of electoral politics, of which jobs is just one component.
Again, not really true. To paraphrase a comment from a conservative on these boards recently, Republicans consider the worst conservative to be better than the best liberal. Sorry, I don’t remember who said it, or the thread I read it in. However, I do agree with it. Republican can and do vote for candidates who promote agendas that are against their better interests.
If you really want to ask the mods, click that little red triangle and note your objection. Or PM the forum mod, Marley23. If you don’t want an answer, then don’t do either of these things.
But just asking “Is this going to be allowed here Mods?” in the thread hardly guarantees that a mod will see your question. There’s no freakin’ way that a mod can read every post in every thread in his/her forum.