Perhaps this is a little premature since we’re not even into the primary season yet, but what the heck, we can always run another thread then. And we will, I’m sure, many several dozens of threads as November draws near.
Will the Pubs still be in control of both house of the U.S. Congress after November 2006? What would it take for the Dems to win either house? Which House and Senate races are really contestable, and which are unassailable “safe seats”?
I severely doubt the donkeys can take either house, considering they’ve failed to take any real advantage over a presidency steeped in cronyism, inneptitude, and scandal. It just doesn’t feel like the political landscape has changed much, despite copious reasons it probably should have.
As for seats, I’m not enough of a political junky to comment, but I await said junkies for my further learning. I hear that Ms. Cindy Sheehan is thinking about taking on Feinstein, which is…well…sheer idiocy. See paragraph one. I’m a Bay Area resident, so most of my knowhow is rooted in this bizzare state on the left coast. At least Randy “Duke” Cunningham will be on the way out and, although San Diego leans as right as any place on the coast, nobody’s worse than the Duke.
I am hopeful, but not supremely so. As I understand it, in 1994, the first half of the year was spent arguing that there was a need for a change; the Contract with America was only unveiled a few months before the election, and that strategy worked well.
Do the Democrats have a surprise that they’re going to pull out in late August? If so, my hope levels will skyrocket. If mid-September comes wtihout a clear, specific, visionary set of proposals from the Democratic party, then I’m stocking up on cheap whiskey and beds to hide under.
Daniel
If recent history is any lesson Daniel, buy that Wild Turkey now. I haven’t seen a cogent Democratic strategy this millenium.
Gotta take the broader view, gotta take the broader view. I’d argue that the opportunity hasn’t been as ripe as it is this year, not since 1994. And the lessons of the 2002 election and the 2004 election are, from what I’ve heard, still ringing in the ears of a lot of Democrats.
That’s the reason I’m hopeful. The shameful performance of Democrats lately? That’s the reason why I’m not very hopeful.
Daniel
Perspective: I’m 24. My experience, while a voting boy, has been that the Democrats are stumbling around in the darkness with no batteries in their flashlights. I thought there was a fairly glaring opportunity in '04, but they backed a cantidate who had nearly no opinion. I’d rather hate you than deal with issue-stradling boob-ness. Of course, I voted for Dukakis part 2.
But I’m with you…hope is so much better than the stomach gnawing anger I get each day on the front page.
“I don’t belong to an organized political party – I’m a Democrat.”
– Wil Rogers
(Hey, better that than the lockstep groupthink of the GOP… 
)
Yes.
To realize that the farther left you go, the less electable you are, especially on the natonal level. To win either house would require the far-left wing of the party to enjoy a hearty portion of STFU and for the moderates to come up with positively framed alternatives to the Republican ideas.
Saying “Bush and his cronies are bad! Are you too stupid to realize that??!!” will not be enough.
What far left wing?
Pelosi. Kennedy. Boxer. Waters. Rangel. Those are just off the top of my head. If the Democrats keep people like these as the public face of the party, they will continue to stagnate.
The philisphical battle that we have discussed on many threads here is whether the Democrats need to be “left, loud and proud” or move to the center.
The middle is where the voters are. Both sides can take their bases for granted and go for the 15 to 20 percent of voters in the middle who can swing things.
If all you are hearing from the Democrats in August is “Bush is bad and we’re not”…prepare for disaster.
rjung:
Sure, if you don’t mind losing.
Seriously, if the Republicans hadn’t been extremely well organized and kept on message, do you think the Contract with America would have had a chance of working in 1994? You can’t run 468 separate races and then wonder why the total and result wasn’t a win for the party overall.
I think the odds are fairly long unless the Republicans majorly screw the pooch between now and then. Oh, I can here several of you leaping up to shout that they HAVE been banging away at the thing for years now, but the reality is that I don’t get a wider sense that most people would agree. Oh, perhaps about the President atm, but HE isn’t running. Also, look around. Where is the gloom and doom of a failing economy, rising unemployment, etc? Sure, the deficit is high…but the economy is showing every indication of an imminent boom poised to hit us in the next year or so. Not a bubble, but a real honest to god boom (just MHO there, reading the tea leaves of various things I’ve been looking at lately).
Assuming the economy stays strong (even without a boom), I just don’t see how the Dems could take control of either house THIS election (well, see below).
A sea change on the Dems part. Throw out the baby AND the bathwater, bite the bullet and rid thy selfs of they lefties in thy midst. Move the party to the center in thought and deed, become the party of fiscal responsibility and moderation. Blah blah blah. I’ve said all this dozens of time and I can hear the shrieks of ‘Republican LITE!’ mounting. But if you want to win and take back control then thats what you have to do…IMHO. YMMV and maybe moving to the left completely would work for you. Do SOMETHING is my advice…standing in the middle between wanting to be moderate while playing to your loony left just means you get hit by traffic both ways.
In short though and from a practical perspective…there is nothing the Dems CAN do that they WILL do. So…get used to the Republicans being in control of both houses for the forseeable future. Maybe you’ll manage to take back the Presidency next time as a sop. Perhaps you’ll wise up and run someone like Clinton (Bubba, not The Bitch™ ) without all the baggage.
-XT
Take Minnesota. There’s a Congressional race there where the main Dem candidate, Tinkleberg, has a decent chance at winning an open, previously republican seat. It’s a Rep leaning area, but he’s a fairly conservative Dem: not so happy about abortions for all, a former minister, not too interested in screaming about the war: but he is really popular with labor, cares a lot about education, and so forth.
Well, before running, he did a smart and honest thing: he went around to everyone else that was running and asked for their blessing and advice, asked if they were running. The other major Dem in the area, Patty Wetterling, is a sort of sympathetic mom (I tihnk her daughter was abducted and killed) turned political crusader who ran last time and lost, was his key concern. If she was running, he didn’t want to waste tons of time and money fighting another Democrat with higher name rec than he had. She assured him, and assured the party that she was running for state senate instead: that she knew could never win the area, being as liberal as she is. She promised to stay out of the race and endorsed Tinkleberg.
Well, guess what. She lost early on in the State Senate race. And now she’s back to challenge Tinkleberg, breaking her promise to him and many other party leaders, and generally throwing a huge wrench into all the strategic and financial planning of the party, all the fundraising, putting a lot of local Democrats in a terrible position of having already endorsed Tinkleberg, but now having to worry about the favor of this powerful local. She might even call in Emily’s List, which means oodles of cash dumped into a race to fight another Democrat. And the left is eating it up.
Thus, a REALLY good chance for a Dem pickup becomes sidelined with a huge, painful intraparty fight. That’s how Dems shoot themselves in the foot, over and over.
I think it’s a foregone conclusion that the Dems will pick up seats, the question is can they pick up enough to have a majority. I follow polls on a regular basis, and if the election were to be held today, that wouldn’t be out of the range of error. But lord knows, this is the Democratic party, and they have 8 months to fuck that up.
What I find more interesting is the Senate. That is where I think there is a better chance, if the tide continues in the direction it has been going.
Thank you Abrahmoff.
Hmm? Conventional wisdom has been that there’s no way to wrest the Senate from the Pubs this year. Why do you think differently?
Politics is not about winners and losers; it’s about right and wrong.
Nah, it’s pretty much about winning and losing. Your ideas can be so pure and right that Mother Theresa, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King seem wicked next to you, but if you don’t win and get in a position to carry out your platform, it doesn’t do anybody any good.
What far left? Those people are left-leaning moderates at best. There is no far left of any political consequence in American politics today.
The Democratic party cannot hope to win simply by running to the right. They’re already safely in the center, and the Republicans own everything to the right of that. I do agree that Democrats have to provide a coherent and substantial alternative to the Republicans, but there’s no reason it must be to the right of their current platform, it must simply be more ably presented.
Americans, aside from a few issues like guns and gay marriage, aren’t as right wing (or or as loyally right-wing) as they sometimes seem. It’s simply that they Left has never been good at actually accomplishing anything political before falling apart into infighting, while the Republicans work together on the Right with almost clockwork precision.
What the Democrats need to do is decide what they are, as a group, and then tell the Americans about it. No Weasling, no waffling, just clear policy points. Don’t let the Republicans frame the debate. Don’t let them distract the public and the candidate with smears. Just decide what you stand for and sell it.
As for the OP, I expect to see Democratic gaisn in both houses, they can hardly help not gto at this point, but probably not enough to overtake the Republicans.
I think the Democrats have a shot in the Senate. In Tennessee, Frist is leaving, and Ford has a good chance of taking his seat. In Rhode Island, it looks like Matt Brown is going to get the nomination, and he can beat Chafee (and if Chaffee loses the nomination to Laffey, Brown can definately beat Laffey.) Ensign is vulnerable in Nevada, and Burns is in Montana. Casey can probably beat Santorum in Penn.
On the other hand, Steele is probably going to win in MD. So, assuming all that plays out the way I’ve said, the Democrats still need to pick up two more seats.(and hold on in NJ and Minnesota, where there are strong Republican challengers.)
I don’t think the Democrats are going to take the Senate, ultimately, but it’s going to be close, and I wouldn’t count them out.
Most of the Senators who’ve said they’re retiring are Democrats, and most of the seats up for election this year in the Senate belong to Democrats. So for those reasons, I think it’ll be hard for them to take control of the chamber. Just numerically, it’d be tough in the House too. But I think they’ll pick up seats in both chambers. For all the talk about national issues and failing to take the initiative, I think these elections are predominantly about local issues and that’ll make the difference in most of them.