So says Charlie Cook — or rather, so says the email alerting me to the findings — in a special report for National Journal.
What Cook himself says is that the Senate is hard to read. Which is, in effect, saying nothing much at all:
It’s easy to look at what appears to be a gigantic Republican 2010 midterm election wave in the House and feel a little slack-jawed, but not so much surprised. There were plenty signs well over a year ago that Democrats were facing grave danger, but even when expecting an onslaught, one can still be shocked at its size and unrelenting force. It would be a surprise if this wave doesn’t match the 52-seat gain on Election Night in 1994, and it could be substantially more.
On the other hand, the Senate picture is incredibly confused. There is no clear narrative in the Senate, just bizarre ups and downs. Republicans could easily find themselves picking up as “few” as seven or as many as 10 seats. An 8-seat pickup seems about right, but that is not written with a great deal of confidence; there are way too many races separated by very few points. In some cases it is weak GOP candidates who are causing the red team to underperform, in others it is because some of these battles are in states less hospitable to the GOP. The strong Republican tailwind that exists in much of the country is not so strong in California and Washington, and there are higher and more durable Democratic bases in states like Illinois and Pennsylvania that keep Democrats in the hunt. It is not uncommon to hear strategists say that if the environment for House Republicans is so good (or so bad for House Democrats), then the GOP gains could get truly massive and those dynamics would likely tip the closest Senate races in the same direction. There is probably some merit to that argument. But it also seems that the problem-children candidates for Senate Republicans have been called out more than their House GOP counterparts. The GOP candidates with more exotic backgrounds and blemishes seem to be paying a greater price for it in the Senate than in the House.
Personally, I don’t believe much of any polling at this point — or, at the very least, I look toward polls with the jaundiced eye of a cynic who knows that consent is often carefully manufactured these days, many times in an effort to have the tail wag the dog — so I’m not willing to declare one way or the other about the coming elections.
What I will say, though — and with decided certainty — is that the Tea Party movement will continue well past early November, and that what may now seem like an array of “exotic” or “blemished” candidates will soon be normalized, as it becomes increasingly apparent to the vast majority of the electorate that the “extremists” and “kooks” supposedly peopling the Tea Party movement are in fact them — and that it is therefore they whom left wing academics are now “studying” with an eye toward silencing and, to hear some speak of it, incarcerating.
It should be interesting, this new dynamic — watching postmodernism dissolve into the modernism it always was, yet wished so fervidly not to be.
Who’ll be the bug then?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all— 55
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 60
And how should I presume?
Odds are the Dems will hold the Senate (at least in 2010), look at the Real Clear Politics polling averages to see the current break down.
Still, as many of us find out when we are trying to pick winners on NFL games, at best you get an approximation of where things are not an exact answer.
It would be a very pleasant surprise if the Republicans took the Senate, but it would still be a surprise. However, we need to gain all the ground we can, and if necessary we will have to churn through candidates and elected officials until we get the right people in there. If we elect someone who lied about their fiscal conservatism, out they need to go, as soon as possible.
In the best of worlds, none of them would feel “safe” in elected office, and they wouldn’t be.
Going through the mind of Harry Reid or Barney Frank one week from today?
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 85
And in short, I was afraid.
I certainly hope the fervor of the tea-partiers is a permanent feature of the American electorate. It would make me fell much more secure in the future of the nation if a higher percentage of people began following issues and voting in all elections, not just the Presidential ones, instead of sitting on the couch bemoaning how “one person’s vote doesn’t make any difference”.
That would be change I could believe in.
Jeff’s advice of a jaundiced eys is good for these polls. Still there are definitely going to be gains. But regardless of whether the GOP gains are huge or just very big, this is just the beginning. If they are not making progress reversing the damage, then the Republicans will be in serious trouble in 2012.
While control of the Senate is definitely up in the air, the House races favor GOP control.
“regardless of whether the GOP gains are huge or just very big, this is just the beginning”
True dat.
We better see progress, depending on how big the gains, but don’t count Dems out. They have obstructionism down to a science.
The Tea Partys are going to have to hold together for 3-4 election cycles to really set us back on the right path.
If the Democrats hold the Senate, it will be the first time ever that control of the House has flipped without control of the Senate flipping as well. While there’s a first time for everything, I’m choosing to believe in the coming preference cascade.
Here are eight of the biggest myths that are out there. Time to bust the the teabagger lies.
1) President Obama tripled the deficit.
Reality: Bush’s last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama’s first budget reduced that to $1.29 trillion.
2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.
Reality: Obama cut taxes. 40% of the “stimulus” was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt, which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.
3) President Obama bailed out the banks.
Reality: While many people conflate the “stimulus” with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts to be “non-reviewable by any court or any agency.”) The bailouts passed and began before the 2008 election of President Obama.
4) The stimulus didn’t work.
Reality: The stimulus worked, but was not enough. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs.
5) Businesses will hire if they get tax cuts.
Reality: A business hires the right number of employees to meet demand. Having extra cash does not cause a business to hire, but a business that has a demand for what it does will find the money to hire. Businesses want customers, not tax cuts.
6) Health care reform costs $1 trillion.
Reality: The health care reform reduces government deficits by $138 billion.
7) Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, is “going broke,” people live longer, fewer workers per retiree, etc.
Reality: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit (compare that to the military budget!) Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.
8) Government spending takes money out of the economy.
Reality: Government is We, the People and the money it spends is on We, the People. Many people do not know that it is government that builds the roads, airports, ports, courts, schools and other things that are the soil in which business thrives. Many people think that all government spending is on “welfare” and “foreign aid” when that is only a small part of the government’s budget.
That is a direct cut and paste from dKos.
New depths of lameness.
Oh look, AJB and Willie must be snuggling
cuz of the plagarism.
Top or bottom, AJB?
And what do you guys do with the cat?
Obama borrowed money the government did not have, handed out cash payments and called this a tax cut. It isn’t.
Not just lame, lazy. That’s at least the second thread I’ve seen AJB paste that into. You’d think Soros would expect more for his money.
Saw that post on someone’s Facebook. Think it was originally titled: “Eight False Things The Public “Knows” Prior To Election Day | OurFuture.org”
I added a #9: Unicorns aren’t real.
I love, as the guy is telling us how dumb we are for noticing the nose on our face, he explains that “red writing is a link you can click on.” Thanks, genius. This new internet thing is tough to figure out.
At this point a slight numerical margin in the Senate does little, if any good, and may actually do harm.
Of that 51 there would be far too many RINOs to accomplish anything of substance, and all the while the Dem Stream Media would be decrying the lack of accomplishments from a Congress ‘controlled’ by Republicans.
We don’t need a single wave, we need a sustained tsunami over the next four to six years.
That’s a truckload of stupid all in one place, AJB.
What’s is like to not be able to reason for yourself? I imagine it’s comforting to not strain your obviously limited intellect.
Propaganda generator: You can take and reproduce anything you want, just give us a link.
AJB: Sorry. I’m simply too dumb.
Reality: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit (compare that to the military budget!) Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.
Trillions in a trust fund? Life-expectancy unchanged by modern treatments for disease? This can only be the “reality” that the reality-based community inhabits. One can only wonder at the color of the sky in their world…
Anyone seeing a AJB willie the racist hilljack similarity? Copy and paste spam from uberleft twatwaffles, overt plagiarism, overall asshattery.
Content is just like wealth to them. It’s not created or owned by anyone. It’s just part of the environment that you pick up and do with as you like.
(Not an original thought on my part.)
All the money from Social Security was used to buy government bonds. The government basically lent that money to itself, and now it can’t pay itself back.
I imagine it can sue itself, but I understand it’s pretty much a deadbeat.
What I find funny is that I’m not entirely sure that even progressives believe such transparently false talking points.
Their approach seems to be that someone else, someone less intelligent, will believe them if they simply pass it along. The rather obvious flaw in this approach is that there aren’t people less intelligent than them.
Seriously, who’s dumber than people like AJB and Yelverton? Then, if they exist, could they even figure out how to vote?
AJB is really not all that big of a trainwreck of stupid, guys. He does seem to be confused about who he’s talking to, and about what they think.
Okay, he’s an average trainwreck of stupid as far as trainwrecks of stupid go.
“And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon…”
It is not average. It is “special”.
Okay, he’s an average trainwreck…
That’s just mean.
Myth 3) President Obama bailed out the banks.
This is like the guy who murdered his parents asking for mercy because he’s an orphan. 99% of the time the people deliberately obfusticating TARP I, TARP II (the UAW rescue), and Porkulus are doing it because by and large TARP I *worked as advertised* as opposed to the Obama-engineered train wrecks the other two have become, not because they object to any of them.
@Ernst – IIRC that was pretty widely discussed when GOP control of the House started to become a possibility. Yes, the Dems are going to turn out the faithful in their gerry-mandered enclaves. Leaving the Senate in D controls requires assuming that 1) voters supporting GOP House candidates will first vote for the Democrat Senate candidate, and/or 2) Democrats in districts where their Rep is a shoe-in are more enthused about voting than pro-GOP voters in hotly contested races. Somehow that prediction sounds like the stories back October 2000 talking about how we might be swearing in a President who won the Electoral College but a minority of the popular vote. Of course they all envisioned W winning big in red states with few EV’s while *President Gore* eekked out marginal victories in the states with more EVs.
If you murder your own parents you might could deserve mercy but you better have a really really good reason it can’t be something lame.
catchy train wrecks
I think that the Dems will be totally sucker punched, and they won’t believe that, in spite of every scam they could think of, there were not enough illegal votes, even with all the dead people and illegal voters to do an Al Franken on the rest of America.
Shamelessness soon shows itself for what it is.
And, BTW. Anybody ever been on a ride called the Catapault”? WOW!
TLD
BTW, when I was fourteen (1962), my mother told me that she and my father had always been Democrats until the Dem’s opposed the civil rights act.
She laughed and told me that the Democrats would force recount after recount until their candidate won. She told me (in 1964) that the Democrats were trying to “shut everyone up”. She also said that anyone with a brain left the Democratic party after JFK was killed.
Lyndon Johnson? One of the sleaziest politicians who ever lived. A man who would tear your balls off with his teeth if you fucked with him.
The man who cleared the road for today’s progressives.
I really loved my mom. She was scary smart.
ThomasD – A 51-49 seat margin would be huge for the Republicans who would then take over the chairmanships of all Senate committees. Such as: the Senate Judiciary Committee which would remove the vicious Patrick Leahy (D-VT); the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs will have a new chairman anyway since the execrable Chris Dodd (D-CT) is retiring rather than face his voters in a bid for reelection; the cartoonish John Kerry (D-MA) will be out as the Foreign Relations chair; the Environment and Public Works chair, the ever popular brainiac of the Senate, Barbara Boxer (D-CA) will be out of her job even if she manages to win reelection. I could go on, but having the majority would be huge for controlling the business of the Senate as well as having some ability to counter the brutal narrative that we can expect to be forthcoming from Obama and his sock puppets in the MSM. The Republicans are currently treated like furniture in the House and Senate. One hopes the Pelosi house rules will be adopted in their entirety by the new Republican speaker – I can already hear the Democrats howling about disenfranchisement.
I have a cool million stashed in my retirement cookie jar. Every payday I deposit 15 to 20% of my pay into the cookie jar. When cash runs low before payday I take the funds out of my cookie jar and throw in a personal, fully guaranteed, signed IOU for the money and a generous interest rate for the loan. Principle plus interest just keeps mounting. Damn I’m going to live high on the hog when I retire and cash it all in.
that’s really smart
Holy Crap, is that list for real?
10)Myth:There is no Santa Claus
Fact There is a Santa Claus. Really. Elves too, I’ve seen them.
11) Myth You can’t get pregnant from anal sex
Fact Where the hell do you think Congresspersons come from?
12) Myth There’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow
Fact You pander to your people, we’ll pander to our people, OK? Steve and Bruce have a lot more spending money than some breeder couple with five kids.
Skinny Cupcakes for you hf.
those look challenging – mostly the mounding process … but they are very festive and they only have 572 calories!
We’ve had 51 in the not so recent past and look what it got us. There just isn’t going to be enough of the new blood to keep the RINOs from doing what they did before, never mind that there is no earthly way to get to a veto proof majority. 2012 is the time to capture the Senate. The action in the next two years is going to be in the House
2010 the house 2012 the senate big time
If the GOP (and more importantly the tea-party) have a big enough night next week, it might be easier to get to 67 than you think. At least a couple of the Democrats that are going to have to run in ’12 just might rediscover the wisdom in respecting the will of the voters.
Or is that too Pauly Hahnisch?
We’ve heard talk that defunding NPR is the “litmus test” for the new Congress. It isn’t; this is.
(This) one knows, however, that it won’t happen. It isn’t collegial (haaaark, spit)
Regards,
Ric
That is a hopeful thought Ernst. I’m a bit more pessimistic. Imagine an Obama White House faced with the threat of a veto, it would be scorched Earth time. Any Dem that felt it necessary to buck Duh Won in order to stay in office would likely be headed out the door anyway.
The Dems’ behavior in the next House is going to set the tone for the future. Expect bitterness and reprisals.
ThomasD, I think Obama could find himself in a position of being seceded from his own party, if he isn’t careful. I’d really like to imagine the DNC returning his dues checks, “Sorry, Mr. President, but we’ve decided you’re just not right (for our organization).”
Mike,
“And the cat’s in the kettle at the Peking Moon”
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