The Line: Senate Playing Field Still Favors Dems
Chris Cillizza’s The Fix, washingtonpost.com’s Politics Blog
There is no better time to watch Senate races than right now, still 18 months away from Election Day. At this still-early point, incumbents are making decisions about their political futures, aspiring candidates are weighing potential runs and the party committees are cajoling and coddling candidates to best position themselves for next November.
Needless to say, The Fix has been looking forward to writing this Line for weeks now. Our No. 1 race stays the same as last month’s, as former Rep. Scott McInnis’s (R) decision not to run for the open Colorado seat leaves the GOP without an announced candidate. But change is rampant elsewhere on The Line, as Democrats’ recruiting prospects in New Hampshire and Oregon are looking up.
Remember: The No. 1 ranked race is the one most likely to switch parties in the 2008 election.
15 Responses to “The Line: Senate Playing Field Still Favors Dems”
There is also speculation that GOP Sens John Warner of Va and Pete Domenici of NM may retire-. I think the Dems have a good shot at picking up a few seats in the Senate if they run middle-of-the-road candidates instead of ideologues.
Al Franken is probably going after Norm Coleman’s seat in Minnesota- that should be an interesting race- since they are miles apart in style and ideology. Franken is already calling Coleman a “cheerleader” for Bush. Somehow I just can’t see the outspoken lefty Franken in the slow, collegial Senate. He’d be bored to death.
The Senate races have to be the least important races around. If Clinton/Obama/Edward win in 2008, it does not matter as long as the senate has 52 Democrats. If a Giuliani wins in 2008 and the Senate has 55-58 Democrats, it still does not matter.
What most of the cheerleading Democrats forget is that as the Democrats become the dominate party, the (D) senators will lose a tremendous amount of power since they will no unable to affect little except to fill up bils with an huge amount of pork.
Does anyone think that anyone would pay attention to an empty suit like Senator Patty Murray if the Democrats control the White House, the Senate, and the House.
SD- I’m just interested in regaining a semblance of balance of power. Right now there is gridlock with the two parties too polarized to work on anything together. Bush has already shown his contempt for Congress- so we have an executive that has grabbed enough power to shield himself from any meaningful challenges to his decisions. I don’t think we should be electing another executive that can’t or won’t work with Congress.
I still can’t believe we are this involved in an election thats so far away. Is the country that desparate for a change?
YES!!!
There was an interesting comment made by a Democrat on NPR. He said that the Republicans are maintaining a united front for now but they are also already making their political calculations for the next election. More signs that they are loosing voter approval for their support of the President will mean that there could be defections on some issues and even enough defections to over ride a veto. What the Democrats might do is keep sending bills for veto and make the case that if the voters want a change then it will only come about with a Democrat as President who will not veto the Democratic agenda. I hate seeing people constantly running for office and making political posturing a constant theme but unfortunately that is now the reality in Washington.
Grog- I agree-this is their strategy. I have heard that there will be massive GOP defections on Iraq if the surge doesn’t show significant progress by the end of the summer.
Kritter,
I would not call it a Republican defection as much as a Republican collapse. The Republican politicians have realized that the Democrats are destined to become the one, dominate party in the United States and are just trying to figure out how to survive the longest while the Democrats turn the entire United States into a version of California or Maryland.
SD- Nothing wrong with Maryland- that’s my home state, and we Democrats like it just fine!
GOP had its chance and chose to be a rubber stamp for Bush. I honestly hope they do wake up and smell the coffee, but I think these things go in cycles. After the Democrats have been in for a while they’ll get sloppy and lazy just like the Pubs did!
kritter,
If you look at the demographic groups who vote Democratic in Maryland it does not matter how badly the Democrats mess up, they will still vote for them. No matter how big the structural deficit is, no matter how love the criminal convition rate is, no matter how high the taxes are, no matter how many black families areburned out of their homes in Baltimore, no matter how many hospitals fail, blacks, hispanics, jews, and private school elites will always vote Democratic in Maryland.
If you look at the demographic of Maryland, middle class whites are leaving but blacks and hispanics are moving in. The same population trends are occuring in places like California and Mass. When the Democratic party is the one dominate party and caters to its core groups, where is the middle class suppose to move then?
SD- Not all middle-class voters are leaving Maryland. We had a GOP governor until recently- and he was almost reelected. The state is diverse, but that’s what I like about it. Being a progressive myself, I agree with the core democratic values of clean air, fairness in education and expanded health care. I agree that most blacks vote Democratic, and that they make up a large voting block for Democratic candidates, but there are plenty of middle-class whites who are dissatisfied with the GOP on a national level, and who voted Democrat the last time around. BTW, my county is getting a huge influx of military staff because of BRAC- so we actually have too many middle-class people moving in – and are worried about overcrowding of available housing, roads and schools.
The western and eastern shore areas of the state as well as B-more suburbs are still full of conservatives-guess the ethnic invasion hasn’t hit yet! Maybe you ought to move to Wyoming- reliably Republican and no diversity- a perfect fit.
kritter,
The 2005 census estimate that the total number of whites in Maryland went down while the total number of blacks went up a little but the total number of hispanics went up a lot.
Fort Meade is an example of Maryalnd in that the state is almost totally dependent on government jobs and government spending.
Of course, I notice that you avoid discussing the dismal record of Omalley as Mayor of Baltimore (a city that is shrinking even though it is totally dominate by Democrats).
I use Maryland as a example is that the Republican Party is basically irrelevent in politics. Even when Ehrlich was governor, the Democrats in the state house could easily overide the veto. Due to the changing demographics, there is nothing that the Republicans can do to affect the government.
That is what the U.S. has to look forward to, total Democratic party domination and a ruling class that will expand government and pass out government goodies to its core groups.
Once again, what will the middle class do in such a county? Where are they suppose to immigrate after most of the U.S. resembles P.G county?
And that is different from the current situation how exactly?
And I’d say that’s a worthwhile tradeoff of a return to cmpetent governance from the top down.
But then, you’re doing a heckuva job SuperD!
Davebo,
Competent would not be the first word that would come to mind is describing the Democratic Regime in Maryland. The current governor, former mayor of Baltimore, found out that the easiest method to lower the crime rate was to stop the police from recording criminal events.
The state of Maryland is facing huge structural deficits along with the Democratic State house increase entitlements while running private employers out of the state.
I just do not see how the Democratic Party of Gray Davis, Jon Corzine, and Governor Omalley can claim to be competent.
The worst part will be that there will no political solution any incompetence when the Democratic Party is the one, dominate parrty. Maybe you can provide an example of where blacks or Hispanics have voted out an incument Democratic because the incumbent was incompetent.
SD- I fail to see that Republican policies have done anything to support the middle class. Government contracts and jobs have gone to well-connected wealthy Republicans who spout the correct ideology. Lou Dobbs, himself a Republican, has vilified the current policies of the GOP for contributing to the downfall of the middle class.
And you know your evaluation of O’Malley is one-sided. Its true that numbers of the middle-class left Baltimore for the suburbs-but they didn’t leave the state. And this trend has occurred in many urban areas, no matter who was in charge. (with the exception of Giuliani- who had terrible relations with minorities in NYC. There were many questionable police actions while he was mayor, but he always took the side of the police. As we have seen in the Nifong mess- police and prosecutors can abuse their power. O’Malley was also noted for bringing efficiency to government in Baltimore, and was actually quite popular there, as a huge B-more turnout accounted for some of his margin of victory in the governor’s race. He also did very well in the usually conservative Baltimore suburbs-also contributing to Ehrlich’s defeat.