Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the The Rothenberg Political Report, and a regular columnist for Roll Call Newspaper, now says a Democratic blowout is possible:
After looking at the news for the past 10 days or so, I have to wonder how Democrats can possibly fail in their efforts to take both the House and the Senate.
The national atmospherics don’t merely favor Democrats; they set the stage for a blowout of cosmic proportions next month.
No, that’s not a prediction, since Republicans still have a month to “localize� enough races to hold onto one or both chambers of Congress. But you don’t have to be Teddy White or V.O. Key to know that the GOP is now flirting with disaster.
Let’s forget all of the niceties and diplomatic language and cut to the obvious truth: From the White House to Capitol Hill, Republicans look inept. And that assertion is based on what Republicans are saying. Democratic rhetoric is much harsher and, therefore, easier to dismiss as partisan claptrap.
He cites a number of factors that have GOPers reeling: Bob Wooward’s book, the Iraq war, stalled social security and immigration reform and the teenage page Internet sex scandal that caused Rep. Mark Foley to resign from the House in disgrace.
He notes that the Foley scandal will dominate the news cycle for some time to come. He also points to Virginia Senator George Allen having turned a near surefire re-election into a cliffhanger– and says it looks like Pennsyvania Senator Rick Santorum will be defeated.
At this point in the cycle, with four weeks to go, Democrats have enough credible candidates and enough resources to win both the House and the Senate. It’s quite possible that a handful of lower-second-tier, and even some third-tier, Democrats could be swept into the House by an anti-Republican wave, giving Democrats a bigger gain than I had heretofore been estimating.
Republicans may counter that while they have messed up, Democrats haven’t done anything to deserve control of Congress. Sure, I can buy that. But that’s not how our system works. Democrats don’t have to offer an agenda. They don’t have to offer a list of unquestionably able committee chairmen. They don’t have to understand that their election isn’t a mandate for anything — except change.
Given that the past two years produced little good news for the GOP, and the past week has produced even worse news, it’s hard to see how Democrats can fall short in their bid to win at least one chamber of Congress. They are sitting with a lot of very high cards in their hand. A true blowout is now possible.
A month can be an eternity in politics. And there could be an event, particularly an external event, that starts to dominate the news cycle. Yet, even if that happens, it is hard to see the GOP regain much of what has been lost between now and election day.
The reason: credibililty. Republicans are losing support because on a host of issues the White House and the GOP party elite leadership have lost credibility and also seem to alter values according to political needs. It’s hard to get that kind of support back. Hastert staying in his post and President George Bush and White House spokesman Tony Snow suppporting him won’t help.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.