As much as I would love to see it, I do not think Santorum will lose in Pennsylvania. I definitely agree with you that Harold Ford is money in Tennessee. Personally, I think that the 2 other seats that the Democrats will get will be Ohio and RI.
With all due respect Deckard, I disagree with you. I think the Democrats are really overestimating what they'll get in November. This reminds me of the 2004 election where many thought John F. Kerry would wipe the floor with Junior. The Democrats will gain seats, but I doubt they capture a majority in either body.
That's OK, because I don't expect a lot of folks to agree with me. I just refuse to believe the American people are going to fall for the same tired Rove/GOP line they've trotted out the last several election cycles. No one thought the GOP would have the gains they reaped in '94. No one. In my opinion, the Democrats will do even better than those who support them believe. Americans are just tired of the governing, or lack of it, that they've had since 2000. They're ready to make a change. It's not simply that Democrats will do a better job, although I obviously think they will. It's being subjected to the lies, distortions, misrepresentations, vicious personal assaults, the knee-jerk defense of those assaults by their most avid supporters, the Limbaughs and the Coulters, and captive media, like FOX, over and over again. The selling of Congress and the Administration to an extent I haven't seen in over 40 years of paying attention. The blatant destruction of hard won environmental and social programs by the Administration and GOP Congress, actively, and through neglect. The use of the media "splash," to cover it up. It's happened again and again, and I can't see Americans falling for it... again. In just a few months, we'll see how it plays out. I expect to party for a few days. That, and feel an enormous sense of relief. Keep D&D Civil.
^ I agree with Jackfruit that the Dems might be too overconfident. I think they have a very good shot at taking control of both houses but there's a long way to go before the election and a whole lot of things could change between now and then.
sir i hope to god your right. but after 2004 i have little hope. and the democrats rarely give me any.
If the Dems are overconfident and it's only early July, they are stupid. The Republicans haven't even loaded their guns, much less started firing them. Events and negative campaigning can turns things around. If the Dems didn't learn anything during the 2004 election cycle they deserve to lose again.
Check out this read: For Democrats, Wave Is Building By Thomas E. Mann Sunday, July 16, 2006; B01 There's probably no way congressional Republicans can lose this fall, no matter how unpopular President Bush is or how unhappy the voters are with the war in Iraq. That's the prevailing view in Washington today. But it's wrong. If history is any guide, we're heading into a major political storm. And that means we could see a national tide in November that will sweep the Democrats back into the majority. Virtually every public opinion measure points to a Category 4 or 5 hurricane gathering. Bush's job-approval rating is below 40 percent, and congressional job approval is more than 10 percentage points lower. Only a quarter of the electorate thinks the country is moving in the right direction, and voters are unhappy with the economy under Bush. Finally, Democrats hold a double-digit lead as the party the public trusts to do a better job of tackling the nation's problems and the party it would like to see controlling Congress. What's causing the skepticism about Democrats' chances for victory in November are changing election patterns. Until recently, one of the few iron laws of American politics was that the president's party loses House seats in midterm elections, with the size of the loss depending on how many seats are at risk and how the public evaluates the president's performance. But all that seemed to change in 1998. That year, a healthy economy plus public distaste for the Republicans' impeachment drive against President Bill Clinton allowed the Democrats to gain five seats. Four years later, with Bush in the White House, Republicans picked up eight additional House seats in the midterm election. GOP fortunes were boosted by the fact that fewer seats were at risk, the president's post-9/11 approval ratings exceeded 60 percent throughout 2002, and the Republican campaign elevated terrorism over the economy as the central public concern. In the past five House elections, the number of seats changing party hands and the number of defeated incumbents have been historically low. Because of gerrymandering, stronger party-line voting and Americans' fondness for moving, the partisan makeup of House districts has become more lopsided, with many safe Republican and Democratic districts and very few competitive ones. Since 1994, when the Republicans won back the House, there has been a dramatic decline in the number of majority-party members out of sync with the partisan makeup of their districts and of those who won the previous election by a narrow margin. All this leads to the consensus that the Republicans can't lose this fall. But I think they can. When there's no strong national issue at stake, local forces (a district's partisan makeup, the incumbent's reputation, the challenger's resources, etc.) dominate congressional elections. But a sharply negative nationwide referendum on the party in power -- causing a national vote swing of five percentage points or more -- buffeted local factors in the 1946, 1958, 1966, 1974, 1982 and 1994 midterm elections, producing losses of 26 to 56 seats. In each of those elections, changes in the national vote were not distributed evenly across districts. The party losing ground found itself besieged in districts previously thought to be safe, where the average swing was double or more the national swing. The new pattern of uncompetitiveness that developed after the 1994 Republican landslide has not been tested by a surly electorate. The Democrats' hopes rest on intense public unhappiness with Bush and the GOP -- and enough districts in play -- to allow them to pick up the 15 seats they need to become the majority party. What might keep a national tidal wave from developing this year? First, party divisions may have hardened so much that few voters will be open to conversion. Party-line voting is at its highest level in decades. While many GOP voters are critical of Bush and the Republicans in Congress, many may return to the fold by November. On the other hand, there are enough pure independents and weak partisans to make a significant shift in the national vote possible. Second, polls reveal a Democratic advantage in the level of interest in the midterm elections comparable to what the Republicans enjoyed in 1994. But it's still uncertain whether Republicans' traditionally higher turnout rates, combined with the GOP's vaunted get-out-the-vote operation, will significantly reduce or eliminate that advantage. Third, when the president is in political peril, it is easier for the opposition party to recruit strong candidates and raise campaign money. But many analysts have noted the absence of strategic behavior on the part of the Democrats, who have failed to recruit good candidates and have allowed the Republicans to maintain a fundraising advantage. Yet that observation was based largely on readings taken in 2005 and early 2006. More recent assessments reveal the expected patterns. Over the past year, the Cook Political Report has increased the number of Republican seats it considers highly vulnerable from two to 10, and those it considers somewhat vulnerable from 16 to 25. Eighteen others are potentially vulnerable. That's a total of 53 GOP seats at risk, double the number of a year ago. During the same period, the number of competitive Democratic seats declined from 14 to 10;, while the total number of Democratic seats at risk remained at 21. Meanwhile, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has significantly improved its fundraising capacity, and the Campaign Finance Institute reports that Democrats in more than 50 Republican districts are on track to raise enough money to run competitive campaigns. The fourth and final factor is the Republican decision to pursue a risky strategy: turn their greatest liability -- the war in Iraq -- into an asset by linking it to the broader fight against terrorism. The risk is that this will reinforce the public's association of the GOP with an unpopular war. The potential gain is that it will allow the Republicans to highlight alleged Democratic division and irresponsibility. Will it work? No one doubts the Republicans' resourcefulness and discipline in castigating the "cut-and-run" Democrats while beginning to withdraw some U.S. forces before November. Less certain are the Democrats' skill in framing the election as a referendum on the Bush administration and Republican Congress. Public unhappiness with the Bush administration and Congress might diminish over the next several months if the economy and the situation in Iraq improve. Republicans may succeed to some extent in shifting public focus from their past performance to a choice about future directions and policy. Efforts to rally and turn out the Republican base may compensate for the Democrats' advantage in the intensity of public discontent. Extraordinary efforts to protect potentially vulnerable Republican incumbents may pay off. And the limited number of GOP seats at risk may prove an insurmountable obstacle for Democrats. But my own reading is that the odds favor a Democratic takeover of the House. The 15 seats that the party needs for a bare majority is well below the range of minority-party gains in past tidal-wave elections. The national winds blowing against the GOP are strong and have not diminished over the past nine months. Credible progress on the ground in Iraq before November is implausible. The public's harsh evaluation of the president's performance on the economy is unlikely to be reversed by Election Day. Prospects for significant legislative achievements in the remaining months of this Congress are remote. Enough seats will be in play (including some that Republicans carried in 2004 with more than 60 percent of the vote) to allow Democrats to gain majority status in the House. Prospects for a Democratic majority in the Senate are less bright, given the limited number of Republican seats in play. But even here, a national tide could tip all of the close races in the same direction, allowing the Democrats to hold all their threatened seats and to win the six Republican seats they need to take control. Energized voters can hold their government accountable and throw the rascals out. Chances are good that, this fall, they will avail themselves of the opportunity. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/14/AR2006071401391.html Keep D&D Civil.
The Dems will not be able to mobilize enough support on election day this year, just like in the 2004 election. I remember all that BS talk about energizing the "youth" vote, but they simply didn't show up at the polls. Republicans are much more serious about their voting, and they show up to prove it. They will keep control of the House, and maybe even the Senate in 2006.
I'm admittedly a conservative myself, but I expect the Democrats to win big this fall, probably take control of the house. The result would likely send some much needed ripples through the GOP as well ... maybe they'll finally begin to figure out ways to get back in touch with their base.
Texx, What odds are you offering? Since unseating an incumbant is harder than winning re-election you much be offering like 4-1 or at least 3-1 right? I might be up to betting on that. DD
Dems also will likely pick up a Senate seat in Montana, of all places. Connecticut should be Democratic after the eelction as well
For me, the article doesn't add anything to the discussion. The bottom line is when the Republicans start the attack ads, how are the Dems going to counter. Can they effectively use stem cell research as a wedge issue to divide Republicans? Unless there is a monumental or Earth-shattering event between now and September, everybody is just blowing hot air about what could happen. By September, whatever policatal momentum that exists will mean something and both sides will have tipped their hand on the campaign themes they will use to motivate voters. Based on my bad memory, it was about late August when it became obvious November would be very harsh on the Dems. Who can forget Bill's slip-up a few days before the election when he called Bob Dole the "Majority Leader".
More evidence of a Republican meltdown in November... Simmering Rage Within the GOP By David S. Broder Thursday, July 27, 2006; A25 My weekend visitor was one of the founders of the postwar Republican Party in the South, one of those stubborn men who challenged the Democratic rule in his one-party state. He was conservative enough that in the great struggle for the 1952 nomination, his sympathies were with Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio, not Dwight D. Eisenhower. He has lived long enough to see Republicans elected as senator and governor of his state and to see a Republican from the Sun Belt behemoth of Texas capture the White House. His profession won't let him speak with his name attached, but he is sadly disillusioned. "My wife was thrilled by the veto" Bush administered last week to the bill expanding federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, because she shares the president's belief that those clumps of cells destroyed in the research process represent human life. "I thought it was stupid," he said. "I know too many people who are like this" -- and he shook his hands like a victim of Parkinson's disease -- "and their only hope of a cure is in stem cells. Now Bush is forcing that science to move overseas." He went on: "How the hell long can they refuse to raise the minimum wage?" He was furious, he said, with the Republican leaders of Congress who keep blocking bills to raise the minimum wage, which has been stuck at $5.15 an hour for years. "I'm a conservative," he said, "but they make me sound like a damned liberal the way they act. They spend like fools, they run up the deficits and they refuse to give a raise to the working people who are struggling. How the hell are you supposed to live on $5.15 an hour these days?" "If it wasn't for Pelosi," he said, "I'd just as soon the Democrats take over this fall. Get some checks and balances and teach these guys a lesson." In the end, his dislike of the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi of California, and his ingrained disdain for the Democrats may keep my friend voting Republican. But the complaints that I heard from him -- echoed by many of his contemporaries in the Taft-Goldwater-Reagan wing of the GOP -- are a significant factor in the dynamics of the midterm election. They could spell trouble for Republicans in mobilizing their vote this fall. I first became aware of the spreading discontent on the right in visiting with people in the church social hall after the funeral this spring for Lyn Nofziger, Ronald Reagan's longtime press spokesman and adviser. The comments about the Bush White House people -- who were notable by their absence at the service -- startled me. But since then I have heard the refrain over and over: They never reached out to us. They never thought they needed our help. Now they're in trouble. To hell with them. Whether or not the complaints are justified, they are epidemic. They are often accompanied, as they were in the case of my weekend visitor, by the comment that everything the White House does seems to be aimed at pleasing only one section of the Republican coalition -- the religious right. That is why there was so much high-fiving on e-mails and phone calls among other Republicans over the defeat last week of Ralph Reed, the one-time driving force of Pat Robertson's religious-political movement who lost the nomination for lieutenant governor of Georgia because of his links to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Reed, a major operative in Bush's presidential campaigns, is a symbol to many others of the influence of the religious right, though in fact he was much more political operative than preacher. But the dissent threatens Republican chances of avoiding a major defeat in the midterm elections. Andrew Kohut's survey for the respected Pew Research Center last month found Democrats far more motivated to vote this year than Republicans. The Democrats held a 16-point advantage over the GOP on the question Kohut uses to gauge the level of interest in voting, exactly the reverse of the situation in 1994, the year the Republicans took over Congress. In the past two elections -- 2002 and 2004 -- Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman and the rest of the Republican leaders demonstrated a superior ability to locate and turn out their voters. But in neither of those years did they face the formidable barriers in place this year, starting with the weariness with the war in Iraq. The last thing they need is the disaffection now being displayed in their own ranks. This looms as the supreme test of their political skills. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/26/AR2006072601495.html Broder echoes what I frequently hear from Republicans I know. Many are going to stay home for the mid-term elections, and several may vote Democratic, if they can work themselves up to go to the polls. Keep D&D Civil.
texxx only offers 1-1 odds on bets that have better odds elsewhere. That way, he can arbitrage any bet and guarantee he makes money. He tries to look tough & confident by putting up a big number like $1000, while he's actually so lacking in confidence that he's unwilling to bet on fair odds - insisting that you take silly odds to bet with him to show your confidence (never mind that you could win more by betting elsewhere). It's his warped version of manliness. It's at least the third time now that he's tried to pull the stunt on these boards.
I am seriously debating whether to vote at all. As a conservative, i feel I have been lied to by the GOP. Honestly, I haven't registered. The only reason Bush's numbers are so low is because he has angered his base. Numbers don't drop like that unless you have done so.
