So how did I do on my top 10 wish list for last night?
1. Rick Santorum- beaten like a drum.
2. George Allen- beaten, but headed for a recount.
3. Katherine Harris and Kenneth Blackwell- beaten like red-headed stepchildren.
4. Heather Wilson of New Mexico- up by 1303 votes with 99% reporting.
5. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona. Drubbed out of office.
6. Richard Pombo of California. Stomped convincingly. Kid Oakland is the man.
7. Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado. Tragically, she won with 46% of the vote.
8. Mean Jean Schmidt of Ohio. Won by 2323 votes.
9. Barbara Cubin of Wyoming. Ahead by 970 votes with 99% reporting.
10. Mike Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania. Lost by 1521 votes.
It’s probably not appropriate to use this day to criticize Rahm Emanuel. However, he interjected himself into the Illinois-06 race to put Tammy Duckworth in over the wishes of progressives in the district. He then poured some three million dollars into the race. Looking around the country, we lost races in FL-13, NC-08, NM-01, WY-AL, three seats in New York, PA-06, etc. by infinitesimal margins. Any one of those races might have gone our way with a little more balanced approach by the DCCC. Depending on recounts, some of them still might go our way.
Emanuel did a very good overall job. I want to give him his due, which is a hearty congratulations and a big ‘thank you’ for all his hard work. But I also want Emanuel to notice the victories of Patrick Murphy (PA-08) who got no early support from him, of Jerry McNerney (CA-11) who had to overcome a primary challenge from a Rahm candidate, of John Hall (NY-19) who was ignored, of Paul Hodes (NH-02) and Tim Walz (MN-01) who were championed by the netroots, of Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01), a citizen activist and social worker who Rahm gave almost no support to, of Jon Tester (MT-Sen), who had to beat Chuck Schumer’s DLC candidate, and Jim Webb who was also a netroots candidate.
Many other netroots’ candidates (some that I listed above) came within a whisper of victory.
Now, as to my predictions:
I predicted a House pickup of 30 seats (with a chance for 36). I got some of the races wrong, but right now it looks like we picked up 29, and we still might reach or exceed 30. I am disappointed with our performance in upstate New York, with the devastating loss of PA-06, with Ken Lucas’s collapse in KY-04. I thought we would win FL-13, NM-01, OH-01, OH-02, OH-15, NC-08, CT-04, and others. We could have done a lot better. But my prediction, in terms of numbers, was dead-on.
I predicted a 50-50 Senate with a lengthy recount in Missouri to determine control. I predicted we would win every contested seat except Tennessee, that Lieberman would win. I got it wrong. The recount will be in Virginia instead of Missouri. And, while I predicted we would eventually lose the Missouri recount (and therefore the Senate), it now appears that we will win the Virginia recount and gain the Senate. Of course, this all depends on Tester holding on in Montana (which is much closer than I anticipated).
I don’t think I could have been much more accurate in my predictions. Maybe someone will pay me to make predictions in 2008.
We know that Chris’s predictions sucked. How were your predictions? How did you do with your wish list?
