Heh:
“It’s always darkest right before you get clobbered over the head with a pipe wrench. But then it actually does get darker,” said a GOP pollster who insisted on anonymity in order to speak candidly.
That ‘pipe wrench’ would be the combination of Larry Craig’s resignation and John Warner’s announcement that he is retiring. This following is only a slight exaggeration.
“About the only safe Republican Senate seats in ’08 are the ones that aren’t on the ballot,” a GOP operative with extensive experience in Senate races said. “I don’t see even the rosiest scenario where we don’t end up losing more seats.”
I think Thad Cochran and Mike Enzi are safe. I also think whomever wins the GOP nomination in South Carolina is safe (but Lindsey Graham is not safe).
A more interesting thing I’m ruminating about this fine afternoon is our fearless leader George W. Bush, now bereft of his Texas mafia. It must be pretty lonely without McClellan and Miers and Rove and Gonzales. I wonder if he has started talking to that portrait of Abraham Lincoln yet. CQ Politics has a very good run down on the landscape for the debate over Iraq this September.
The synopsis is that the Dems are going to offer the Republicans a deal. If the Republicans agree to pass something that starts a withdrawal of troops by the end of this year, the Dems will drop any deadline for the withdrawal to be complete.
I guess that is a reasonable approach, under the circumstances.
