Rahm Emanuel no longer heads the DCCC, but he’s paying close attention. And he’s giving people a head-fake, setting low expectatations:
“North of 20 and less than 30,” is how Emanuel answers when I ask how many seats he expects his side to gain. “Yesterday I would have said 22, today I’m at 26. The way things are going, I need to keep opening up a bigger band.”
Based on the latest available polling, the Democrats are set to lose two seats: PA-11 Paul Kanjorski and FL-16 Tim Mahoney. Let’s look at the Republican-held seats where the Democratic challenger is ahead in at least one recent poll.
1. AK-AL Berkowitz, 2. AL-02 Bright, 3. AZ-01 Fitzpatrick, 4. AZ-03 Lord, 5. CA-04 Brown, 6. CO-04 Markey, 7. CT-04 Himes, 8. FL-08 Grayson, 9. FL-24 Kosmas, 10. ID-01 Minnick, 11. IL-10 Seals, 12. IL-11 Halvorson, 13. KY-02 Boswell, 14. MD-01 Kratovil, 15. MI-07 Schauer, 16. MI-09 Peters, 17. MN-03 Madia, 18. MN-06 Tinklenberg, 19. MO-09 Baker, 20. NC-08 Kissell, 21. NJ-03 Adler, 22. NJ-07 Stender, 23. NM-01 Heinrich, 24. NM-02 Teague, 25. NY-13 McMahon, 26. NY-25 Maffei, 27. NY-29 Massa, 28. OH-01 Driehaus, 29. OH-15 Kilroy, 30. OH-16 Boccieri, 31. PA-03 Dahlkemper, 32. VA-11 Connelly, 33. WA-08 Burner, 34. WY-AL Trauner.
Now a couple of these races, like Gary Trauner’s in Wyoming, have some conflicting polling that shows the Republican ahead. But the Democrats should be favored to win close to 100% of these seats. And these are only the seats where at least one recent poll shows the Democrat ahead. Accounting for the two anticipated Democratic losses, this looks like the floor for the Democrats is a pick-up of approximately 32 House seats. No, we won’t win all of the above contests, but we’ll win plenty that are not on that list. I still think 45 seats is a good plus or minus to work with. Where will we get the extra 13 seats?
There are a half-dozen potentially competitive seats in California, two seats in Nevada, a seat in Nebraska, two seats in Texas, a second Alabama seat, five more in Florida, one in South Carolina, three more in Virginia, two more in New Jersey, two more in Pennsylvania, two more in New York, two more in Ohio, and two more in Illinois. Even Minnesota has another potential seat. Iowa has two potential pick-ups. Oklahoma has a potential seat. And then there are seats that are on no one’s radar.
Obama is creating a turnout with characteristics that no one has seen before. It’s very hard to poll. There’s a lot more early voting. Black turnout is extremely high. When Rahm tells you that he expects to pick-up less than thirty seats, he’s lowballing you and setting expectations.
If we get most of them, are they going to be Blue Dogs?
A lot of them, yes.
I don’t quite see how that term has any meaning after a large Obama win. There will be nobody for them to cower before.
You mean other than cowering before the Village Altar Of Bipartisanship?
Please. The Bush Dogs were never afraid of Bush. They were cowering to Village Idiots like Broder and Brokaw. You’d better believe the call will go out November 5th for the Democrats to “put the era of partisanship behind them” and give in to the poor GOP minority at every turn.
After all, Obama “doesn’t have the experience that his party leadership does.” They’ll treat Obama like a child and will be expecting the Gang Of Ten to run the country.
The Bush Dogs will roll over like the curs they are and block Obama at every turn.
If anyone here thinks meaningful change in Washington is coming, you’re out of your damn mind.
Realignment won’t mean a damn thing. We had the same situation in 1992, and 2 years later the GOP gridlock began. We could of had universal health care and a lot more back then. Instead the GOP killed us and Clinton saved his own ass by becoming the ultimate Bush Dog himself.
I’m not convinced Obama is different yet.
Lieberman sees the hand writing on the wall. He now respects Obama. Are we going to let Lieberman keep his chairmanship or strip him down to his bare butt?
He has a very short memory. We don’t.
Wow. Respect from Lieberman. My prayers are answered. This changes everything.
OK. You really gave me a good laugh now, Dave.
Lieberman sees the writing on the wall. Hasta la vista, Joe, it hasn’t been nice knowing you.
McCain himself is not a great campaigner. But this year would have proved a tremendous challenge to even a good campaigner.
The McCain campaign went along well-trodden paths; that means they were extremely predictable to people who understand strategy. They had a message and used techniques that people have grown sick of, and in any case were totally out of tune with the mood of the country and the actual predicaments we find ourselves in.
McCain’s campaign was so bad in part BECAUSE Obama’s was so good. They didn’t understand what they were dealing with, and the Obama people knew very well how to deal with McCain. Not even Palin threw them off. They just waited a couple of weeks.
It finally hit me the other day whyn the Rovian smear tactics work. It’s not that so many people, for example, really believe the Swift Boat crap. They knew Kerry was a war hero. But they wanted to see that war hero shut down the Swift Boaters; he didn’t and he couldn’t. If he couldn’t defeat such obvious bullshit, what kind of a leader was he?
The very fact that Obama could withstand the Rovian
bullshit and even do the judo where it now hurts the people who use it more than it hurts him, shows this guy really is a leader. People have been waiting for that kind of a Democratic candidate for years.
I posted this on the wrong thread. I’m gonna re-post it on the right thread.