If 2010 is like 1994, or even kind of like it (say, the Republicans make big gains, but don’t take back either house of Congress), how will the next two years of Obama’s presidency go?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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You know the answer as well as I do: even a single seat gained by the GOP in the House and Senate will be treated as proof that America has rejected Obama, the Democrats, and progressives, and that he should now allow the GOP to run the country.
About the same as the previous/current two.
Looks like your “Support BooTrib” link isn’t working.
yes, that’s the defunct merchandizing store. Clicking on the donate button is the way to help out these days.
Is there a way we can “subscribe” to the site, e.g. through some kind of monthly Paypal fee?
I am glad you pointed that out. I may not always agree with BooMan but his entire site provides a valuable outlet for many varied opinions and his insight, as well as those views by other front pagers here, into all issues is excellent. Even on the few thing where I might disagree.
I had asked him about that link before since the shop closed down and I guess he missed the comment. I should just change my link to the donate button. Maybe a link to ePM as well, if it will fit. 🙂
Fixed… And thanks for reminding me. 🙂
If fewer congressional Dems gets Obama obsessing less on “bipartisanship” and more on getting good stuff done, it could be a triumphant couple of years. It will all depend on Obama and on whether the Senate Dems get rid of the filibuster in its current state.
I agree: the filibuster is still the elephant in the room. If we keep workable majorities in both Houses, and kill or limit the filibuster on the first day of the next session, we might have an even more productive Congress than the current one.
Nate Silver estimates about 20-23 House seats need to be lost before we start cutting into workable majorities. (That is, these are the seats in red areas where the Dem doesn’t vote with us very much.)
If R’s take the House back, absolute government FAIL. Anything that passes will be vile to the point of inducing vomitus.
If the R’s make gains but don’t take the House, I think we’ll be OK. Might even get a piece of legislation or two passed.
I think there will be losses, but not the majority. People don’t trust the crazy. But it might be a nail-biter.
One thing’s for sure, if the Dems keep the House, it will NOT be portrayed as an endorsement of the Obama administration be the American people on the cable shows or the Sunday shows. Even though it would be.
you make good points…
Too many Conservatives just can’t handle a Black Man in the Oval Office, in charge. It was all they could do to swallow their outrage with Colin Powell….they’re quietly seething, now that the n****r is a Dem.
Not beginning impeachment of Bush and Cheney because of political reasons will be seen to be a great historical mistake.
One more bogus impeachment and the tool loses its power with regard to the president.
I agree with your statement and the sentiment behind it…
I just don’t see the Republicans as that smart or foresighted…they’ll try it again 1) because they could, and 2) to try to get rid if the Black President.
To them, Impeachment is just another political tool to use to get their way….it ceased being a means to ensure a more responsible Presidency the moment it was used against Clinton for lying about a blowjob
Is this the doom room here.
I think that is a meme the republicans keep repeating, hoping it will come true.
What if there are gains, then what.
You just have to make the gains happen than worry about the talking points of the party of NO.
I think the Senate is our main worry. The question is how big will the losses be and will they be losses? By the last, I think Blanche Lincoln losing is a plus not a minus. Having this hard core Rightie as a Democrat makes her opinion to be considered and catered to. If a Teabagger replaces her, he can be ignored as she can’t be.
Here in Illinois, Alexi G. will make a good Senator, fully as liberal as Roland Burris (or more so). Yet he is taking it hard on ethics questions. More and More, the Tribune and its two TV stations are breaking revelations that indeed he was banker to the mob. His comebacks are weak. For instance, one excuse is he didn’t do a background investigation on one recipient of a $27,000,000 loan. Come on! You get investigated six ways from Sunday for a $100,000 mortgage. No one waltzes into a bank and gets $27,000,000 without a bankground check. His opponent is pretty much a Lieberman clone. The question for me is, can I live with voting for the banker to the mob? Damn it! I like the guy! Maybe I should stick to my resolution to stay home in November. Alexi was the only bright star in a sea of corruption/incompetence.
Nate Silver says 5 lost, Bowers says 7.
BTW, I’ll point out that during the primary in the IL Senate, Bowers was BEGGING people not to vote for Alexi because of his terrible banking issues. Seriously, pleading.
I liked Giannoulius better than his whitebread opponent, but voted for Hynes anyway because it was so predictable, even before the primary, how the banking thing was going to blow up. Selling even a spotless banker in this climate would not be easy, but there are too many unanswered ethics questions that are not going to go away because they’re so easy to put into a 30-second attack ad. I’m still kind of hoping he’ll decide to withdraw, though that’s unlikely to save the seat. Just once I wish being a Dem would be more like being a Yankees fan and less like being a Cubbies fan.
out-Bushing Bush. Now he has ordered the execution of an American citizen without trial:
Can citizenship be revoked? This man is a traitor. I won’t lose any sleep over him. The Jose Padilla case is much more troubling.
It’s not him specifically, it’s the precedent. Obama is almost calling himself a King.
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Not very likely
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Although I’m sure you could argue the same in the Padilla case…which is true lol. Let’s just say that both are bad.
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Agree
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I don’t buy into the conventional wisdom that democrats are going to lose a lot of seats in either house. I think it is more about how strong of a candidate each party runs in any given race and whether it’s an incumbent running or an open seat.
But I’m sure he’ll lose some and I think reconciliation is going to be the word of the day. I guess it’s possible that there could be some moderates. Rachel just had a piece on how several republicans are trying to claim the moderate title for the next election. Maybe some will actually break away from the repubs on some issues. I just find it hard to believe that it will happen.
There is a big assumption that Republicans are not going to suffer large losses. That might not be the case. DeMint is caught between the tea partiers and the general electorate in SC. Burr is going down; he made the same mistake Liddy Dole made – not being seen in NC for five years. Progressives primarying Blue Dogs might win if they can play the ground game and turn out the votes. Virginia Foxx is going down to Billy Kennedy; another one who failed on constituent services. The race against Joe Wilson will be competitive in SC. And the SC governor race will drive Democratic turnout in SC.
On the other side of the ledger, we have a better chance in Arkansas with Bill Halter than Blanche Lincoln unopposed. Bart Stupak might leave politics altogether after receiving death threats as his reward for carrying the Pope’s holy water. Perriello will get re-elected; that’s what’s driving the rightwing nuts enough to try to hurt him.
What has hurt us is the failure of candidate recruitment. Thune unopposed. Shelby unopposed. Louis Goehmert unopposed. Talk about depressing down-ticket races; the Democratic parties in those states want to lose.
There is a bit of “we’re gonna lose, why bother” mood going around among Democrats. And a minority of progressives saying that a Republican victory would be good for progressives. Yeah, that strategy worked out for John McCain, didn’t it.
Here are the principles of electoral politics we need to observe. Every voter deserves the opportunity to vote for a progressive in the Democratic primary. Every voter deserves the opportunity to vote for a Democrat in the general election. Howard Dean understood these principles; Tim Kaine doesn’t. The vitality of state parties is key to victory but in too many states, the parties are in some do-nothing’s vest pocket.
Sounds like a Party in need of a prescription of Xanax or Wellbutrin……
Seriously, we Dems need to figure out what makes us wanna give up so easily, root out the false assumptions underpinning it, and squash it once and for all….
It’s the technocratic pollster mindset. What the polls say must become true because they have been so successful in the past. Except when they haven’t. And when they haven’t is when the political culture is changing rapidly and polls don’t show it.
There is a bias that says that the Tea Party movement is more significant than the progressive movement because Tea Partiers vote and progressives refuse to vote when their principles are violated.
Democrats are going to lose seats. And we can almost predict where. Republicans are going to lose seats, and they might not be where conventional wisdom expects. Republicans in the South have been greatly overplaying their hand. And a lot of independents in the South are tired of being embarrassed by these nitwits. Embarrassed enough? Remains to be seen.
WI-01 is another example of Dem haplessness and indifference. The R incumbent Paul Ryan apparently strikes fear into the WI Dems because he’s touted as the GOP’s budget smart guy and has gotten a lot of TV time with his economic “plan”. But, c’mon, the guy is on record, now, wanting to privatize Social Security, Medicare, and gods know what all else. Right when we’re still reeling from the Magic of the Market’s destruction of the US economy.
True he won the last election 64-46 against a nearly not-there opponent. But this is an industrial-ag district that’s in a lot of trouble. Obama won there 51-47. Voters would respond to a good left populist who could explain why Ryan and his fellow corporatists are poison for working people. And there’s an indie teabagger type in the race too, to help split the vote. The only Dem in the race so far is a well-meaning but ineffectual school teacher with no political experience and, judging by her website, nothing much to say beyond the usual liberal platitudes. She has no backing from the party and has raised essentially no money.
This is another seat that could be won with the right candidate and some real party backing. But this extremist won before, so of course it’s inevitable that he’ll win forever — the pollsters who were laughing off Obama this time of year 2 years ago tell us so, so it must be true. But I guess a pathetic country deserves to choose between two pathetic parties.
So who are some Dems in that district that might be able to beat Ryan? County commissioners, state legislators, etc.
Have the filing deadlines passed already for the primary or the general election? What does it take to file?
Where can you find 150,000 votes? Look at where Obama’s votes came from by precinct. Union voters?
Is there someone who can give the schoolteacher a clue? One doesn’t need party backing or money to get going as long as one can turn out the requisite 150,000. Someone who knows how to manage a ground campaign, use a web site effectively, pre-organize constituent services and finance it from the web could vet this candidate to see if there is any potential there.
There are lots of options in that situation without waiting for the stick-in-the-mud party leaders to get off their duffs.
The filing deadline is July and the primary is September 14. Who could beat him — that is indeed the question. I don’t live in the district, but have been there enough to believe that this hurting industrial area (Janesville, Kenosha, Racine, Burlington) has enough angry people including current and former union members to give Ryan a good run. If the party has already surrendered, how do you find people to put up a fight? Here’s the lone Dem candidate’s website. Do you see any light there?
There are about 75 political units (townships, towns, cities) to organize. Be interesting to know what the voting populations of those political units are. Based on the Obama vote, Waukesha and Walworth Counties are Ryan’s stronghold, which means that the rest of the district counterbalanced his votes there and some folks who voted for him split their ticket with Obama, or more likely some Obama voters didn’t vote down-ticket.
The web site is pathetic, more like a resume than a political site. A typical liberal approach–try to do it without persuasion as if the ideas themselves carry the day. The blog has a glimmer of hope. The candidate doesn’t seem to know what to do except offer a name.
Filing deadlines are conducive to getting something done in time.
Apparently the 1st Congressional District Convention is April 17 in Bristol. Current office holders and candidates will be alloted time to speak. There is a substantial bench of possible state and local officials to choose from. This is where you go to get popular party endorsement. The issue is vetting the candidates and securing a strong one to back.
Use what networks you have to see who might be available. If the locals can form the core organization, I’m sure outside support will be available. Also check out the costs of running ads in the radio markets in the district. A third-party ad letting his folks know he wants to kill Social Security could be helpful to bringing in a serious candidate.
“If the election were held today….”, except that it’s in November, not today. I don’t doubt that Democrats could take a big hit if jobs and the economy slide back any further. As Zandar1 says, no matter if the Dems lose 1 House seat and 1 Senate seat, the media narrative is a tidal wave of Republican momentum.
But it seems to me the Obama team’s strategies, which are relatively speaking long-term, nevertheless always pay attention to election day. The election is a long way off in the sense that slowly building good news could flip the conventional wisdom on its head. And as Tarheel Dem points out, it’s not as if the Republicans aren’t themselves in position for a world of hurt. With Plouffe and Axelrod and Obama increasingly focused on November, and assuming as I do that they will outmaneuver the Republicans month after month, the GOP has far more to lose than Democrats do. Thwart them in November and you really will have ruined them through 2016 and beyond. That’s a lot of incentive. Even in the current economic morass, I think the White House is salivating right now,
Good comment, the Republicans are apparently too stupid to just chill out, not make any sudden moves and let the anti incumbent, anti establishment wave sweep over them. They can’t seem to get the muzzles on the nutjobs in their party who keep going out and saying crazy shit. Moderates generally shy away from the extemes on either fringe, democrats have clearly swung to the middle in recent years whereas Republicans are swing wildly all over the place…From Ron Paul to Pawlenty to Tom Colburn to Michelle Bachman to Charlie Crist to Bobbie Jindal. And those are just the politicians, we also have the radio and TV blowhards in the mix. The only thing they seem to have going for them is the racist lobby.