One thing last night showed is that polls can be wildly wrong. This was particularly true in Florida’s gubernatorial and Alaska’s senatorial GOP primaries. I hope so, because Nate Silver (now with the New York Times), is predicting the loss of 6 to 7 senate seats for the Democrats, with a 20% chance of losing the majority.
Personally, I am more hopeful. I truly believe that we have the stronger candidate (by resume, temperament, and sanity) in every single competitive senate race in the country. Whether it’s Paul Hodes vs. Kelly Ayotte or Sharron Angle vs. Harry Reid or Lee Fisher vs. Rob Portman or Joe Sestak vs. Pat Toomey or Rand Paul vs. Jack Conway or Barbara Boxer vs. Carly Fiorina or Alexi Giannoulias vs. Mark Kirk or Meek/Crist vs. Marco Rubio or Richard Blumenthal vs. Linda McMahon or Roy Blount vs. Robin Carnahan or Michael Bennet vs. Ken Buck or Patty Murray vs. Dino Rossi or Ron Johnson vs. Russ Feingold or David Vitter vs Charlie Melanchon or Chuck Grassley vs. Roxanne Conlin or Richard Burr vs. Elaine Marshall or its Joe Miller vs. Scott McAdams, I think we have the advantage when it comes time to actually campaign.
That doesn’t mean I think we’re going to win all those elections, but it means that the polls will improve as people start paying attention to their choices. I even have some optimism about the race in Delaware between Mike Castle and Chris Coons. We have a shot in Indiana, as well. Based on the strength of our candidates and the weaknesses of the opposition, I think a loss or gain of one to two seats is the most likely outcome.
No sane person is going to vote GOP on the merits, but no one in the present climate is going to be voting on the merits, they’ll be looking for scapegoats instead.
When you’re scapegoating, you’re by definition voting against someone. And when you’re voting against someone, the resume of the other candidate doesn’t matter, even if it does contain ‘Batshit insane’.
And there will be a fair measure of scapegoating by not-voting as well.
48 D – 2 I – 48 R. (I’m counting Sanders as a D) Charlie Crist and Joe Lieberman run your country.
(It doesn’t add up because I expect 2 seats to still be in recount, or in court, on 4 Jan 2010. The caucuses that vote on leadership won’t represent the actual party makeup of the Senate, with chaos ensuing..)
Well, I agree that it isn’t going to particularly helpful to Barbara Boxer to point out what she’s co-sponsored or whatever. But you shouldn’t discount that most of these races don’t even involve an incumbent, and that people hate the Republican Party more now than at any time in polling history. If they were running to the middle as mild-mannered bean-counters who know how to balance a budget, then I’d be pretty worried. But they are putting up really radical candidates and the rest of them are pandering to the crazy.
The guy in Alaska is against abortion in cases of rape and incest. Angle is off the charts. Rand Paul is against desegregating lunch counters. Rubio is a criminal. Mark Kirk is a serial liar. Linda McMahon is pro-wrestling magnate, Portman and Toomey were architects of the financial collapse. The Blunt family is disgraced in Missouri. Kelly Ayotte is clueless in Bachmann/Palin territory. Most of these idiots are on the record as wanting to dismantle Social Security to one degree or another.
So, maybe I am optimistic, but I don’t think these candidates will stand up well to close scrutiny. We just have to get our folks to the polls.
“So, maybe I am optimistic, but I don’t think these candidates will stand up well to close scrutiny. We just have to get our folks to the polls.”
The rule of thumb I’ve seen is that people don’t start paying attention until after Labor Day. This may be more true this year, given the challanges many are facing right now. Hopefully people start paying attention at SOME point before the election. If they do, I think you are right that these nutjobs won’t be palettable to the general electorate.
Couple that with the DNC spending heavily on a massive GOTV campaign. They currently have $6.5 million to spend (10 on hand, 3.5 in debt) and I personally think that they should be ready and willing to build a double-digit debt in this election. Pres. Obama’s fundraising prowess should be able to regain a proper warchest in 2012.
Can we get a date on this? End of September? Second week in October? Start of November?
A date on what? When the polls will start closing?
Yep. You said things will tighten up when people start paying attention, so when do you think that’s going to happen?
Also, TPM has the trendlines for Buck v. Bennet. Not encouraging.
After Labor Day the candidates will schedule debates and start seeking endorsements from local newspapers, and the media will start to focus on the races and personalities. By October, people will have a better feel for the candidates.
Somewhat more hopeful here too, though as we know the better/stronger/abler candidate doesn’t always prevail. That seems to be what will happen in the crazy Bayou State, where the local yokels seem poised to re-elect Diaper Dandy David Vitter.
I like Boxer to prevail ultimately, and ditto for Feingold, Murray, Blumenthal and Reid, the latter possibly by a comfortable margin. Question mark about the rest at this point.
Of course, a bold Obama move to boost the economy with a September announcement of a robust new jobs/stimulus program wouldn’t hurt either. Especially combined with a Eliz Warren appointment.
His new model is particularly tough on Dems. Despite obvious movement in favor of both Reid in NV and Conway in KY…both races show a trend towards the GOP in the past month.
Also, he doesn’t make clear whether the “previous” model predictions were from the older models or if he re-ran the simulation with the new model for previous dates. I hope he did, otherwise looking at any “trends” from his predicitons would be worthless.
I’ve always been bullish on the Senate. I haven’t even paid attention to the House because they’ve already largely done most of their work. I’ll pay closer attention to the House later.
However, I’m just as bullish as you: one-two swing in either direction.
If there’s heavy turn-out, I can safely say we’ll have 60 again counting Lieberman.
Of those you listed, eight are potential red-to-blue races.
As a former resident of Blue Heaven, I am always interested in the politics of NC.
How long is that shot?
Elaine Marshall? Not very long at all. She’s been elected statewide as Secretary of State several times.
Billy Kennedy? He’s running against Virginia Foxx in NC-05. More of a long shot, but the strongest candidate that has gone up against Foxx.
If we do have 20% unemployed (U6), and these people vote their own interests, they will not vote for the Repukeliscum. I don’t know if anyone is taking that into account, or if you can. But I see it as an issue.
I for one do not see Rand Paul winning. OK, he’s ahead now, but in Nov?
Sharron Angle is a sure loser.
I could see the Dems picking up 1 seat in fact. Of course, that’s pretty optomistic, but it depends on whether Obama will come out and blame the Repukeliscum. If he goes bipartisanshit, we are gonna lose. If he tries to pin it on the Repukes, we might do better than people think.
You’re thinking of a normal OECD country.
Here, if a candidate promises that they get to keep their guns, foreigners tremble when they see our might, every knee bends in Jesus’ name, those goddamn liberals and women and coloreds learn their place, and the homos shut up and go away, they will. They’ll give you their vote and anything else you want, money and jobs included, right down to the batteries in their pacemakers.
At the polls, economic interest and a quarter will get you a cup of coffee, otherwise we’d already be a social democracy, like every other advanced nation.
Don’t forget they’ve seen Dems and Obama carry a lot of water for wall street if they’ve paid attention. It’s not going to do them any favors.
Wall Street’s an abstraction, and if it wasn’t, and they did, you’d see violence directed against it. The scars on Wall Street are from anarchist bombs, not populists.
They don’t hate Wall Street, not near as much as liberals, fags, ni**ers, and foreigners. Populism’s a fraud, and a legend. The reason why you read so much about Huey Long is that he was an exception. Exceptions are interesting.
Something that pollsters always forget about Nevada… There is a third option on your ballot that they never poll for – “None of the above,” which I expect to do quite well this year. If I had to guess how things will turn out, I’d say Reid-40%, None of the Above-35%, Angle-25%.
I am not sure just what happens if “None of the Above” is the winner, but I expect it would mean the seat would go un-filled. That would trigger the new Governor (in January) to make a short-term appointment until we can have a new campaign and election.
According to Wikipedia, the None of the Above choice is non-binding and the candidate with the most votes still takes the seat.
I imagine that a Democrat who was seated with None of the Above taking a larger percentage of the vote would be considered an illegitimate Senator while a Republican seated in the same way would have a mandate from the people.
Thanks for finding that. I’ve really been wondering alot about that. I think they put that there because they don’t allow write-ins and it gives people something to vote for if they don’t like their options.
Nate Silver is awesome, but really, anyone predicting anything about November at this point is wasting their time. I’m sure Nate would say it too that all sorts of things can change in a couple of months. The public doesn’t pay attention until 2 weeks out.
I for one know of one initiative being done by inside persons that I cannot say anything about, but which will discuss important issues of employment.
Everything will depend on whether the administration becomes a rallying cry by November. If it does, Dems have a shot at keeping their strong majority. I was more optimistic a few weeks ago, before Obama’s boy Alan Simpson reminded me that he is not only dumb as dirt, a bought pegboy for the banksters, but as crazy as a teabagger. When Obama puts his stamp of approval on dirt like this, when he basically says this is what we need to set our most crucial national policies, why would anyone bother voting Dem or voting at all? Obama, like Nader, sees no difference — or at least that’s the message he’s putting out there.
I get how sniping at Obama and the Dems doesn’t help with the election, but really — Obama has some responsibility, too. Namely to quit pulling “bipartisan” shit like this and just govern the way he was elected to do.
“he is not only dumb as dirt, a bought pegboy for the banksters, but as crazy as a teabagger.”
You act like that’s a problem for someone aspiring to national seriousness. Let’s remember Boehner and McConnell, to say nothing of the farcical nutbags the teabag horde has coughed up, appear almost daily on national television with little apparent shame, nor any sign of anxiety they might be suddenly thunderstruck for their naughty, naughty lies.
Anyway, the decidedly misogynistic imagery Simpson chose is intriguing for chin-scratchers like me.
Yeah, but they don’t have Obama’s endorsement, far as I know.
Setting aside the language, Simpson is no more extreme than plenty of consensus types Obama has or wanted to work with. But I think it would be great if people did focus on his language: how nice would it be to McCrystal this guy?
AARP has weighed in. They did not like his comments at all. And question his ability to fairly consider the issue at stake in reducing the deficit.
But you are forgetting something. Broder jerks off thinking about guys like Simpson. He doesn’t do that for J.D. Hayworth.