Back in November of 2012, I took a look at what it would take to win back control of the House of Representatives. My findings were grim.
Any district that was won by 10,000 or less votes should be considered highly competitive. Under 5,000 should be considered a toss-up. You can see that there are only seven presently highly-competitive seats and only four toss-ups. That is a horrible place to begin our campaign to retake the House. Only half of these districts [17] were won by less than 20,000 votes. Only 22 of [34] are in states that Obama carried, and almost none of them are districts that Obama carried.
But, by August, I was beginning to feel a little bit more upbeat. By then I had noticed a significant erosion of the GOP’s advantage with elderly voters, and their traditional unity and message discipline were breaking down. I had reason to at least offer a message of hope.
Now that the GOP has shut the government down, some polling is indicating that if the midterm elections were held today, the Democrats would win back the House. Obviously, we have to add all manner of caveats to that statement, but I didn’t think it would even be possible to make that argument when I looked at the results of the 2010 gerrymander in the 2012 elections.
Ah, so you mean if snap elections could be held like in a parliamentary system? Just one more advantage.
Interestingly, Justin Amash finally got his conservative primary challenge today. Supposed the candidate is that of the business (non-Tea) wing, but of course he started by attacking Amash from the right, accusing him of voting against the Ryan budget and for abortion money.
Interestingly, Justin Amash finally got his conservative primary challenge today.
Yes, and people forget that at least one of the members of the Amway fortune is behind Amash. Meaning this is going to be a knock-down, drag-out brawl, high-spending race.
I agree with Booman though, at least Amash had some of his priorities right.
So what? Amash is a bit of a maverick (Paulista type), but he’s absolutely TP and was one of the driving forces behind this shutdown.
He is vulnerable to a Democratic challenge and it’s fine with me if the Republican candidates waste all their money and energy on each other.
Let’s hope. The GOP may be the most effective advocates for a Democratic House that we have.
Over the weekend it seemed like even the noxious sludge that passes for journalism is weaning itself a little from “reporting” on the “gridlock” the “failure to compromise”, and other childish fantasies. I caught a little of On the Media (I think on NPR), and there was, of all people, James Fallows, king of non confrontation, ratting out the false equivalency crowd. There’s only one problem, he said, and that’s the fact the Boehner is refusing to allow the House to vote on a clean bill.
Followed, of course in the next segment by Brooke Shields blubbering about “compromise” or some such shit. But even in slumberland, actually looking at the cause of the shutdown is starting to look like the new truthiness.
We will see if it affects races in KS, NE, SD, ND, and some parts of CO. In SD, Noem is still pretty hard to touch.
I see President Obama’s cousin is running in KS. what do are your thoughts about CO, NE, ND?
President’s News Conference:
Were Senate Democrats unable to set up clean bill yesterday?
I still want Gene Sperling furloughed. He’s useless.
I don’t have good feelings about questions like this or coming to a news conference at this point in time.
I wouldn’t have a problem with that if I thought a negotiation would begin with each side presenting a number of goals, instead of with one side presenting goals and the other trying to make as few concessions as possible.
The litmus test of good faith right now is revenues.
Anything else is just more “starve the beast” and “screw the Obama economy”. Not to mention make Democrats sacrifice the interests of people in their base again.
Ending this shutdown should not return to business as usual.
It might be worse. Suddenly there is a lot of talk about chained-CPI as something Obama should agree to. And given that he put it in his budget, it looks likely to me that he would agree. Bloomberg is calling for chained-CPI and more “investment tax cuts”. IOW transfer more money from poor old people to the elite.
ABC7 reporting this morning that if we hit the debt ceiling, Obama will stop SS checks temporarily. I had to assure my older sister that I will lend her whatever it takes until her checks come back. Why is Obama threatening an old lady that has voted Democratic since Kennedy and continued through McGovern et al? Who NEVER voted for a Republican? It’s DESPICABLE!
He’s threatening me too. At the moment solely Social Security for the both of us, with a mortgage and kids’ student loans that we are still paying on.
The assumed privilege of Democrats in DC is as bad as that of the Republicans.
As for chained-CPI. He offered it in 2011. He offered it in the 2014 Presidential budget. That budget was never passed. And this week, Boehner treated doing chained-CPI like it was going to do Obama a favor instead of as a concession. I actually think that one might be finally dead.
I hope so. It sounds like you might be in as bad financial shape as my sister. She has been a renter all her life so her only assets are some furniture, about $10K in AT&T that she inherited from our Mom and a 13 year old Toyota Corolla with really low miles. Rent just jumped 10% on her. Of course my property tax assessment just jumped 14% also. But at least I’m still working. I’m really slowly abandoning the idea of retirement. I think I will die on the job as I’ve seen others do. One was 83 or 84. He was sort of a standing joke because he kept saying he was retiring in two weeks. Had a heart attack in his car in the plant parking lot. Maybe not so bad. At least he had money in his wallet.
People here locally have keyed in to the concern that the TParty swarm doesn’t have a governing set of goals that would merge with a functioning govt. Obvious as it may be, they are just now realizing that the TParty faction falls off a cliff when it becomes their turn to offer an actual governing platform. The shutdown has pried open alot of eyes.
That will end when the SS checks end and Obama agrees to chained-CPI.
Sorry, I don’t buy this polling, and it’s more or less pointless since the midterm is over a year off.
what I do buy is for months now- public approval rating of congress has been sucking gas, 14 percent or lower some months.
this is the approval rating for both dems and repuglicans; not just repuglicans.
The Democrats will be more than happy to bail out the Republicans if they don’t mount some credible challengers and back them with money. As the old saying goes, if you don’t ask, it’s an automatic no.
I hope the DCCC gets its act together. Every Republican incumbent who gets a Tea Bagger primary is going to be vulnerable money-wise – if they survive. Credible candidates with funding can flip more than one seat, and it wouldn’t hurt to have some barnstorming done by the Chief Executive on behalf of the candidates.
“barnstorming by the chief executive”.
Our POTUS doesn’t do this very well. prime example being the recall effort against governor Walker in WI. during his campaign trips in the area, Obama’s jet flew over Wisconsin twice. he didn’t bother to stop even for an hour to help the democratic candidate– who ended up losing.