Senate Preview and Theory, 2010

Job approval in CT is already negative; http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-connecticutpoll1028.artoct28,0,1851441.story

he has plenty to answer for as chairman of the Banking Committee, http://www.thenextright.com/category/blog-tags/chris-dodd

and his problems are not abating  http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/op_ed/hc-rennie1109.artnov09,0,1054619.column

The Democrats would probably be in better shape if AG Dick Blumenthal ran for this seat in '10 

This is devastating news for Republicans.

5/6 seats won by less than 5% or less are held by Republicans?  Additionally, recent polls ( http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/31/11279/222 ) show Dem Governor Janet Napolitano polling ahead of McCain 53%-45%.  McCain may not feel like campaigning for his long held seat and that would be an almost guaranteed pick up for the Dems.

Plus, this posts assumes Obama will be a drag on the mid-term races for Dems, but what if that is not the case and he actually boosts Democratic challengers.

Add on to that the fact that this prediction site ran the numbers closely and believes Stevens will actually lose his Senate race once that counting is done ( http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/uncounted-votes-may-push-begich-p... ) and that MN is at best a 50-50 chance between Coleman and Franken right now. 

A low voter turnout and a heavy effort by Dems in Georgia could conceivable combine to give them their 60 seats needed in the Senate to block filibusters and launch them into a midterm election on excellent battleground.  The following Senate elections would be in a general election year, 2012, with Obama on the ballot again and his massive campaign and fundraising efforts yet again.  If you thought his numbers were good this time, imagine him campaigning as President Obama.

Does anything listed above sound like a stretch?  I think not.  The questions Republicans need to ask themselves besides how to fight back best is what to do if they may yet head even deeper into the wilderness.

Well???

Go after some of the more 'secure' Democrat seats.  As the economy deteriorates over the next two years, and if the Republicans wisely and slowly over that period of time show how the Democratic Party (and specifically certain individuals) was mostly responsible for the recession/depression, then we can target (of course assuming we can find viable conservative candidates) some of those individuals.  Like Dodd, Reid, Schumer.  And considering how well the campaign finance reform worked out for us, how about targeting Feingold as well?

 2010 Senate info.  Reid (D-NV) has had a re-elect under 50% for over a year now.  Porter (R-NV03) was expected to run.  I believe Reid recruited Titus (D) to prevent Porter from running against him, and Titus did beat Porter.  I think NV is the most likely pickup against an incumbent, we'll have to see about open seats.

I don't see much for conservatives to be hopeful about.   I looked over list of vulnerable senators wondering how upcoming elections might  affect important votes over next two years or how much senate GOP will stand united to obstruct Obama agenda.  Voters in Florida, North Carolina and even S. Dakota  may not approve of a senator who is seen as highly partisan obstructor.  Maybe the best strategy is a bipartisan approach to try to incorporate conservative ideas into legislation being crafted rather than try to derail.  Senators will need to give at least some appearance of bipartisanship for awhile.  Maybe if there are open seats in Illinois, Delaware or others it would be smart to crossover vote in dem primaries for a moderate or fiscal conservative candidate.

 One of the most interesting races to watch would be the Maryland Senate seat, especially if as expected, Mikulski retires.  I could see Michael Steele use his Senate run and win as a launch pad for the 2012 nomination.  Yes he would have a very outside chance of winning in 2012, but if he put together a great organization and grass roots campaign he need only look to Obama for a template for this path.  I'm not saying that it is likely, and a lot of things would have to fall into place for the talented Steele, but wouldn't it be amazing if we ended up with a Palin vs. Steele primary in 2012, mirroring the Hillary vs. Obama competition of 2008?  

This conversation becomes even more interesting if Palin appoints herself to Steven's Senate seat in 2010 thus using that organization and fundraising apparatus as a spring board for her 2012 run.  Interesting indeed!

Seems like Republicans should target AR, while Dems should go after the seats in FL, NC, PA and SD. This is still a difficult field for the GOP, imo, barring a change in the political landscape.

My gut feeling after the Obama win was that we'd see a slight fallback in the Dem majority after back-to-back wins, but now I'm not so sure of that.

will have two statewide elections in 2010, governor and senator.  A lot of our strategy would depend upon whether Specter retires or not.  I could imagine him, a cancer survivor after all, wanting to hang it up.  In that case, there would be two major races to fill.  On our side, I know that Tom Corbett, the AG, is eyeing up the Governorship.  He is a popular AG who is right now conducting a major corruption investigation.  The Senate seat would be very tricky to fill if Specter retires.  We're kind of out of effective Republican Congressmen.  There's speculation that Chris Matthews (!) wants to run for Senate.  God help us if that's the case.  We could always try to pull Mark Schweiker out of retirement.  Otherwise, I fear we might be stuck with Pat Toomey and 40% of the vote.

Lincoln has to be a little nervous with Obama's performance on Tuesday in her home state.  We may have a pretty solid republican vote from now on in Lincoln because she'll look to distance herself from Obama.  If she doesn't, whoever runs can just try to tie her to Obama and run against her on that platform.

How about getting Elway to run for the Colorado seat?  He appeared with McCain at an event in Denver, so he has some interest in politics.  The party has some major issues in the West given the changing demographics; McCain pretty much performed as well as Bush among whites in Nevada and New Mexico and still ended up performing 15 points worse because the composition of the electorate changed significantly.

Mel Martinez is the problem.   (Apologies to Ronald Reagan.)

Mel's a Bush crony, RNC chair during its weakest performance since the '70's, and a pure establishment player.  Add to that, he's not all that bright.  He's not advancing the conservative cause in any meaningful way.  

If state CFO Alex Sink takes aim at him, though, Mel's gonna be toast.  

The GOP bench here in Florida is running a bit thin as far as reliable conservatives go.  There are some up-and-comers in the state house, but they're years away from making a big impact.