Posted on 11/30/2004 10:18:30 AM PST by Hugenot
Now that President Bush has been re-elected to a second term, Republicans are already looking ahead to the midterm Senate races in 2006 and dreaming of a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority.
Some say it's a dream that could come true.
Five of the 17 Senate Democrats whose terms expire in 2006 are from states that voted for Bush. If they stay in the Republican column two years from now, the GOP could reach that magic 60 number.
For that to happen, however, Republicans have to shore up states where they may be vulnerable. Of the 33 Senate seats that will be elected in two years, 15 belong to Republicans. Three of these Republican senators are in states that went to Kerry on Election Day.
The Bush states with Democratic senators include Florida, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, and West Virginia. The blue states with sitting Republicans are Maine, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.
Could the GOP pull it off?
If President Bush continues to succeed in the war on terror, democracy begins to take hold in Iraq and the economy keeps improving at home, it's possible.
And if Democrats fail to learn from their mistakes - and continue to turn off the electorate with their soft-on-national-security policies and overwrought anti-Bush rhetoric - that can only improve the chances for GOP success.
Probably so, but 2006 is a year where we could hold all our seats, and we may have a serious chance at 5 Democrat seats (FL NE MN MI plus one of MD NY ND NJ given retirements and/or 1st tier challengers), which we would then have to sweep, which is the tough part.
It will only be 60 IF the nasty disguised rinos are stomped out.
They'll just vote with the minority instead of changing parties. You can't depend on the Northeast Republican senators. Hell, they just want to get reelected.
The Senate is interesting because each state gets 2 senators regardless of population. Wyoming has the same number of Senators as California even though California has has much more influence in driving the popular vote towards a 50/50 split.
I realized that this is a very big simplification, but how many of the 50 states voted Republican and how many of them voted Democrat? Multiply by 2 to get how Rs and Ds there would be in the Senate if each state's Senators perfectly matched how they voted in the Presidential race.
No, having a few extra seats in the Senate is not abberant. Liberals have succeeded in parity in the US by shutting down all other voices where they are dominant (MSM, academia, HR departments, and big cities). People trapped in those environments adopt liberalism because they are simply ignorant about anything else. But the problem is that in creating such an environment, they have turned off the rest of everyone else. As a result, liberalism is geographically confined to zones where they exceed 90% of the population. Outside those areas, they have no reach. Hence, the blue v red map.
The states which are very, very red, where a candidate MUST be pro-life and anti-gay-marriage to survive. Even the Democrats claim to be pro-life and anti-gay-marriage. Residents of these states are increasingly furious at how politicians claim to support their views, but somehow baby-slaughterers and perverts keep winning the day. They are starting to demand more from the people who claim to be pro-life, such as Tommy-boy Daschle. Even though they contain only 1/3rd of America's population, they are represented by 48 Senators.
13 more states are "purple," like Pennsylvania, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, and Ohio. In these states, large cities vie with outlying regions for control, with suburbs as the middle ground. Many of these states tend to be socially conservative, but a coalition of union-supporters, blacks, and urban liberals keep the states competitive for Democrats.
Any 13 states are truly blue. They include a New England, a handful of megastates (NJ, NY, IL, CA), and a bunch of micro-states (HI, VT, ME, DE, RI).
This means Republicans would naturally control about 60-62 Senate seats, even in a 50-50 country. This is not an abherration; the founding fathers intended to prevent megastates from imposing their will on smaller states, and modern conservativism is a response to exactly that. The reason that Republicans do not control that many seats is not that extremists have proven distateful to "purple-state" moderates. Republicans control about half of the purple-state seats. Rather, it is because the current political realignment is still rather new, and there are still TEN Democrats, mostly liberals, in strongly red states. (NV, NDx2, SD, AR, LA, MT, NE, WV, FL*). Meanwhile, there are only three Republicans, all RINOs, in blue states (MEx2, RI).
THEREFORE: accentuating the differences between the parties benefits the Republicans.
(*I list Florida as a red state very hesitantly, but I do so because the state is so overwhelmingly Republican at the state level. One could readily quabble with designating it, and WV, as red states. On the other hand, one could quabble with designating Michigan, Washington and Maine as blue states.)
Sure, in raw dollars. Similarly, a 2004 Cavalier was an ultra-luxury car because it cost twice as much as a 1962 Cadillac.
Oops, sorry. I should have checked my facts better. I knew the GOP had a majority from '80 to '86. What was I thinking. I should have said the Dems never got below *45* seats until 2004. Now if you don't count Jeffords they have only 44. I will be very surprised if the Republicans make a net gain of 5 in '06 though.
What are you on crack? The Democrats (plus Jeffords) already control 18 out of 33 seats. You really think they are going to win 23 out of 33 contests, in mostly red states, with a line-up of aging has-beens, including probably several more retirements?
>>The Democrats never got more than 62 Senate seats at the height of their power. Realistically, the GOP is never going to get more than that number if they win ALL the seats in Red States." <<
Actually, even if they won ONLY blue states, they would get precisely 62 seats. Of course, as I told this loser, the Democrats at one point controlled 77 of 98 seats.
If republicans ran Tommy Thompson against Kohl in Wisconsin it would be a blowout. Republicans ran nobody against Fiengold and he was definetly vulnerable
You mean between 1958 and 1980. Reagen briefly had a GOP majority in the Senate, after gaining 12 seats (!!!) in 1980.
I for the life of me can't understand that an issue so popular with most voters is not being taken care of.
If a similar number of voters were screaming for free prescrption drugs, we would get some action on it. Ooopps. I forgot.
When it comes to taxing and spending they have no problems. When it comes to taking and making hard choices, they are no where to be found.
1980 Republican blow out year, take the Senate
1986 Republicans lose Senate, big Democrat gains
As the weak first termers lose
Now fast forward to 1994, huge Republican gains in the Senate
6 years later in 2000 Republicans lose net 4 seats as the weak ones elected in 1994 lose.
2006 is six years after a very good election for Senate Democrats. This suggests to me that all the Dem rookies who won close races should be scared.
My prediction is a very good 2006 followed by more difficult years in the future. It's always harder for the party that has more freshman senators.
Go ahead and save your campaign contributions for the true conservatives. Cut off the Arlen Specters and the Susan Collinses of the world if you like. Hell, even cut off the Ted Stevenses and the Chuck Hagels. But you come off like a punch-drunk moron when you make such sweeping, uninformed statements about Republicans as a whole like that.
Yes, sorry about that error. I remember the 1980 landslide very well. That was the largest turnover of Senate seats in my lifetime, though the Dems gained 15 in 1958, the year before I was born. GOP actually gained some ground in '82 and they were up to 55, though I think at least one senator was appointed. I was surprised and disappointed when they lost ground the year of Reagan's landslide reelection, just as they had in '72 with Nixon. Then in 1986 I was stunned when the Dems gained 8 and took back a majority. Even the most optimistic Dems had not expected them to do that well. That was the year a guy named Daschle got elected, and Robert Byrd (!!) became either president pro tem or majority leader. How times have changed.
Is Government bigger or smaller?
Federal spending bigger or smaller?
National debt bigger or smaller?
Trade imbalance bigger or smaller?
Deficit smaller or at record levels?
Can we choose our own toilets yet, or do we still have to smuggle Canadian units to get one that works?
Can we choose whether or not to wear seatbelts, according to the Feds? Or does road money get hijacked if we don't?
And how 'bout that pork spending, huh? Has that stopped, or even been frozen?
I know, I know - wait until the Republicrats have 60 Senators. Just shut up and vote.
Where have I been since 1994? Where have you been? Did you forget that the Democrats ran the Senate from 2000-2002? Or that Sens. Specter, Chafee, Collins and Snowe gave liberals 51 seats from 2002-2004?
The legislation coming from the House has been excellent, but the liberals have run the Senate.
Forget it Kwasi. There are some people who just like to bitch and moan about everything so they don't have to look at their own lives. Most of them are Democrats, but you get a few red-state whiners.
Spending bills, by law, originate in the House. Have you seen the spending bills lately?
Most assuredly not excellent.
A decade ago, Pubbies promised to eliminate the Depts of Education and Commerce (and I think Energy as well). Do we still have them? Why? And by golly, I do believe we have even more Cabinet departments than we did back then. That's probably not costing taxpayers less.
How about NEA and PBS? Weren't those supposed to be gone a long time ago? How're their budgets doing? Bigger? I'm shocked. Those should have been the easy ones.
And just last week, the Republicans were preparing to pass subsidies for private fertilizer research, the Rock 'n Roll Museum. Etc, etc.
Party of limited government, my ass.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.