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.
Yes, this is true. Of course, 2000 was such a good year for Dems because 1994 was such a good year for pubbies. All things being equal, you should expect each party to win close to 50% of the seats. A retirement really only throws the energy and funds for a battle to that seat from some other seat which would be hotly contested. The high number of retirement-related targets this year for the GOP was partly why there was very little $$ and attention for other vulnerable seats like in Washington and Wisconsin.
An abberation to this rule is the 2008 crop, which by sheer luck is very heavily skewed towards red states, so Dems will have a hard time gaining more than the only 12 seats they currently have.
Yes, this is true. Of course, 2000 was such a good year for Dems because 1994 was such a good year for pubbies. All things being equal, you should expect each party to win close to 50% of the seats. A retirement really only throws the energy and funds for a battle to that seat from some other seat which would be hotly contested. The high number of retirement-related targets this year for the GOP was partly why there was very little $$ and attention for other vulnerable seats like in Washington and Wisconsin.
An abberation to this rule is the 2008 crop, which by sheer luck is very heavily skewed towards red states, so Dems will have a hard time gaining more than the only 12 seats they currently have.
ADDITION:
The Democrats were foolish in 2004 to focus so much on red-state retirements. They should've spent their money on purple states like Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
Forget about Ed Schafer. He is a lost cause, a sink of political capital if you will. The spoiled rich kid who wants to spend the rest of his life entertaining himself.
First Tommy would have to want the job. He has always wanted to be number one, not a equal among 100 others.
>> Spending bills, by law, originate in the House. Have you seen the spending bills lately?<<
O my gosh, did you not learn anything about politics SINCE the 3rd grade?
In the real world, the Senate initiates its very own spending bills long before the House passes its. The two very independently crafted bills go to a joint committee of both houses. Where they then pretty much agree to the Senate version, because the Senate has the power of the filibuster.
The House has passed far better spending bills, even bucking President Bush's enormous give-away to geezers. But there is little they can do to force the Senate to pass better legislation, short of shutting the government down.
Well?
>> 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.<<
Blame the President, then. Clinton and Bush have both opposed plans to eliminate the DoE, the DoC, the NEA and PBS. With a good president, we could probably get rid of three of those four. (PBS would simply get its revenue elsewhere.)
Your awareness of current events matches your astounding ignorance of politics.
I have no reason to think Nelson will not prevail. He has been pretty careful to avoid having too high a Dem party loyalty quotient. But maybe you know more about what is going on on the ground in Nebraska than I do. I don't live there. Ironjack does though. Maybe he has an opinion.
Perhaps you missed where I wrote, "... a majority in both houses of Congress since 1994 (with the exception of the first two years without Jumpin' Jim Jeffords)."
Or that Sens. Specter, Chafee, Collins and Snowe gave liberals 51 seats from 2002-2004?
The subject was the GOP. I clearly mentioned the GOP and their majority rule.
the liberals have run the Senate.
I appreciate your point. But, "Liberals" have not been running the Senate committees; "Republicans" have.
I guess we'll see what comes of what you expect will prove to be the first "conservative majority" in Congress. But, I won't be going in with high expectations. In view of the past 10 years of Republican rule, I'll be happy to set myself up to be pleasantly surprised instead of disappointed (yet again).
Pardon me but, what the h*ll do you know about me or my life?
I really, really don't see him that way. He is one of the most generous politicians I've ever seen in terms of spending his political capital for the benefit of other Republicans (sort of like his friend President George W. Bush), he worked like a dog on other Republican campaigns, some successful and some not, and he is VERY community-oriented without blowing his own horn. He has a tremendous amount of personal energy and he's not afraid to use it for political or community good.
That said, it would be wise for President Bush to consider appointing either Conrad or Dorgan to the Ag position, for tactical reasons as well as the fact that they both portray themselves as conservatives (at least during election years) on agricultural and economy issues. It would be "bipartisan" and it would get them out of their life-tenure seats (as it seems) in the Senate. Then Hoeven could appoint Schafer or any one of the other very strong conservatives in the state in the interim.
>> Is Government bigger or smaller?<<
Reversing the trend of every year of the last century, it has gotten much smaller, thank you.
>> Federal spending bigger or smaller?<<
Blame Bush for the geezer bailout, but even given the recent increases in defense, federal spending (adjusted for inflation) is down substantially since 1994.
>>National debt bigger or smaller? <<
>>Deficit smaller or at record levels? <<
As of when the Democrats retook the Senate, the deficit had been turned into a massive surplus, and the debt was the smallest it had EVER been in real dollars. With the recession, the war, and Senate Democrats, it has since increased, but is actually quite small as a portion of the GDP, historically.
>> And how 'bout that pork spending, huh? Has that stopped, or even been frozen?<<
It has been greatly reduced.
>> Can we choose our own toilets yet, or do we still have to smuggle Canadian units to get one that works? <<
Time for a bunny and a pancake to get together.
"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, no. It was not 62 Democrat Senate seats, at the height of the Democrats power which was during the 75th Congress (1937-1939) they had 76 Senators to the 16 Republicans (96 Senators total), in the House they had 333 Democrats to 89 Republicans (435 Representatives total) with FDR in his second term in office.
Majority Party |
Number of Senators |
Republican |
||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Source: US Senate: Party Division in the Senate, 1789 to Present
Hope this helps,
dvwjr
Not much. Not that I claimed to know anything specific. I was inferring situation from your behavior, and not the other way around. But since you now tempt me, I can safely speculate that you're a prematurely embittered man who can't understand why everyone who isn't obligated to like him doesn't. (Psst: it's your social skills and your counter-productive cynicism.)
Psst: Keep your day job (unless it has anything even remotely to do with psychology).
True. If both Senators from each Red/Blue states were R/'s, then you would have 62 R Senators and 38 D's.
Encouraging thought.
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