Posted on 11/09/2005 11:53:38 AM PST by neverdem
Miller's not too optimistic. I hope his pessimism isn't rewarded.
Pretty accurate overall. I'm guessing we lose RI and PA, pick up MN, if everything breaks right there. So a net loss of one. Seems like a lifetime ago we were talking about a filibuster-proof Senate in '06. Quite a come down. But when your best candidates tell you to take a hike (Rossi in WA, Hoeven in ND, etc.) what can you do? Those were the days...
According to that list there would little or no change either way.
Having Chaffee lose would be addition by subtraction.
If we could get thru the off-year election in a president's second term and only lose one Senate seat, that would be a tremendous result historically.
In other words, basically no change.
The one exception is Pennsylvania, where Rick Santorum is in trouble. This was a self-inflicted wound, caused by Rove and Bush leaning on Santorum to support Specter, a move that many conservatives still haven't forgiven.
Probably the two stupidest things Rove has done in the past five years were to put Gerald Parsky in charge of the California party and to support Specter against Toomey in the primary.
Michigan...Voting Independant, or staying home...I'm done with the globalists...
In the long run, I think red states will always be in play.
We should rejoice any time we win one in a blue state....it's a gift.
Now, now.....get with the program. You are supposed to keep repeating "Yesterday didn't mean anything, yesterday didn't mean anything, all is well, all is well." Besides, all we have to do is follow our strategy of buying votes with new entitlement programs, instituting amnesty, um, guest worker programs and putting forth candidates who are moderates (aka Democrats with an R after their name) so that we can lure all those pesky independent voters, we'll clean up in '06!
I'm betting Chaffee finds a way to hold on in RI, and MO, MT and TN will be very close, but I'm looking at GOP retentions in all of those as well.
For the RAT seats, MN looks very promising for us and WA is winnable as long as McGavick comes across as a credible candidate.
What frustrates me is that we should be in a position to do much better. Liddy Dole's recruiting has been pretty much abysmal IMHO. Not persuading Johans, Hoeven, Rossi, Capito, and Mark Foley (among others) to run has kept us from having the true upper hand this cycle.
If we lose only one seat net, that suggests that a small majority in the Senate for the R's is pretty much locked in for quite some time. 2006 will be the rats best shot to retake the Senate for a long time. If they fail, it ain't gonna happen for a while.
In fact, the one-seat loss described in the article would not be a big deal. Santorum would be replaced by a relatively conservative guy from MN. We would only lose Lincoln Chafee who might be replaced by a dem more conservative that he is (about half of the dems have an ACU rating better than Chafee's). So big deal. He doesn't vote Republican anyway and his seniority is a big problem for committee assignments.
If our only net loss in Lincoln Chafee, break out the party poppers!
Possible more retirements in the senate.
We were also talking about a conservative judiciary, drilling in ANWR, more tax cuts, fiscal conservatism, curbing spending...
...there is none so blind as those who refuse to see!
Newt should be in charge of the RNC. Maybe then we could get some good recruits. Or better yet, he needs to move to WA!
I think that you can find great candidates still for those races. But if we end up one down because we lose Chafee, I'm not sure we lost that much -- he only was useful for giving us the leadership, and we don't need him for that. he wasn't a sure vote for Bush's court nominees, or for getting republican items out of committees.
And I'm not terribly upset if we don't beat a couple of conservative democrats from the south (nebraska and florida). They aren't as good as republicans, but they aren't the worst we could have.
I'd love to beat Sanders in NH, and Stabenow in Michigan. Also Cantwell in Washington. I wish Rossi would change his mind. It would be much better to beat one of these three than either of the two Nelson's.
"Newt should be in charge of the RNC."
I agree Mehlmen has been mediocre at best.
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