Retaking the US Senate in 2008

11-9-2006 | self

[staytrue]

All we have to do to retake the senate is to win 2 of these 12 seats.

Arkansas: Pryor (D) Delaware: Biden (D) Illinois: Durbin (D) Iowa: Harkin (D) Louisiana: Landrieu (D) Massachusetts: Kerry (D) Michigan: Levin (D) Montana: Baucus (D) New Jersey: Lautenberg (D) Rhode Island: Reed (D) South Dakota: Johnson (D) West Virginia: Rockefeller (D)

It looks like we could have a shot at Pryor, Harkin, Baucus, and Johnson.

AND THEN ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS HOLD ALL 21 OF OUR OWN SEATS THAT ARE UP.

[MissEdie]

You're right. WE need to remember Reagan's 11th Commandment "Thou shalt not speak negatively about a fellow Republican". I'm ready to get to work on '08- any idea where I go to sign up? We need to have someone there take a close look at what worked this year, what didn't and to use this as a guide for regaining control in'08.

[B Knotts]

Ronald Reagan was a free trader, at a time when free trade had fewer advocates. He screwed up on some things, to be sure, like amnesty for illegal aliens. But my point is that at a time when voters were more apt to vote Democrat than today, he won election overwhelmingly as a unabashed conservative.

It takes communication skills, likeability, intelligence (Reagan was called dumb by liberals, but was a brilliant man) and being a "true believer," but it most certainly can be done, and is easier done today than in Reagan's day.

[CPT Clay]

Landrieu lost 250k vothers to Houston due to Katrina.

[oceanview]

Reagan implemented light truck tariffs (we have them to this day), motorcycle tariffs to save harley davidson, import quotas on foreign cars.

[CPT Clay]

Sound real bad in Arkinsas. Why didn't they follow the rest of the South to embrace republicans?

[CPT Clay]

GOP Incumbents up in 2008:
Wayne Allard - CO (very vulnerable)
purple swing state, will take lots of $$ better here than NJ or Me
Susan Collins - ME (likely safe)
Thad Cochran - MS (likely safe)
Elizabeth Dole - NC (possibly vulnerable)
Pete Domenici - NM (likely retirement)Another purple state for pres EV's
Chuck Hagel - NE (likely safe)
James Inhoffe - OK (GOP advantage)
Pat Roberts - KS (vulnerable, if Dems recruit Sebelius)Safe if not
Ted Stevens - AK (safe, as long as he lives)Possible retirement
John Warner - VA (very vulnerable, Mark Warner will run)
Lamar Alexander - TN likely safe
Saxby Chambliss - GA (likely safe)
Norm Colemans - MN (very vulnerable)Presidential EV's At stake too
John Cornyn - TX (likely safe)
Lindsey Graham - SC (safe Republican)Needs to be primaried
Mitch McConnell - KY (GOP advantage)
Jeff Sessions - AL (likely safe)
Gordon Smith - OR (vulnerable -- it's Oregon)
John Sununu -- NH (very vulnerable -- NH trending badly)Spend $$$ get our house seats back too and Get EV's for pres
Mike Enzi -- WY (likely safe)

Go after "Red Earth" Johnson, Landreiu and Baucus

We have too much to defend to go after Pryor, Harkin or Lautinbergs seats.

[thackney]

Landreiu votes with us almost half the time, shouldn't we find someone more liberal to concentrate on?

[Arkinsaw]

Sound real bad in Arkinsas. Why didn't they follow the rest of the South to embrace republicans?

Republican leaders who run as if they were running for President of the United States or chairman of the RNC rather than Governor or Attorney General of Arkansas. Mentioning Arkansas once in a while would do wonders. Beebe's campaign slogan was "Believe in Arkansas"....he put lots of those signs up without even his name on them. Hutchinson's campaign slogan was "Asa!". Yes, his campaign slogan was his name with an exclamation point. How inspiring.

Party that tries to build itself from the top down rather than bottom up. We had a host of lower level races where the choice was Green versus Democrat only. GREEN versus DEMOCRAT? If the Greens can come up with a candidate and they do not even have ballot access, then the Republicans surely could have come up with someone.

Republican candidates choose a single national issue and try to make the campaign about it rather than connect with voters broadly. Illegal immigration for instance. I am glad to hear them talk about illegal immigration....but not over and over and over to the exclusion of every other issue. Republican candidates tend to look like paper cut-outs of candidates. Sort of mindless repeating of national talking points. They rarely speak like a regular person.....they seem like politicians. Democrats are well-versed in looking like good old boys.....Beebe did that very well this time. Asa! did not.

In-fighting within the party between various cliques. For a while it was the Hutchinson clan verus Huckabee clan war for control. Now there is nothing left to control.

[CPT Clay]

At what cost? She is the most likley Dem to be defeated due to exodus from Katrina.

She still fillibustered judges.
Comes from a corrupt political family, The Speaker elect wants a clean congress.

[RobFromGa]

We face an uphill battle in 2008. We need to field strong candidates in the vulnerable Dem seats, and in any GOP open seats...

Senate 2006 Midterm ping.

If anyone wants on or off the Senate 2006 ping list, send me Freepmail.

[mnehring]

We also need to create a strong, unified message and start yelling it NOW! IMHO, this was one of our biggest strategic errors in this election.

[DM1]

if Lynch challenges Sunnunu in NH in 08 you can count that seat goodbye

[redgolum]

It does help that someone of Limbaugh's stature agrees that conservatism did not lose yesterday. He was right today when he said that Bush is not a conservative. Millions of supporters will make the task of reforming the GOP that much easier.

Which pretty much means it is the end of Rush's career. The party heads will blame HIM along with the rest of the base for their mistakes, and keep moving left.

[LS]

With all due respect, I've heard this "end of the Republican party" since the 1960s and the prediction gets more and more stupid.

[mwl1]

OK, our Senate odds aren't so great, all the more pointing to the fact that Liddy Dole was a disaster at the NRSC. She beat Coleman by only one vote in the caucus 27-26; hope the GOP caucus is happy with their decision.

Focus on the House and presidency for 2008; hold our Senate incumbents; and go after Landrieu, Pryor and Johnson, hard. Plus, we may have retirements and/or deaths in the meantime.

[Alberta's Child]

It's way too early to make intelligent predictions/decisions regarding 2008. One of the biggest factors in a Senate election cycle is something that we won't know accurately for some time -- open seats.

A seat held by a Democrat in a state dominated by the GOP would usually be the most likely to change hands (and vice versa). But the most difficult seat for a party to defend -- and easiest for its opponent to pick up -- is one in which the incumbent is retiring. This is what made the Democrats think they had a really good shot in Tennessee -- where the combination of Frist's retirement and a well-known (D) candidate (Ford) made for good odds for a (D) pickup.

[mwl1]

When Bush 41 was elected in 1988 with 426 electoral votes, did we gain or lose seats in the House and Senate?

I do know that in 1960, when Nixon had the presidency stolen from him after the 1958 midterm disaster, the Republican Party outperformed Nixon and we gained 26 House seats and 4 Senate seats.

[LS]

I think we saw this year that it isn't the number that's important, but the national mood and, above all, the candidates.

But all that can be in our favor and we STILL will get creamed if we don't start aggressively challenging the Dems in the media on EVERY issue, and concede not an inch of ground on ANY issue. That's how they won: they slandered us for six straight years while we played nice.

[Alberta's Child]

I think you're wrong on this.

Telling people that "the war was already won" when dozens of U.S. soldiers are getting killed every month and hundreds more are getting wounded is an abysmal approach -- and is going to destroy the GOP.

The Democrat Noise Machine campaign against the war may explain why a lot of independents turned away from the GOP, but in the final analysis I'm betting that military families also turned away from the GOP in droves -- and these are the people who would be least likely to listen to any of the Sheehan-type moonbat nonsense.

[RobFromGa]

1988 GOP -1 Senate; -2 House

The U.S. Senate election, 1988 was an election for the United States Senate in which, in spite of the Republican victory by George Herbert Walker Bush in the presidential election, the Republicans suffered a net loss of one seat in the Senate. The Democratic majority in the Senate increased from 54-46 to 55-45.

The U.S. House election, 1988 was an election for the United States House of Representatives in 1988 which coincided with the election of George H. W. Bush as President. Although Bush won with a strong majority, his Republican Party lost a net of two seats to the Democratic Party, slightly increasing the Democratic majority in the House from 258-177 to 260-175.