Posted on 11/08/2006 9:15:35 PM PST by 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.
WORSE... The Queen of Hearts would be installed as Queen of Drama for life..
UNless..
Ann Coulter and G. Gordon Liddy run for President and VeeP..
Consider the "debates"... they would be classic Monty Python..
Coulter(with speech writing help) would carve them up like a Thanksgiving turkey..
(G.Gordon Liddy) would ensure that an assassins bullet would not find Ann(from the Queen)..
I have been thinking about this ticket for 2008. I really think it is a winner:
Rudy Guiliani/Michael Steele
Rudy gets great marks for his leadership and of course name, Mr. Steele brings more conservatism to balance out Rudy. Plus, he is a great speaker and neither of them will put up with the MSM b%llsh#t.
You have a mayor and a Lt. Governor. Perfect.
What do you think?
I already posted this on another thread, but it's relevant to this one too:
If the Dems hold a 51 seat majority, we only need to pickup one or two (depending on who wins the Presidential race) seats to win it back. The problem is, I fear 2008 could be a tougher year for us than 2006. Here's my rundown:
Non-starters (incumbents will win):
Alabama (Sessions-R)
Alaska (Stevens-R)
Georgia (Chambliss-R)
Idaho (Craig-R)
Illinois (Durbin-D)
Kansas (Roberts-R)
Kentucky (McConnell-R)
Massachusetts (Kerry-D) - the Dems won't nominate him for Prez again
Montana (Baucus-D)
Nebraska (Hagel-R)
North Carolina (Dole-R)
Rhode Island (Reed-D)
South Carolina (Graham-R)
Tennessee (Alexander-R)
Texas (Cornyn-R)
West Virginia (Rockefeller-D)
Wyoming (Enzi-R)
Possible losses:
Colorado (Allard) - Might retire, or might even be vulnurable as an incumbent. The Dems have picked up a lot of strength in Colorado, and if the GOP nominates Tancredo to replace Allard he'll get crushed for sure.
Maine (Collins) - I believe she's said she intends to retire after this term. If she changes her mind, we'll keep the seat, but if not, this will for sure go Dem.
Minnesota (Coleman) - Minnesota is a blue state, meaning Coleman can't take anything for granted. If the DFL is idiotic enough to nomiante Al Franken, he'll be fine, but a real challenger will cause a close race.
Mississippi (Cochran) - He might retire, but even if he does, we'll probably keep this seat. My worry is that conservative Democrat Rep. Gene Taylor could very well win an open seat Senate race in Mississippi if he chooses to run.
New Hampshire (Sununu) - The Live Free or Die State is in a sad state of affairs. After both House seats went Dem yesterday, and the Dem Governor reelected, Sununu has great reason to worry.
New Mexico (Domenici) - If he doesn't retire, we keep this seat. If he does, this is a swing state, and it would be very competitive. If Richardson decides to run, the GOP might be screwed here.
Oklahoma (Inhofe) - Very similar to Mississippi. We will hold it for sure with the incumbent, and are still very likely to hold it even if he retires, but a conservative Democrat like Rep. Dan Boren, former Rep. Brad Carson, or Gov. Brad Henry could possibly win it.
Oregon (Smith) - Similar to Minnesota. A Republican in a blue state is always running against the odds.
Virginia (Warner) - John Warner may very well retire in 2008. Former Gov. Mark Warner would be the favorite to win this seat, and I think he's eyeing it after he announced he won't run for President in 2008.
Possible pick-ups:
Arkansas (Pryor) - Arkansas is a swing state, but it'll take a very good GOP candidate to beat Pryor. Maybe Huckabee?
Delaware (Biden) - Joe Biden is a shoo-in if he runs again, but if retires or somehow gets the Democratic nomination (more likely than Kerry), the open seat could be competitive if and only if Rep. Mike Castle decides to run.
Iowa (Harkin) - Like Arkansas, it's a swing state, but only a strong candidate will beat an incumbent. I don't know who that could be.
Louisiana (Landrieu) - Probably the GOP's best shot at a pick-up in 2008. She's the 2nd most conservative Senate Dem after Ben Nelson of Nebraska, but that might not be enough to win re-election, especially after Katrina.
Michigan (Levin) - Only competitive if he retires, and I'm not sure what big gun there is to run for the open seat. Ted Nugent?
New Jersey (Lautenberg) - He's really old, and without the spunk of Robert Byrd - he comes off as a walking corpse. If he doesn't voluntarily retire, the NJ Dems will make him. The Dems have a strong candidate in Rep. Rob Andrews, and maybe Kean will make another go at it for the GOP. Andrews would probably beat Kean, but Kean could beat a weaker Dem candidate.
South Dakota (Johnson) - He's of course a Dem in a very red state, but you can't beat someone with no one. The only person who has any chance of beating Johnson is Gov. Mike Rounds, but Johnson is more popular in the state, and would probably still win anyway.
I don't like to be a doom-and-gloomer, but things look less than inspiring for 2008. My greatest hope is that the Dems will be so terrible the next two years, we'll have another Republican sweep like 1994.
It can happen, but it's more likely we get the House back. It all depends on the top of the ticket, and a return to the Contract with America themes.
I figure that the War in Iraq, House scandals, and general malaise cost us on average 8 points across the country, and possibly more.
On a level playing field, we would have not lost VA, MT, MO, RI, and possibly not OH, and we would have won NJ, and possibly MD, for a net change of -1 to +1.
In 2008, if we go into the year with the war, we're looking at a 1974 scenario. The Democrats will pick-up the Presidency not matter whom we nominate, expand their side in the Senate to the high 50s, and attain a large majority in the House.
The phenomenon of having very few elected Republicans will expand from New England and New York, to much of the rest of the country. We will be reduced to having a solid base in terms of elected officials, party infrastructure, donors, and so forth, to a regional party.
With Nixon, we were able to bounce back, after a few years, because he personally betrayed the nation and us. Bush, in spite of the accusations by some of the radical left, has not done anything of a sort. But, he has brought the Republican Party from majority status to the brink of disaster, by getting us committed to the war in Iraq.
We won that war in short order. Then, the mission changed from locating and destorying the weapons of mass destruction to establishing a viable democracy which would transform the Middle East. Talk about mission creep!
The result of attempting Operation Iraqi Freedom put OUR freedom on the line, and the one great duty we, the United States, owe the people of the world, is "to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity." Yes, extending the borders of freedom where this is pragmatic is in our interest, and I am not a neo-isolationist. But, risking our freedom to extend the borders of freedom is not only contrary to our interests, it jeopardizes the one real hope that mankind has for ending our sorry history of war and tyrrany.
Let me now consider an alternate scenario: We declare victory on the basis that, after three years of helping the new government, the future of Iraq is now for the people of Iraq through their democratically-formed government to determine.
We start bringing our soldiers home, continuing to aid Iraq through training and technical assistance, special operations units, air power and intelligence, and logistical support.
We get candidates for president and vice president that can lead us to victory, secure our base in the south, and restore our competitiveness in the north and the west. Candidates that we know that, when the chips are down, will come through for us, because they have come through for us in such situations in the past.
I am thinking of Rudy Guiliani and Haley Barbour.
Among the people we recruit to run for Governor, Senator, U.S. Congressman and state legislator are some of the very people who went down this year. And, I am thinking, because the stakes are so very important, that it's o.k. for a former U.S. Senator to run for a seat in the state Senate, or for a former U.S. Congressman to run for the county council. We have got to build our party back up in Colorado, New Hampshire, upstate New York and other places.
Here, in Virginia, I am thinking about George Allen running against one of our RINO state Senators next year, and of Tony Snowe running for the U.S. Senate to succeed John Warner. And, over in Maryland, I am thinking that Bob Erlich and Michael Steele need to get back up on the horse.
In Louisiana, Bobby Jindahl will again make a great candidate for Governor. He will lift the people of that state up out of their funk, and set the stage for us to win the Senate seat there in 2008.
And we need a policy agenda that appeals to all of our major constituencies (which means that it can't be everything each of our major constituencies wants).
The pro-lifers, for example, might not get "no exceptions," but they were never going to get "no exceptions" anyway, and the alternative is that the Democrats will start harvesting human tissues from clones.
The libertarians aren't going to get marijuana legalized, but maybe they can get medical marijuana available on prescription in states where this approved.
The conservatives aren't going to get the illegals expelled, but we can definitely seek to bring illegals out of the underground, pay taxes (and back taxes), and give them a TEMPORARY workers visa, deport them if they violate the law or become welfare dependents, and make them get on the back of the line for permanent residency.
Such pragmatic policies, combined with a vibrant economy and a military build-up, will restore us to majority status.
Looking at the VA Senate, I noticed Allen ran behind Bush's numbers in Va Beach and Norfolk. Do you suppose military families, unhappy with Iraq, flipped over to the dark side as a protest to Iraqi policy?
The republican right are saying guiliani and steele are unacceptable.
Kerry should be beatable.
Thanks for the ping!
..now, that's the spirit...
Note I said "Safe Republican." The only way Graham loses is if he loses in the primary. No Republican can lose in a statewide federal election in South Carolina in the current political climate. That doesn't mean the climate can't change by 2008, but I doubt it will.
LMAO. Massachusetts is a one party state. The Democrats control the Governorship, all statewide elected positions, overwhelming supermajorities in both houses of the legislature (after recent Dem gains, about 90% of the seats in both houses), all ten Congressional seats, and both Senate seats. When Romney leaves in January, there will be no Massachusetts Republican Party. There are liberal Democrats, there are conservative Democrats and there are socialists.
Why plan for only two? I am so tired of the plans, goals and expectations of the Conservatives being so small, narrow and inept.
That is why we lost the Congress in the first place.
RUDY * RUDY * RUDY
If Dobson & his crew are taking credit for this recent debacle, then I say, who needs 'em; let's go for the swing voters!
That was our problem this time around.
Thanks for the ping
Allen did as well in the 2nd C.D. as did Thelma Drake (see my make-shift table below), a freshman incumbent who draw a well-financed challenger. So, we can't really say that Allen failed to appeal to the military community. Here's what we can say: He didn't run up a good margin in the military community when he faced a Vietnam Veteran conservative-sounding Democrat.
While Allen did o.k. in the 1st compared to the Republican congressional candidate there, he didn't as well as well in the 10th C.D. as did Frank Wolf, an entrenched incumbent who also draw a well-financed challenger.
Therefore, we can suspect that Allen didn't do well enough in northern Virginia. Indeed, Allen's numbers in Fairfax County were well behind each of the three Republican congressional candidates (Wolf, another incumbent, and a challenger) whose districts are at least partially in that county.
In all other Congressional districts featuring an incumbent Republican, Allen ran behind the Republican congressional candidate. But, this isn't really a knock on Allen, because the Democratic challengers in these other districts were not well-funded.
C.D. Allen's % v Rep Cong Cand and his or her %
1st 56 v J.Davis-63
2nd 51 v Drake-51 (well-funded Dem. challenger)
3rd 31 v NA (blue district)
4th 54 v Forbes-76
5th 54 v Goode-59
6th 58 v Goodelatte-75
7th 57 v Cantor-64
8th 30 v Odonoghue-31 (entrenched Dem. incumbent) (blue district)
9th 55 v Carrico-32 (entrenched Dem. incumbent)(red district)(one day we'll take this seat)
10th 59 v Wolf-57 (well-funded Dem. challenger)
11th 44 v T.Davis-56 (purple district)
You did not understand any of it. It was necessary to kill Saddam- and we haven't done it yet- to prove our credentials to the Arabs and Persians for whom revenge is one of the highest principles. It was necessary to storm Baghdad. We did that. Probably we should have destroyed Baghdad. The enemy is Iran and Iran needed to know that America is very dangerous to mess with. But we wimped out and went for befriending the Iraqis and trying to democratize them which is an impossibility for reasons I have been adumbrating in many comments. If we were not going straight to Teheran then we needed to demonstrate our will to destroy our enemy by wiping out Baghdad. It is not a nice liberal thing to do but it is what it takes to make the right impression. This is not a border war. It is a war for Survival. Iraq is a sideshow. Strategically it was not necessary. But were it done properly, then the main event, Iran, might well not be necessary for another generation. Mohammedans understand and react only to defeat so massive that famine is a reality and cities have been enrubbled. They must know that Allah does not will for them to prevail just yet.Then they will sink back into the Lethargy that characterizes Mohammedans when they are not cutting off heads and slaughtering infidels.
I'll be doing my own analysis of this soon. Needless to say, speculation will be VERY tentative.
America, the land of the never-ending election cycle.
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