No we didn't. We picked up a paltry 3 Senate seats in 1978 and a disappointingly low 15 seats in the House. But what does that have to do with McCain or my Eisenhower example ?
"Riding Reagan's coattails we picked up 34 in 1980."
Correct. But that was AGAINST Carter and a huge number of unpopular Dem incumbents. That's not going to happen this year. We're going to LOSE seats this year (most especially on the Senate side) even if McCain wins.
"But in 1982, we lost 26, then gained, then lost a few..."
OK, but what, again, does that have to do with anything I said ? You're going off in a different direction here that has nothing to do with McCain. And McCain is no Reagan.
"Jimmy Carter II is not worth picking up an amount of seats in the low double digits."
So your preference is to continue to lose seats in Congress. I'm thinking Snobama, with zero executive experience, will see the GOP in 2010 make gains more like 1994. You do remember 1994, don't you ?
"You're picking Jimmy Carter. I'm picking FDR."
That's even worse. We had 89 (!) House Republicans in 1936 against 333 Democrats and 17 (!) Senate Republicans against 75 Democrats. So that's what you want ? That's a recipe for epic disaster for the GOP.
What it means is that there's no evidence that a Dem President gets us a lot of congressional seats. Voting on the basis of that theory is unwarranted, and doubly so in a time of war when the other choice is a clueless chihuahua.