It is incredible how polls (although largely GOP ones) show us with a chance of winning districts that six months ago we would have thought about, taken a stiff drink, squinted at its electoral history, and said “if we got a first-tier candidate to run, we’d still need a huuuuuge wave to have a chance to win.” For the most part we only got second- or third-tier candidates to run in those districts, but the GOP wave seems to be so gargantuan that it doesn’t seem to matter who the GOP candidate is. I predict that on November 2 we’ll win over a dozen seats that we didn’t even think were in play a month ago, and we’ll fall a bit short in a couple of dozen seats where we’ll be kicking ourselves for not having recruited first-tier challengers.
Good point. I imagine the Rats were thinking along the same lines in 2006. And they did some excellent recruiting, came back strong in 2008 and took most of the ones they missed in ‘06.
That’s the way it is with wave elections work, I guess. A strong GOP presidential candidate in 2012, good recruiting in some of the ones that will be a near miss and the wave will continue. Obama’s been a complete and utter disaster thus far and I expect his downward spiral to continue and maybe even escalate. Thank goodness the GOP will have the House to check him. Dems have got to be worried sick about the next two years.