Posted on 09/27/2002 1:09:48 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
Republican hopes of handing onto control of the U.S. House of Representatives look good as the November congressional elections loom just six weeks ahead - but if they do, it won't be by a landslide.
In a run down of House races, the New York Times took a look at the arithmetic involved And found that the GOP has about 10 more safe seats than the Democrats.
"So even if they won fewer than half of the approximately 40 races that are truly competitive, they could still keep control of the House," wrote Times reporter Adam Clymer who notes that the unusually small number of competitive districts gives the Democrats fewer opportunities to achieve the net gain of seven seats they need to regain the control they lost in the Republican landslide of 1994.
Added to those dismal statistics is the obvious fact that the issues the Democrats want to be decisive - such domestic ones as the sluggish economy, Social Security or corporate corruption, have fallen flat in the face of national attention being focused on Iraq which is emerging in the polls as the issue the voters see as the critical one. And that issue gives the GOP the edge. Clymer speculates that President Bush's rising approval ratings will provide GOP candidates with the coattails that most recent presidents have lacked.
On the plus side, Clymer notes that the campaign is far from over, citing the fact that there are enough House seats still in play to enable the Democrats to recapture the speaker's chair they lost in 1994 for the first time in 40 years - and the economy issue is big in most of them.
Democrats, however, would have to win two-thirds to three-fourths of the seats in -play to win control, which Charles Cook, editor of the influential, nonpartisan Cook Political Report compared to "filling an inside straight." Cook did recall that the Democrats did just that in the Senate races in 2000, capturing almost all the closest races.
Clymer quotes Washington analyst, Stuart Rothenberg, as saying: "If the election were held today, I think the Republicans would probably pick up a few seats," something that has happened only once since 1934 when Democrats, then in control of the White House gained House seats in a the 1998 midterm election.
Because the number of seats in play are few, every single race assumes great importance and Clymer notes that there are some districts where the incumbents are on very shaky ground.
In Minnesota's Second District, Representative Bill Luther, a Democrat, is struggling to hold his seat against Republican John Kline, who has brought President Bush and his father in to raise money. Republicans say that Mr. Luther is the most vulnerable Democrat not facing another incumbent. He and Kline are running against each other for the third straight election, Luther beat Mr. Kline by a bare 5,440 votes two years ago, but judicial redistricting has put him into a district slightly more Republican, Clymer explains. President Bush carried the old district with 48 percent of the vote, and Luther won with 50 percent. The new district voted 51 percent for Mr. Bush.
Like the rest of the country, Iraq has overridden traditional Democrat domestic issue. Kline said in an interview that he thought his 25-year career in the Marines might help him this time because of the Iraq situation. But, Clymer notes, his opposition to abortion may come to hurt him in a district that is still mostly the Twin Cities suburbs.
Former President George H. W. Bush told a Kline fund-raiser last Thursday that control of the House may depend on Minnesota, and it was very important to his son that Republicans hold on. He raised more than $100,000 at an event closed to the news media on White House orders. The current President Bush has helped, too, raising $100,000 on July 11 in Minneapolis.
In Maryland's Eighth District, the Republican incumbent, Constance A. Morella, faces State Senator Chris Van Hollen. Van Hollen is stressing party control as the key issue in his race against Mrs. Morella, an eight-term incumbent. "The first vote cast by Connie Morella is for the Tom DeLay Republican leadership,"he tells voters. "And it is a leadership which is working hand in hand with Ashcroft and the Bush administration to take this country in a direction which I think is very out of step with the direction the people of this community would like to see us go."
Mrs. Morella, who won in 2000 with 52 percent in a district where Al Gore got 60 percent, was a clear target of Maryland's Democrats, who made her district more unfriendly by adding black voters. Morella however, uses the redistricting to make as point. She told a kickoff rally in Rockville that the big turnout meant: "We are sending the appropriate message to Chris Van Hollen and his powerful cronies in Annapolis who decided they were going to redistrict and gerrymander this district so that Morella would quit. Well, I'm not a quitter."
She says Van Hollen, a 43-year-old state legislator effective on issues ranging from the environment to gun control, is a future lackey of the House Democratic leadership, while she bucks her own party. "I have no fear about walking an independent path," she said.
In some districts, Democrat domestic issues are being hotly debated.
In Northern Maine, Michael Michaud, the Democrat, and Kevin Raye, the Republican, are both emphasizing the feeble local economy.
In West Virginia, Democrats are blasting Representative Shelley Moore Capito over the idea of investing Social Security taxes in private accounts.
In Indiana, Republicans accuse Jill Long Thompson of being a big spender when she served in the House in the 1990's. Clymer notes that almost all the campaign advertisements coming from both parties focus on domestic issues, those that pollsters think will emphasize differences between candidates in particular districts.. As Representative Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, told Clymer: "There is no one overriding issue. There is a matrix of issues."
Davis, whose committee plans to spend $80 million helping candidates, argues that issues like Iraq, homeland security and defense spending are drowning out any Democratic efforts to make the economy or Social Security an effective issue and "give them a wind at their backs."
Consequently, he said, "If we break even in the tossups, we gain seats."
Representative Nita M. Lowey of New York, his Democratic counterpart, disagrees. "We're feeling very, very strong," she told Clymer, and adds she's planning to spend $35 million. She said that Democrats could hold their own on issues like Iraq and still stress domestic issues.
"Candidates can walk and chew gum at the same time," Ms. Lowey said. "I don't know any campaign that isn't being fought over Social Security privatization, the failed economy, prescription drugs."
Check the source.
Good point. But some idiot journalists are just wrong and stupid. Other idiot journalists are wrong because they are biased, so anything they write should be ratcheted toward conservatives. I.E., if they say we will pick up 20 seats, you can bet that's true, but it will be more like 25 or 30.
Now, the question is, which kind of idiot clymer is.
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Had they been asked, they both would have said about 20 seats, not the 40 that clymer claims without giving any basis. And to take control of the House with a one-seat margin, the Democrats would have to take 70% of the races that are in play.
For an article which is far more factual than the clymer-Times one (and therefore the NewsMax one which is based on that), and which does reference Cook and Rothenberg on this essential point, try the first link below, and be sure to click on the revised Table 1.
Congressman Billybob
Click for "Til Death Do Us Part."
I've also got the Senate at a Republican gain of 1-3. However, my analysis assumed that Robert ("the Un-Bribed") Torricelli would sleaze his way to victory. It now looks like the Torch will be blown out, making my estimate for the Senate off by one.
Check the first link below.
Congressman Billybob
Click for "Til Death Do Us Part."
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