Rick Boucher
VA-9
59%
The Republicans won't get this one. Boucher could get caught with both a live boy and a dead woman and still win by 30% points. Having said that, he still votes against gun control every chance he gets.
To capture any of these 58 seats, the Republicans will need to forgo their historic policy of deference to Democrats who purport to espouse conservatism while in their districts. They also must find credible candidates and fund them sufficiently to expose the liberal voting records that these purported conservatives accumulate in the confines of Washington, DC.
Republicans also must nationalize the Congressional elections every single time, regardless of the poll numbers, rather than run on "local issues," a euphemism for insufferable boasting about odious pork-barrel spending. Most Americans find such spending corrupt, petty, and foolish--even if it occurs in their district. The federal government must cut spending to pay off the federal debt, and political pork only takes money away from our troops in the field who perform the primary duty of the national enterprise.
Exactly the same thing is seen in the Senate.
President Bush won 25 states with >54% of the vote in 2004. Those states had 11 Democrat senators prior to Tuesday. Now they have 14.
John Kerry won 13 states with >54% of the vote in 2004.Those states had 3 Republican senators prior to Tuesday. Now they have two, both from Maine. IOW, except for Maine, NO STATE which Kerry won big has a Republican in the Senate. TEN STATES which Bush won big have Democrats in the Senate, and four of them have TWO Democrats in the senate.
Republicans are not competitive - at all - in deep blue states. Democrats are competitive - very competitive - in deep red states.
Unless this changes, the Senate cannot be won back.
Pete King's (R) district voted for Bush?
That's true, and while the GOP should stay positive about winning back the House and Senate, I think the days of Reaganesque landslides are over. I hope I'm wrong. I'd love to see a conservative Republican wipe out Hillary, or Obama, or whatever phony moderate the Democtats nominate, but unless the Republican candidate can repeat the Reagan-Nixon feat of winning well over 60% of the white vote, then there will be no landslide.
Some of the newly elected Democrats (Nick Lampson, Chris Carney, and Tim Mahoney, for example) are not likely to survive 2008.
as usual, Republicans tried to cut their own throats.
this time, it worked.
Republicans, the stupid party.
Voters are tired of the war.
what about that, don't people get?
First step in retaking the House is retooling the leadership ...
That means getting Pence and Shadegg in there ... here is what I am sending to my Congressman, you might want to do the same:
I am crushed but not overly surprised by the Republican loss in the elections.
Republicans lost in 2006 because the Republican Congress failed to articulate sound principles and failed to show how you were keeping promises to the voters. In your particular campaign, I was disappointed that there was nary a hint of espousing the cosnrevative view of smaller Government and lower taxes.
The only way forward is a fresh start and a return to conservative values:
Please support Mike Pence for minority leader and John Shadegg for minority whip. And please support ending earmarks and a strong GOP resistance to the Democrats' liberal agenda.
I support Pence's statement about what the GOP in the House needs to do. Pence released a document containing a five-point vision in which he declared that ''our primary task these next two years: to expose, dismantle and defeat the 'principles to which we have been forced to succumb.'''
Please join him in that mission. You need to be gearing up to defend our freedom from Democrat policies. You need to defend Republican policies, views and positions more strongly, more forcefully and more successfully.
Those of us who voted for you are counting on you to truly represent us. Please do so by supporting Pence and Shadegg.
btt