From Foley to Foley

My thoughts on the upcoming midterm election. The Repulicans will lose the House. The question is, by how many seats will they lose? Probably between 16 and 35. The Republican Revolution of 1994 began with the fall of Speaker of the House Foley and will end in 2006 with a different Foley ending the reign of the current Speaker.

The Senate? That's a tossup. Republicans effectively control it now 55-45. Democrats will pick up seats in two "blue" (Democratic-leaning) states -- Rhode Island (Chaffee will lose to Sheldon Whitehouse) & Pennsylvania (Santorum will lose to Bob Casey). They will also pick up seats in at least 2 "red" (Republican-leaning) states -- Montana (where Conrad Burns is struggling in overcoming with his ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff and will likely lose to Jon Tester) and in Ohio (where Sherrod Brown will defeat Mike Dewine, the innocent victim of voter unhappiness with Republican scandals).

Assuming those four are a done deal, to take the Senate, Democrats will need to win 2 more races because the Vice President will break ties in a 50-50 Senate. They have good opportunities in Missouri (Talent-McCaskill) and Tennessee (Corker-Ford) to do just that. The Senate races in Virginia and Arizona are also close but lean GOP. I think the Republicans will hold the Senate but give Democrats a 40% chance of taking over the Senate.

Democrats should enjoy the next few weeks. Enjoy the victory on November 7th. Abramoff, Delay, Ney, Cunningham, Scooter, Foley, and Bush's Iraq policy have helped. Democrats have earned this victory - in the last few years they have been the least unethical party.

However, the good news for the GOP is that one year from now this election along with Abramoff, Delay, Ney, Cunningham, and Foley, will be history. Bush will be in his "last throes" as a lame duck, and the electoral college does aid the Republicans in electing Presidents. Coming off a victorious election, the Dean faction will be fired up to nominate a liberal like Feingold and conservatives will be more willing to compromise in order to win by selecting Guiliani or McCain (both of whom will be somewhat difficult to peg as Bush-Republicans).

The other positive news for conservatives - Casey & Whitehouse have very similar positions on abortion as do Santorum and Chaffee. Many of the House challengers are former Republicans or hold very conservative views. Obviously it is great for the Democrats to have power and set the agenda, but the next Congress will have more conservative Democrats in it (Ford if he wins in Tennessee, Maloney in Florida, Davis in NY, etc.)

If the GOP holds the Senate and saves Bush from a lot of vetoes, then the Republicans will not be in that bad of shape for '08.