Special Elections And The Purported Republican Wave

The voters are still saying NO to the party of NO.......

Special Elections And The Purported Republican Wave
by Steve Singiser
Sun Sep 06, 2009 at 04:03:31 PM PDT

The 2009/2010 electoral forecast for Democrats, according to the horse race pundit class, just keeps getting gloomier and gloomier. According to Larry Sabato, the Democrats may well lose the House, and even if Obama's approval settles into the mid-60s, and Dems have a ten-point lead in the generic ballot, they still will lose fifteen seats in the House.

Meanwhile, veteran analyst (and NN09 attendee) Charlie Cook is now saying that Democrats should be "terrified" about the potential for a GOP wave election in 2010.

In the past two weeks, however, there have been actual votes counted around the country, and the results have been far from disastrous for the Democrats:

* Curt Hanson held onto a swing legislative seat in southeastern Iowa, despite the fact that the Democrat was outspent by a 3-to-2 margin and the fact that an outside group (NOM) may well have spent more than either candidate trying to link the Democrat to the gay marriage issue.

* Democrat Norbert Chabert held onto a state Senate seat in inhospitable territory (Obama got less than 30% of the vote in the district), scoring a nine-point win.

* Democrat Robin Webb did one better, picking up a previously Republican state Senate seat in northern Kentucky, in a district that went nearly 3-to-2 Republican in last year's presidential election.

* Finally, although this one was not a general election, it was worth noting that the total vote in the special primary election to replace Ellen Tauscher in CA-10 broke down almost identically to both the Presidential and House partisan breakdown from 2008.

In other words, if there is a nascent Repubican wave in America, it hasn't been apparent over the past few weeks.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/6/777957/-Special-Elections-And-The-Purported-Republican-Wave

Why would Democrats lose seats? Aren't they acting on the platform they ran on? So why would voters be upset that the Democrat agenda is going forward just as promised?

Passion wrote:

Why would Democrats lose seats? Aren't they acting on the platform they ran on? So why would voters be upset that the Democrat agenda is going forward just as promised?

Historically the party who controls the Presidency loses seats in the mid-term. Since the Dems hold a lot more seats that means more seats to defend,and thus a greater chance of losing some. Also keep in mind that the seats the Repubs occupy are pretty strong seeing as they survived Bush,the 06 and 08 elections.

I don't think it will be as bad as some of the pundits make it out to be. We may lose some seats in the House but not enough to lose control. The Senate looks ok as we're defending the same amount of seats as the Repubs. The other thing in our favor is that the Repubs still have no leader or real message other than to try and block everything Democrats propose.

Btw,welcome to the board

Artie60438 wrote:

The other thing in our favor is that the Repubs still have no leader or real message other than to try and block everything Democrats propose.

Gotta love the two party system. Full of bloody obstructionists... I think the Democrats need to do what the Republicans did earlier in the decade. Verbally chastise the Republicans into submission, and do it publicly. Don't forget... "If you don't support this war, you are not a patriotic American." or "You're blocking needy Americans from tax relief."

Thanks for the welcome.

At this point I'm hoping for that day of convergence the Libertarians have been promising like forever to give their party equal status. I'm not real thrilled with either party. I am for a lot less government control and a whole lot less taxing people to pay for that control.