UPDATED: Senate Dems Will Exceed Expectations

[jmowreader]

11. The experience of 1998 bodes well for us

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_1998

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_1998

This was right after Congress impeached President Clinton over a blowjob. The press and pundits, AND the GOP, figured 1998 was going to be a banner year for Republicans. Instead, the Republicans lost five seats in the House and the balance of power in the Senate didn't change.

Here's the Republicans' problem in a nutshell: In general, people are pretty happy with their own congressmen. There aren't any real widespread "red meat" issues on America's ballots to bring Republicans to the polls in states that aren't already overrun with them - the states that are battling gay marriage are already redder than a Corvette. If you look close at the Democrats running to replace retiring Democrats, you'll notice they're fairly similar ideologically. (If the electorate likes a Democrat that's for holding the line on taxes, reasonable infrastructure investment and keeping the government out of women's healthcare decisions, they probably WON'T suddenly decide a Republican who wants to eliminate taxes, turn the roads to gravel to save money and execute doctors for even mentioning the word "abortion" is the man for them - especially when a Democrat very much like the one who's retiring is on the ballot.) Because people like their congressmen, they get reelected at a frightening rate - somewhere around 90 percent - UNLESS one of two things happen: the Republicans hold one of their "flush the Democrats out" special election attack campaigns like the Contract on America or the tea party revolt, or the Republicans do something unspeakably stupid and evil and get their asses handed to them.

Where we fucked up this cycle is very simple: We did not exploit Republican unwillingness to do anything but thwart the president at every turn. I don't think we'll do nearly as badly this cycle as Fox "news" hopes we do, but we won't do as well as we could have simply by pointing out that in the "business world" the GOP wants to make the government more like, keeping the company from doing anything will get your ass fired quick.