Reply #14: This.

[burning rain]

The Senators who are up for re-election this year are those who were elected in 2004 -- a good cycle for Republicans.

Democrats need to make 2010 a successful Senate election year because in 2012 and 2014, our many freshmen from 2006 and 2008 will be facing their first reelections. The 2010 Senate election is for us what 1982 and 1984 were for Republicans. They needed to do well in those cycles to increase their chances of holding the Senate in 1986 after having gained 12 seats in 1980, but gained only one* in 1982** and lost two in 1984 despite Reagan's landslide win, thus setting them up to lose their majority, as they did in 1986.

It's also relevant that in 1986, Republicans managed the weird feat of losing more Senate (8) than House (5) seats, including the defeat of seven incumbent freshman Republican senators. This was largely due to Senate Republicans having been stupid enough to pass a 1986 budget freeze that included freezing even Social Security! The House never even took it up, and Republican senators were left twisting slowly in the wind. The takeaway for Democrats here is the need not to take votes that swing constituencies will see as screwing them.

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* Even that gain was largely illusory for Republicans because it depended on the replacement of retiring Democrat-turned-independent Harry F. Byrd, Jr., who remained in the Democratic caucus and retained his seniority despite voting a conservative line (shades of Joe Lieberman), by the Republican Paul Trible.

** No doubt the biggest Senate election of 1982 was in California, where one of the all-time mean Republican SOBs, Pete Wilson, defeated the outgoing Democratic governor, Jerry Brown.