How much more important than the senate is the presidency?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

DU has been almost entirely given over to the Presidential election for the last few months.

Given that Obama appears to have a fairly solid (although by no means unassailable, sadly) lead, is more hanging on the Senate elections?

Does anyone know a good impartial website for following polling for them on?

Is it sensible to collect for them instead of for Obama, or will money do more use spent on a single race than on lots?

[Richardo]

1. fivethirtyeight.com has a senate page ...

[Eric J in MN]

2. I've been asking people to donate to Al Franken's campaign.

Franken's poll numbers (leading 40-38) and other Senate races are at:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Senate/Maps/Oct12-s.html

[kenny blankenship]

3. I'll let this Ivy League feller explain it:

A hard look at reality, and what you should do
Sam Wang, Princeton Election Consortium

"Making your efforts pay off. An example of wasted effort at this point is making an additional contribution to either Presidential campaign. I realize that for some of you, this is a difficult proposition. If you are already committed to turning out the vote for your candidate, by all means do so. But if you still have time or money to spare, think about the following argument."

"In general, any contribution you make to a strongly leading or trailing candidate makes little difference in the outcome. It’s like voting in Massachusetts or Utah: whether you do or don’t essentially makes no difference in the outcome. The same is true for campaign contributions. In the best of worlds, $100 to Obama-Biden or McCain-Palin would move the national win probability by an infinitesimal amount. Even 0.00001% would be an overstatement."

"The place to make a difference is at the margins. Take the Georgia race, in which incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss is defending his seat. In 2002, Chambliss won office by tarring Vietnam war hero and triple-amputee Max Cleland with an alleged sympathy for Osama bin Laden. Now Chambliss is fighting for his political life, and is in a dead heat with Democratic challenger Jim Martin. If you had the choice of driving voters to the polls in Georgia or in South Carolina, you’d be dead wrong to pick South Carolina. By the same token, a contribution in Georgia, but not South Carolina, might make a small difference in the outcome."

"What your contribution buys. The outcome of the 2008 campaign determines the size of the working majorities in next year’s Congress. Next year, top priorities for any President and Congress will be the war in Iraq, the financial meltdown, health care, and global warming. It will be an unenviable and enormously difficult task. If Obama wins, as I expect he will, what he accomplishes will depend critically on how many votes he has in Congress. Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, your point of leverage in this process is the Senate, where a minority of 41 can stop a bill from becoming a law."

Here's Wang's ActBlue donation page: he identifies Merkley in Oregon, Martin in Georgia, and Franken in Minnesota as our points of maximum leverage.

I have donated to Merkley, Martin, and Franken, as well as Kay Hagan in N.C. , Mark Begich in Alaska and Ronnie Musgrove in Alabama. All of these races have been rated as toss-ups according to poll tracking sites like realclearpolitics.com

Obama is going to win in a landslide. The exact margin of Obama's victory doesn't matter as much as the composition of the Senate that will meet him on January 20th. The Senate is the hidden fulcrum of power under the Constitution being able to veto the House and also given unique abilities to hinder the President. From the Senate, and only the Senate a well-mobilized unified minority party is able to tell the other branches, including a majority in the other house of Congress, what will not be possible or what will not be allowed. Wielded with discipline, the Senatorial prerogative to say what cannot be amounts to a power to dictate what shall be. The Democrats SUCK at wielding the power of the Senate, but the Republicans do not. That power will be all they have, so you have to expect them to make the most of it. At this point, with an Obama victory looking very certain, the thing that is most important is the Senate.

[ddeclue]

6. This is GOOD advice - donate to these people:

Suzanne Kosmas in FL24
Alan Grayson in FL08

They are running against Tom Feeney and Ric Keller respectively and both are in a position to unseat these Republican slimeballs.

Doug D.

[Poseidan]

4. at this stage

The Presidency is more important, but it isn't supposed to be. The three branches are meant to have equal power, but the Legislative branch is currently broken (by way of political parties).

[TexasObserver]

5. REALLY more important.

Of course Obama needs a sound Senate majority, but typically, the top of the ticket has either positive or negative coattails. If Obama wins big, look for a few extra senators and a dozen extra house candidates to win extra seats for us.

I'm in favor of people helping selected senate candidates, however. The GOP will likely soon abandon all hope with the McCain ticket and double down on the congressional races. We may even see GOP candidates running against McCain.