I hear you, just taking control out of national frustration doesn't mean we will get anything better than the last crew.

It has to be about a lot more than just stopping democrats.

__________________

"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit...

The fact is she is dead on target; reflecting the fact that all through this upheaval and drops in Obamas pop. Etc. the Republican Party has barely gained an inch. Maybe you ought to apply some thought to that instead of nasty comments. Just a thought.

__________________

"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit...

If you'd like an excellent summary of the major races, check out:
Senate 2010 at Campaign Diaries
House 2010 at Campaign Diaries
Governor 2010 at Campaign Diaries

I think they are either out-of-date or partisan or both.

I cannot see the unqualified triumph for the Dems predicted by these sites. They do not take into consideration the recent and dramatic (and surprising) slide in approval for both Obama and the Dems.

They haven't been updated since Palin left office so grangted they're a bit out of date, but they still give a good idea. Any assessment of the situation now is incredibly unreliable given that we've over a year away from the elections and most of the races don't even have candidates yet.

However, I think two things are going against the Dems:

1. most Presidents (with exceptions) lose seats in mid-terms
2. the ems have so many seats that their chances of picking up seats are harded than defending seats

Having said that, it does appear that for the third election cycle in a row the GOP will be struggling to hold their existing number of Senate seats and may indeed lose a few more. The next 6 months will be very telling in what happens this time next year.

Sometimes gridlock is O.K.--meaning they can't screw up things they shouldn't be into--like our wallets.

All politics is local, the national picture isn't as good for the Democratic Party as it was in 2008, but the election isn't for another year.
These things go up and down, there are no straight lines, the biggest drain on the Democrats popularity is the Health Care reform issue, if the Democrats don't get a bill through they will look ineffective, and they will lose some seats, not in the Liberal districts, they are solid as a rock there, they will lose seats in the moderate and conservative districts. This helps health care, since the Democrats who are vacillating on health care are the ones with the most to lose.
The GOP may be experiencing some kind of a rebound, but the numbers are being puffed up by the Democrats failures, not by GOP successes.
There is still a year before the elections, and passing a Health Care bill, adding to it next year, an economic turnaround, and the Democrats won't be in bad shape. They may lose a few seats, but there won't be any kind of a seismic shift.

__________________
“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address

But when action is required, gridlock is suicide.

__________________
“ The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.”

Adam Smith , The Wealth of Nations 1776

"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics"
FDR's second Inaugural Address

looking at our post branch distribution between parties since say 1960, I'd say that statement is hard to defend.

Its not gridlock is forcing them to compromise. Lots of very good things got done with a split between the exec. and the houses, some bad got done too, its inevitable. I'd say the worst got done when there was no balance.

I think we each have had an 8 year run where in each party claims great work was done, and they were both split.

__________________

"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit...

I still believe this is an optimistic scenario for the Democrats.

The health care issue has been a public relations disaster for the Democrats so far. The economy appears to be leveling off but there is little chance of a strong rebound in the next year and even if there is, unemployment is always a lagging indicator. The unemployment rate is now up to 9.7% and continuing to rise.

The Democrats will be held responsible for this. It may not be entirely fair, but that is not the issue. By the time the 2010 election comes up the Democrats will have held absolute power for almost two years, and congress for almost four years. It will not work to blame Republicans. That was true for the GOP as well, when they were in charge.

And some feel that if they shove a bill through that the American people don't want... that will show that they don't care what the American people want.

The big drain right now is Health Care. That is the dramatic headline-making story now. But the two big - and related - stories that have a longer life are the deficit and unemployment. Much of the fear and anxiety regarding the Health Care proposals are in relation to the deficit.

Remember: the Democrats are doing absolutely nothing at all to address either issue. They are not promoting any pro-growth policies. All of their ideas will cost a great deal of money. They are not correctly reading the current national mood.

Losing moderate and conservative (?) seats will certainly not help Democrats in any way. They were able to take back power in 2006 and 2008 by running as centrists. Without those seats, they are a minority party.


And that is exactly how the Dems won the last two elections.

I agree with your comment, but that is more than enough for the opposition to win an election.

The Democrats have built a reputation for fiscal probity. There is absolutely no truth in this whatsoever, and no evidence at all. However they were out of power for several years and this promoted the perception that they were somehow to be trusted with money - which is like deciding that mice are to be trusted with cheese.

Now they have destroyed their credibility on this issue (again), so the door is open again for the Republicans.

And the band plays on....


What will be the basis for the economic turnaround?

The recession is slowly ending, but we can have several years of a flat economy as debt is paid down and unemployment remains high.


The passing of a health care bill may help or hurt. I think it is likely to have little direct effect on the election.

Polls show over 70% of Americans want health care reform. Republicans obviously don't know or care "what Americans want".

__________________

Health care REFORM... not government take over of health care.

Democrats obviously don't know or care what the difference is.

Tim, I predicted that the 2008 presidential election would not be close, that it would be an Obama blowout, and that it would be a realigning election that would redefine the political map and the parties (especially the losing GOP). So far, I was right. I'm mentioning that merely as a way of presenting credentials, and now I'm going to go into what you say about next year's election.

"Disaster" is overstating the case. The health care issue hasn't been the winner for them that it should be, and that's their fault. But why? Because they've failed, so far, to deliver, and the debate in Congress so far has shown that the Democrats -- like the Republicans -- are overly influenced by the corporate health-care and health-insurance interests.

Whether it will be a winner or loser for them in 2010 depends on what they do between now and then. If they pass a halfway-decent UHC plan that includes a public option as originally promised, then they will get a huge boost in the polls. If they fail to pass anything, or if they pass something that amounts to a giveaway to the health-insurance industry with little or no public benefit, then they've cut their own throats.

So you could yet be right -- but probably not in the way you meant. I think you were trying to say that trying to pass national health care is a disaster for the Democrats. In that, you're wrong. The disaster will come if they're seen as selling out and failing to pass it.

This could cause problems for the Democrats, but my guess is probably not. If the Dems are seen as having failed to turn the economy around, the Pubs will still be seen as the ones who screwed it up in the first place (however unfair both of those perceptions are). So lackluster economic performance will, to the extent it hurts the Democrats, do so by preventing significant Democratic gains in 2010 as neither party gets points for the economy.

So -- I'm going to go on record once more with a prediction you can hold me to on election day. I believe the Democrats will make modest gains in the House and significant gains in the Senate (the latter just because of the accident of which races are competitive and are currently held by which party -- it's just a fact that only one Democratic seat is really contested while five or six GOP seats are).

This prediction is based on the belief that some sort of halfway-decent UHC plan will pass Congress before the election, and that the economy will modestly recover. If they fail to pass any plan, pass a thoroughly sucky one, or pass a really good one; or if the economy crashes again or makes a rapid recovery, I'll have to revise that prediction, but I don't think any of those scenarios are very likely.