I have been watching the US midterm elections with a great deal of interest. After the massive comeback in the Senate in 2004 for the Republicans and the ludicrouslly gerrymandered nature of House seats, I figured there was no hope in heck for the Democrats to even come close to taking either chamber.
However, this is the election that has gone right for Democrats beyond their wildest dreams. It is now essentially a foregone conclusion that the Democrats will win the House of Representatives and have a relatively good shot at the Senate.
I haven't written much on this because U.S. politics is complicated and, I would expect, to most of my readers the intracies of House and Senate races aren't that interesting. Moreover, the US blogosphere is massive and has way more written about this than anyone could ever want to read so I don't really need to get into it.
The reason I am writing this post is because my arch-right wing nemesis Scott over at The Sorry Centrist has put together a cool pool on predictions for these races.
It is part of a massive pool of people all over the place, and Scott has a "sub-pool" that has a number of recognizable NB bloggers in it. It is neat to prognasticate and Scott is going to give out a prize to the best guesser in the pool. Check it out.
How it works is it will walk you through each of the "competitive" House and Senate races. Unless you are an ultra-nerd, at least some of the House races will be complete guess work. If you want to make a more educated guess, a good site is electionprojection.com. It has a summary of all of the competitive races and, if you are interested in the nitty gritty details, you can sign up to get all kinds of information. I have done so and found it very interesting.
Just for the record my predictions worked out to be:
Senate - R 50, D 50 (this gives the Republicans a majority because the "speaker" of the Senate is the Vice President, i.e. Republican Dick Cheney)
House - D 234, R 201
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About Me
- nbpolitico
- A New Brunswicker passionate about his province and about politics writes his random, non-partisan thoughts on New Brunswick, Canadian and world politics.
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7 comments:
Thx a bunch, nbpolitico. Btw, am I really that right wing? lol
Scott, you are right wing with a sense of humour at times which right-wingers can use:).
I believe Dems will take both Senate and House. It is not going to be easy for Dubbya. Even Dems in majority in the House will cause some difficulty for Dubbya. It is not going to be easy ride.
I don't like to think of myself as that left wing either but I don't think we've ever agreed on a policy issue so we seem to be pretty far apart ;)
You're a pretty central guy nbpolitico (as far as I can see) a smidge to the left. Scott's also a pretty central guy, a smidge to the right. There's lots of common ground in there and both of your sites offer some pretty thoughtful discussion. Keep up the good work. I concur with Anon, the Republicans have a rough ride ahead. Iraq has been a mess. The soldiers there are fighting a noble cause and leaving it at this stage would be a mistake but I don't know how they'll win. They got rid of Saddam which I think most people can agree is a good thing but bringing stability has been a lot tougher.
The real problem for the Republicans is less obvious. The won in 2000, 2002 and 2004 because of Karl Rove's very successful strategy to deliver the base. Rove has managed a virtual 100% turn out of "hard right" base Republicans in 2002 and 2004.
I have read that the reason why Bush lost the popular vote in 2000, in Republican circles, is that the last minute revelation he'd been convincted for drunk driving suppressed the base from turning out to some extent.
If a 25 year old drunk driving conviction supressed the base to some degree in 2000, I think that the Mark Foley case, despite having died down in the media to some degree, will be the true story of Republican loses in this election. Not because of the number of votes that will swing, but because of the number of Republican voters it will cause to stay home.
The real problem for the Republicans is less obvious. The won in 2000, 2002 and 2004 because of Karl Rove's very successful strategy to deliver the base. Rove has managed a virtual 100% turn out of "hard right" base Republicans in 2002 and 2004.
You're right, nbpolitico. I don't think he will be able to use the religious card this time around, like he did in 2002, especially given his partial demotion from his position as Republican domestic strategist.
As well, there are just as many Baptists,
Here's a good television piece on Karl Rove's legacy after the midterms.
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