CQ: House Democrats Sitting Pretty for 2010
Rep Joseph Cao (R-LA)
It’s part of the nature of things that the more seats you hold in the House of Representatives the more likely you are to lose ground in the next election. With Democrats holding a majority, in other words, by definition a lot of Democrats are representing more-conservative-than-average districts. Nevertheless, CQ reports that the 2010 outlook for Democrats actually looks pretty good and “The only three contests in which CQ Politics rates an advantage to the challenging party are all for seats now held by the Republicans and targeted by the Democrats.” Leading the way is Rep Joseph Cao of New Orleans who’ll face the challenge of running against someone who’s not the scandal-plagued William Jefferson.
Meanwhile, the geography of the 2010 Senate races is also highly favorable to the Democrats. And given the contrast between ironclad discipline on the GOP side and the “anything goes” attitude on the Democratic side, it looks like for a while yet we may be in a California-style dynamic where Republicans can’t win elections but Democrats can’t actually pass a governing agenda.
16 Responses to “CQ: House Democrats Sitting Pretty for 2010”
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July 27th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Both the Democrats and Republicans support corporate america and political correctness. Who really is there to stand up for European Americans?
July 27th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
At this point, any European American (i.e. white person) who still supports Obama is either nuts or suicidal.
WHAT OBONGO AND HIS FRIENDS ARE SAYING
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
- Sonia Sotomayor
“We remain a hunted people. Now you think you have a destiny to fulfill in the land that historically has been ours for forty thousand years. And we’re a new Mestizo nation.”
“Our devil has pale skin and blue eyes…”
“We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by that is if the worst comes to the worst, we have got to kill him.”
– Professor Jose Angel Gutierrez, founder of La Raza
“Around the year 2040, whites will become a minority in the United States and, believe me, it will be payback time.”
- Pro-Immigration Activist, Jorge Sanchez
“And the one idea is, how we are going to exterminate white people because that in my estimation is the only conclusion I have come to. We have to exterminate white people off the face of the planet to solve this problem.”
- African Studies professor, Dr. Kamau Kambon
“Blond hair and blue eyes are a biological defect.”
“The white race is a disease, and the only cure is a bullet. The rule of whites is history. Soon they will be our serfs. It’s now the Age of the Brown Man.”
- Hindu nationalist, Ramesh Sharma
“I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s white race.”
- Barack Hussein Obama
“Al-Qaida is not merely for the benefit of Muslims. That’s why I want blacks in America, people of color, American Indians, Hispanics, and all the weak and oppressed in North and South America, in Africa and Asia, and all over the world.”
- Al-Zawahri
“The goal of abolishing the white race is on its face so desirable that some may find it hard to believe that it could incur any opposition other than from committed white supremacists. Make no mistake about it we intend to keep bashing the dead white males, and the live ones, and the females too, until the social construct known as ‘the white race’ is destroyed–not ‘deconstructed’ but destroyed.”
- Jewish studies professor, Noel Ignatiev
July 27th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
The Democrats’ two most vulnerable seats, currently rated Tossup, are in districts where McCain outran Obama by wide margins: Idaho’s 1st, which is held by freshman Democrat Walt Minnick , and Maryland’s 1st, held by freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil Jr.
Minnick will likely lose next election. He beat a Republican that was an enormous, unlikeable tool, in Idaho of all places.
July 27th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Who would have thought the smiling picture of Rep Cao would provoke such an outburst of ridiculous paranoia?
By the way, can’t Cao just switch to Democrat? He seems like a nice guy and the last sane Republican (although he voted against the stimulus, strong-armed by his Neanderthalian leaders).
July 27th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-midwestrail,0,2475530.story
CHICAGO – The governors of eight Midwest states have agreed to set up a steering committee to help with their bid for federal cash to pay for a regional high-speed rail network.
The eight states have worked together for months to promote such a system with Chicago as its hub.
Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and governors from four other states met in Chicago on Monday to sign a memorandum establishing the Midwest Rail Steering Group. That group will coordinate the states’ application for a share of the $8 billion in federal stimulus cash for such projects.
Competition for the money is stiff. Officials say 40 states have submitted 278 plans totaling $102 billion for federal rail funding.
July 27th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
If the Democrats in Congress do reasonably well in the 2010 midterms, I would expect them to get more aggressive in supporting Obama legislatively. Basically, in 2010 they are somewhat out there alone, but in 2012 it will be all about Obama’s coattails.
July 27th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
2010 would be a good year to primary some neocon/DLC democrats like Jane Harmon.
July 27th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
With all due respect to Cook, Minnick is in pretty much the exact same boat as Cao. He’s only winning if Sali runs again. There’s no way that race is a tossup. Kratovil should probably be leaning Republican as well, though he’s been voting as conservatively as possible to hold onto it.
I’m loving that 197 safe/32 favored though. Good luck taking the House back with that map. Even on the leaning side, I only see a handful of really dangerous seats, mostly the ones in the deep south who never vote with the party anyway.
July 27th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Both the Democrats and Republicans support corporate america and political correctness. Who really is there to stand up for European Americans?
I hate to break it to you, but corporate America is run pretty much entirely by European Americans. The Republican party may have its faults, but I would hardly accuse it of not doing enough to stand up for the white male.
July 27th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
I don’t know if things will get any better even if the Democrats pick up seats again. But I don’t think things were much better for the Republicans when they were in power, at least from the perspective of a party activist. Sure they passed a bunch of stuff that we don’t like–as the current democratic congress is passing lots of stuff the Republicans don’t like–but key pieces of Bush’s agenda (Social Security privatization, the federal marriage amendment) couldn’t even come up for a vote. And there were other pieces of legislation, like the prescription drug bill, that movement conservatives hated–Republicans only passed them to neutralize a Democratic issue.
July 27th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I really don’t understand the Republican-envy in some Democratic quarters. The Republicans got very little of their domestic agenda permanently enshrined into legislation, the little they did get passed was mostly bipartisan, and for all that weakness and compromising they still got run out of town. Why anyone (or, at least, anyone in favor of the Democrats) would want the Democrats to imitate their strategies is beyond me.
July 27th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
See, here’s where you over-extend your logic.
The more Democratic Senators you get, the more you can lose and still maintain that 60. So it’s unlikely to be like California. Moreover, the closer you get to a solid progressive 60, the closer you are to abolishing/reforming the filibuster.
July 27th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
I doubt much progressive legislation makes it through the Senate between 2010-12 even if the Dems gain seats in the House.
With 26 Dem held seats up for election in 2012, including those held by likely retiring incumbents, conservaDems, and in states that are not gimmes, the Senate will likely gut or stall most of the legislation coming out of the House.
July 27th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Nevertheless, CQ reports that the 2010 outlook for Democrats actually looks pretty good and “The only three contests in which CQ Politics rates an advantage to the challenging party are all for seats now held by the Republicans and targeted by the Democrats.”
=============================================================
Only 15 months away. What could possibly go wrong between now and then?
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/analysis-july-has-been-disaster-for-obama-hill-dems-2009-07-27.html
Analysis: July has been disaster for Obama, Hill Dems
The Obama administration, which was flying high a month ago after pushing through a climate change bill in the House, has since been dealt a series of setbacks and is struggling to regain its footing.
After the climate bill passed 219-212 on the afternoon of June 26, there was a feeling that the White House could get much of its agenda through Congress in 2009.
A month later, there are doubts that President Obama will even achieve his No. 1 priority of healthcare reform, much less cap-and-trade, immigration reform and a regulatory revamp of the financial sector.
July 27th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
You know, John Kerry was blah blah blabbitty blah blah blah.
Are you saying you’d rather be behind?
No matter what happens to Obama’s popularity, the Republicans will still be the Republicans.
July 29th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
“Are you saying you’d rather be behind?”
Ah, it’s joe from Lowell, the poster who was too cowardly to defend Obama’s positions on Reason.com, so he quit posting there pretty much the same day Obama was inaugurated. Glad to see you are still missing the point and still as dense as ever joe. As the post above yours demonstrates, thee is ample evidence to argue that the Republicans are no longer behind. Obama’s approval ratings have fallen 10 points in about a month. His major legislative agenda is stalling, and the need for conservative Dem votes for Cap and Trade was a huge blunder. It is quite a stretch after the terrible July that Obama and the Dems have had to confidently claim that it is the Dems who are still ahead.
Glad to see that yet again, those on various liberal websites are cherrypicking the data and ignoring alternate analyses that totally contradict their points of view. Anyone who thinks the Dem chances in various districts are not going to be hurt by a double-digit employment rate are silly. These elections don’t take place in a vacuum. Simply stating “Well, we have these districts that look safe Dem” totally ignores the fact that not only is the overall economy still supposed to be pretty terrible during the run up to the elections, it also ignores the huge damage a double digit unemployment rate is going to cause the Democratic Party. You can make your claims about “Well the election is 15 months from now and the economy will be better by then all you want”. The moment the unemployment rate hits that psychologically important 10% rate, you can kiss those ridiculous Safe/Favored charts goodbye. Heck, even The Nation made an argument stating almost that same exact thing. And I am curious why you only mention the CQ report. There are other respected analyses out there that show the Dems with twice as many vulnerable seats as the Republicans.
The bottom line is, if the economy is still terrible, regardless of whether the recession has technically ended, and unemployment hits 10%, the arguments you made will be rendered as worthless as those charts in CQ. Good luck with not losing a large part of your majority in the House when unemployment is over 9.5% come November. You would have thought the 2006 and 2008 elections would have demonstrated that screwing up will cost you huge, regardless of how safe you think your district is. But I guess when you are a partisan hack, the evidence is meaningless.