Call Me Senator from RightChange on Vimeo.
This post was supposed to be the 41st edition of the Carnival of Divided Government - Special "Mystical Numerology" Edition. Indeed the numerological portents are everywhere - this very piece you are reading now was posted at 10:10 PM on 10-10-10 exactly 23 days before the mid-term elections, on the very day my Chicago Bears scored 23 points in a victory that secured sole possession of first place in the NFC North, on the strength of - what else - a 4-1 record. But, as usual, I did not get my act together on the Carnival. So, since I've already listed the Top 10 Dem Delusions, we'll just update our 10 in 10 prognostications for the Senate races. The carnival can wait a day or two.When last we checked in - Nate Silver (our polling analyst of choice) showed that 9 0f the 10 seats most likely to change parties were all held by Democrats and he was forecasting a net 6-7 seat Republican gain in the Senate. One month later...
... with less than a month to go - 10 of the top 10 seats most likely to change parties are all held by Democrats and Nate is forecasting an 8-9 seat gain by the GOP. So - despite the nomination of a GOP clown candidate in Delaware (virtually guaranteeing a Democratic victory in that state) the odds of a GOP Senate takeover continue to improve.
Nate still gives the Republicans only a 1 in 4 chance of retaking the Senate majority outright. But then he is basing his odds purely on the November 2nd mid-term results. As I have maintained throughout, the GOP need only take 8 or 9 more seats to make changing parties an attractive proposition to Lieberman and/or Nelson, and eight or nine seats look likely now.
The most disappointing potential race result is the one one that hits closest to home. Five points are a lot for Carly to make up in a left leaning state like California with only 23 days remaining. But then... Scott Brown did what Scott Brown did in Massachusetts. Maybe there is just enough of that magic left over to surprise the pundits here on the left coast. I just cannot believe we are going to be stuck with Boxer for another six years. C'mon California! Why wouldn't you vote for a senator who throws down a shot of tequilla before delivering a stump speech? The Dividist's last contributions will go to Carly in California, and Kirk in Illinois. These are the seats that will make the difference.
I will make one change to my earlier prediction. Then I thought it unlikely that the GOP would take control of the House, invoking the "100 year Rule" and expecting the GOP to come up just short. My new, improved, and updated prediction is that the most likely scenario is that the GOP will go into 2011 with majority control of both the House and Senate. Nate, Charlie, and AJ convinced me.
Political tsunamis just don't care about 100 year rules, nor how deep a hole the GOP dug for itself in the last two cycles.
Looks like The Dividist will be changing teams again in November.
Jan Brewer's cringe inducing debate performance received more media attention, but there was another debate last week of significantly greater import. Carly Fiorina and Barbara Boxer met for their first (and potentially only) debate of the election season. It is one of the "dirty dozen" contests that will determine whether the GOP retakes the majority in the Senate."Welcome to California, the Red State... If both Boxer and Brown lose, what does that say about the direction of California — and what does it mean for Barack Obama? California’s one of the few states where his approval numbers remain mildly positive. If that’s true and Democrats still lose statewide races in this cycle, it makes Obama an irrelevance, and perhaps means that the state with the largest number of electoral votes may be in play two years from now."
"... in one area in particular these two strands — big government liberalism and legislative fecklessness — weave together: the cap-and-trade regime, which Fiorina calls the “most expensive regulatory act in U.S. history,” which will burden consumers and kill yet more jobs, but to which Boxer has adhered religiously. At the debate, Fiorina blasted the senator for her inability to shepherd the ill-considered legislation to passage and for having it “taken away from her and given to John Kerry.” This, in the end, is Boxer’s legacy: failed leadership and misguided policies amidst troubling times. Thus, in a toxic environment where irate voters find themselves booting incumbents even during primaries, it’s not much of a stretch to predict that Boxer’s political life will never be the same come November."
"In the Senate, we now believe the GOP will do a bit better than our long-time prediction of +7 seats. Republicans have an outside shot at winning full control (+10), but are more likely to end up with +8 (or maybe +9, at which point it will be interesting to see how senators such as Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and others react). GOP leaders themselves did not believe such a result was truly possible just a few months ago. If the Republican wave on November 2 is as large as some polls are suggesting it may be, then the surprise on election night could be a full GOP takeover. Since World War II, the House of Representatives has flipped parties on six occasions (1946, 1948, 1952, 1954, 1994, and 2006). Every time, the Senate flipped too, even when it had not been predicted to do so. These few examples do not create an iron law of politics, but they do suggest an electoral tendency."
