Senate Republicans have not been doing well for a while now. But the GOP’s disarray is now extending to the House! The series of Republicans congressmen (Pryce, Hastert, LaHood, Peckering, …) declaring their intention to retire in August started the wave of bad news, but this past week shows the GOP’s House problems go much deeper than these open seats.
Read full analysis here, on Campaign Diaries.
First, there is the speculation about more Republicans retiring. Most of it comes from VA-11, where Rep. Davis is mulling a run for Senate, and CA-4, where Rep. Doolittle is being investigated for his links to lobbyist Abramoff. In Virginia, Republicans will have a very hard time holding the seat in Democratic-trending Northern Virginia if Davis goes for the Senate seat — but it looks very likely Davis will seek to upgrade. And in California, Republicans are praying for Doolittle to resign, but he declared a few days ago that he will be in it to the end — sending chills down Republicans’ spine (Doolittle would handily lose this very red district if he remained the GOP nominee).
And could there now be a new open seat, one that would be even more terrifying for Republicans? Could the last Republican-held seat of New England finally open up, and then surely send a Democrat to Capitol Hill? It looks like that might be the case. Rep. Chris Shays, who edged out Diane Farrell in 2004 and in 2006 by extremely close margins, is now saying he will bow out if Republican leaders do not support his attempt to become top Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Furthermore, he said, if he is promised the spot and then denied after the election, he will immediately resign. Shays added,
“I’m 61 years old. I’ve been in Congress 20 years. If I have to fight to become chairman of a committee, given the job I’ve done, I need to move on.”
There is no doubt that an open seat would make the seat as sure a Democratic pick-up as an open seat can ever be. But even if he runs he will be one of the top Democratic targets. But Shays is facing a very tough re-election race once again in 2008 against already very well-funded and highly-touted Democrat Jim Himes. Shays was always known as a maverick moderate Republican, but he has become an increasingly loyal GOP house member in recent years by supporting the war effort (remember his seemingly weekly trips to Iraq in 2006?). The Hartford Courant writes:
Four years ago, things were different: Shays was winning elections easily, and he knew he was being punished by House Republican leaders because he led the fight for campaign finance reform. Times now are different. Shays has been a fairly loyal Republican, particularly on the Iraq war, and has been a loyal member of the committee, where he chaired its national security subcommittee before Democrats won control of the House last year.
Then come Republican recruitement failures. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes of the dire state of Georgia Republicans, who are failing to come up with serious challengers to two of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents: Jim Marshall (8th) and John Barrow (12th). Both Democrats barely survived in 2006 (by one-two points each), but Republicans are not setting themselves up for a similar opportunity in 2008, especially against John Barrow. And today, Republican Mike Carey withdrew his candidacy in Ohio’s 18th district, one of the most Republicans in Ohio that is today represented by Democrat Zach Space. OH-18 is supposed to be one of the GOP’s 2-3 top pick-up opportunities, but that still requires them to field a strong candidate.
Add to all of this the mounting controversy over Republican House leader Boehner’s assessment that soldiers’ lives and the country’s money is a “small price” to pay for what we are achieving in Iraq. McCain even joined in the fray today, condemning Boehner’s remarks. And the Democrats are pouncing: Kerry – who wrote a piece about this for the Huffington Post, probably enjoying his revenge after the bogus scandal around his botched joke in the fall of 2006 – and Dean denounced Boehner in strong terms.
The picture is certainly not as perfect for Democrats in the House as it is in the Senate, but things are going their way. Check my blog this week-end for ratings of this cycle’s House races.
Read more at www.campaigndiaries.com
About Republican recruiting difficulties in GA-08 and -12. In fact, I thought I had read that they were wooing some supposedly very popular commander of the military base in Marshall’s district. Did that fall through?