Tag: Republicans

there’s not much to this diary, just that the democratic congressman from vermont,peter welch, also won the republican nomination as a write-in.  this is a ha-ha moment aimed at vt repubs and repubs in general.  ha ha!

http://www.timesargus.com/apps…

Have you seen this: http://a5.vox.com/6a00d4142880… ?

Well, I discovered that in a Facebook group about nerd jokes a while back, and apparently, it’s pretty well known around the internet.

But doesn’t that remind you of something?  Don’t elephants tend to get in the way…politically?

Well, here’s an excellent opportunity to highlight that!  What if someone stuck someone’s face–how about that of lead obstructionist Mitch McConnell–onto the elephant?  Well, he’s already an elephant, and he’s in the way, so why not?

Unfortunately, I don’t have Photoshop, and I’m no good with MS Paint either.

So, would someone like to do this?  Go upload it somewhere and post about it in a diary of your own.  Then we can start spreading this around the blogs, and have fun with it!

(I’ll also post about any more stupid political joke ideas I come up with. 😉 )

 

Cross-posted at Election Inspection

 Before looking at whether or not the Democrats can expect to get the magic sixty, lets review the seats which have the potential to flip, starting from the ones most likely to flip to the ones least likely to flip (anything not listed here means that we consider the seats to be completely safe). (Note, these are all Election Inspection's ratings) 

Solid Democratic (Pick-up)

• Virginia (Warner)
• New Mexico (Domenici)

• Sununu (New Hampshire)
• Landrieu (Lousiana)
• Colorado (Allard)
• Stevens (Alaska)

Leans Republican

• Smith (Oregon)
• Coleman (Minnesota)
• Collins (Maine)
• Wicker (Mississippi-B)
• McConnell (Kentucky)

Likely Republican (Open Seat retention)

• Idaho (Craig)

Possible Darkhorse Races (Republican Incumbent)

• Dole (North Carolina)
• Cornyn (Texas)
• Inhofe (Oklahoma)
• Roberts (Kansas)

First of all, I think we can safely assume that Democrats will win in New Mexico and Virginia, so we can start off with a net gain of two seats for the Democrats. So, to start off with in the second session, the Democrats are basically guaranteed to start from a vantage point of 50 seats. With the way the Leans Democratic races have been playing out (including the newly added AK-Sen), I'm pretty confident that the Democrats will win at least three and probably all four (Pollster shows Democrats leading by at least 5 points in Colorado, New Hampshire, and Alaska) and while it seems like it's close in Louisiana, with the exception of Zogby, Landrieu has shown to have a consistent lead of no less than 3 points (with the most recent Rasmussen poll giving Landrieu a 5 point edge). So, we'll give the Democrats three more seats and put them up to 53 seats (by the way, this doesn't include Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman who caucus with the Democrats). Alright, so the score now should be at Democrats 53 guaranteed seats and Republicans with 34 guaranteed seats. Now then, let's assume that Republicans win all of the seats which I consider to be either Likely or a potential Dark-horse (which, realistically, is more likely to happen than not), Republicans will have 38 seats (from now on, I'm going to consider Sanders to be a Democrat, for the purposes of voting, which gives the Democrats 54 seats and I'm going to consider Lieberman a wild-card as far as voting in concerned since, even though Lieberman has taken a more Conservative position on several issues, he is still considered to be more likely to support Democratic domestic agendas than Republican ones). So we have a score of 54-39-1, which means that for Democrats to win a filibuster-proof Senate which doesn't rely on Lieberman, they'll have to win 6 additional seats on top of the 5 which I'm projecting for them to win already, now how realistic a shot to Democrats have at this? 

I believe that more likely than not, Democrats will win in Louisiana, so we'll give the Democrats that extra seat which puts the score at 55-39-1 (5 undecided). I also think that Republicans should win in Kentucky. so the score now stands at 55-40-1 (4 undecided), which also basically eliminates any reasonable possibility of Democrats getting to the magic 60 number without Lieberman (which, might not be as bad as people think). So, that means that whether or not the Democrats can get to a filibuster proof senate rests on Minnesota, Maine, Oregon, and Mississippi-B. Mississippi-B and Oregon look to be within striking distance but Maine and Minnesota, seem to be moving away from us, so right now, I'd say that, at most, Democrats will probably end up with 57 seats (including Sanders) Republicans with 42 seats, and Joe Lieberman as a wild-card in the Senate.

Doesn't look like we're going to get our filibuster-proof majority this time around, but we'll do well enough that it's possible we can set 2010 up to get there.

Cross-posted from OH-16: John Boccieri for U.S. Congress:

Senator Major John Boccieri(D) put his “boots on the ground” at a downtown Canton, OH, Sunoco station yesterday morning. His position on Energy Independence has been clear from the beginning of his campain:

Controlling Energy Costs, Creating Jobs, Protecting our

Environment

With the Middle East’s choices about oil supplies forcing many in Northeast Ohio to make tough choices here at home, it is high time to end our dependence on foreign oil.

For the last 7 years, George Bush has been ignoring the problem. John believes we shouldn’t be giving billions in tax breaks to big oil companies while they enjoy record profits. Instead John supports investing in new technologies and cutting edge businesses in Ohio, to create high paying energy jobs in our state.

John supports encouraging research to promote advanced domestic energy resources, including bio-fuels and clean-coal, as well as solar, wind and bio-mass. The new energy economy presents a great opportunity, not just to increase our energy security and produce cheaper, cleaner fuels but to grow businesses in our state.

Yesterday, 16th Congressional District candidate John Boccieri spoke with customers at a local gas station about the skyrocketing cost of fuel. He talked with them about the effect of rising gas prices on family budgets, and detailed his plans to provide relief. He worked his way across the lot talking to concerned citizens and doing a brief stint pumping gas before moving on to his planned press conference. Reporter Edd Pritchard of The Canton Repository, Schuring’s Endorsing Hometown Newspaper, was on the scene and brings us a pretty good take on the event here.

“Everything goes up because of the cost of gas,” Larry Lipley, an Alliance resident, told Boccieri. That means people are paying more for food and other necessities, while not buying other items, said Lipley, who works as a sales representative and drives 600 miles each week.

Pam Arbuckle, of North Canton, pumped $45 worth of gasoline into her minivan as she spoke with the candidate. “It probably didn’t even fill it up,” she said.

John Boccieri said:

“We need to focus on Midwest innovation, not Middle East oil. We could grow our own fuel here in the state, refine it here in the state, and lessen our dependence on foreign sources of oil.”

Further adding,

“Let me be clear about one thing, my friends. We are not going to drill our way out of this problem.”

He detailed his short-term and long-term energy solutions, including:

Cracking down on oil companies and Wall Street speculators who are artificially inflating oil prices.

Halting shipments to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve – which have stopped as of today and will remain suspended through the end of the year.

Supporting fuel-efficient vehicles and fuel cell research at Stark State to boost the local economy.

Investing in biofuels that can be grown in the 16th District.

Building new local refineries to process biofuels and other cutting-edge fuel sources.

Creating an Apollo program to revolutionize our energy sources and free us from oil dependence forever.

More below the fold…

Boccieri noted that his opponent, Kirk Schuring, voted with convicted criminal ex-Governor Bob Taft(R) to raise the state gas tax, which had an initial price tag of $580 million and now places a burden of over $250 million per year on Ohio families. He pointed out that even top oil executives say expanded domestic drilling won’t yield a drop of new oil for at least 10 to 15 years.

In what was an obvious attempt by opposition to Boccieri’s plan, he made it clear where he stands on “Big Oil”. When asked what he would do to help oil companies afford more prospecting and drilling, Boccieri replied:

“If you want a congressman who’s going to stand up and fight every day to make sure that big oil companies quadruple their profits, then I’m not your guy. …If you want someone who’s going to stand up right here and fight for the people of this community who can’t afford to put gas in their tanks, then I want to be your Congressman.”

Oh, and trust me you, there were plenty of “ANWR Chanters” chiming in to disrupt the event. I’ll let a local Independent Blogger bring you up to speed on that distraction tactic.

At the end of the event, I pulled John Boccieri in for one last question:

Q: As I drive through rural ares of our District, I see field pumps setting idle. Is there a way to get these locals feeding the District to ease the strain created by imports?



A: The solution to the 16th District’s energy problems lay in alternative fuel sources. Look at places like the Rolls-Royce Fuel-Cell Research Building at Stark State.

I walked away with a chuckle of irony rolling through my head about John’s answer.

The Rolls-Royce Fuel-Cell Research Building at Stark State College of Technology is in Jackson Township, Stark County, Ohio.

Hmmm…isnt that where Kirk lives?

Thanks to Benawu, it’s pretty easy to make a list of Republican seats sorted by Cook PVI scores.  (The information is also available at Wikipedia, btw, but I trust Benawu).  FEC reports are also pretty accessible at www.fec.gov so it’s a nice research project.

Well, to keep things manageable I looked up the cash on hand balances of all Republican incumbents and the leading money raising challenger for Republican seats that are open this cycle.  Excell allows for some comparisons.

The average cash balance for these 78 seats is $720,059.  The average for the 55 incumbents is $819,234; the average for the 13 open seats is $224,184.  There’s the value of incumbency in dollars and cents.  Republicans in Democratic territory, those with a PVI of D+1 or higher, were a bit better funded but incumbency trumped everything else.  The 13 Republicans averaged $838,144 with ten incumbents in these seats at $1,031,027 and three open seats averaging $195,201.

An analysis of each of the Lean D sistricts and competes on particularly weak Republicans follows below the fold.  I’d include the entire spreadsheet but I don’t know how to import it.  

Republicans in D Land

D+7 is Delaware and Mike Castle.  Castle is sitting on $1,547,493.  Somebody, Jerry Northington, Dennis Spivack, Beau Biden, needs to make a run at him.  Ine run will probably cut this down to manageable and beatable size.  Yes, this is a sore spot.

D+5 is Chris Shays.  Shays scores well on Progressive Punch but he is not only a proponent of the Iraq War but is one of the most outspoken proponents of torture.  Even though the latest figures (April 20 from my notes) give him  $1,247,000 and a $200 K lead on Jim Himes we are in the ball park.  He won’t have Joe Lieberman’s coat tails this time.  We need to take him out this time.

D+4 leaves us with the well heeled Frank Lo Biondo (NJ-2) and the even heelier Mark Kirk.  Moderate Republicans but Kirk had the fight of his life last cycle and Dan Seals is back for more.  A lot of people talk about Obama’s coat tails.  Well, if it shows up anywhere this is it.  LoBiondo has had a series of free rides.  Time to give him a tussle.

D+3 gives us two races both open seats with a financial edge to the Democrats.  Yeah. baby.  In NJ-3, John Adler has $1,003,551 while the Republican is at $288,100.  Srick a fork in him?

In NY-25, Dan Maffei’s “opponent” has yet to show a $1 in the bank.  Maffei has $675,660.  I honestly think that the NY State GOP is conceding this House seat.

D+2 has four House seats held by Republicans with one, NM-1, open.  Looking good.  The lead Republican has $297,499.  Nice but not overwhelming.  Look for McCain to slurp up a lot of outside funding and for the GOP to leave this seat to fend for itself.  (you did see those Udall polls up-ticket)  The other three seats show one with an incumbent being outraised (WA-8) where Darcy Burner appears to have the edge (finally) on Dave Reichert.  Two others, both in PA, give the early money lead to the Republican incumbents.  Neither Gerlach in PA-6 ($714,580 to $168,259) nor Charlie Dent in PA-15 ($182,830) is home free by any means.

D+1 has only three seat including the weakest incumbent Republican on the board.  That’s Vito Fossella.  Fossella has only $248,100 in the bank and that’s after a vigorous fund raising campaign in the first quarter that rescued him from a pathetic $50 K cash on hand.  He’s cancelling fund raisers, enmeshed in scandals (plural, the DUI, the mistress, the child).  And he’s outraised by Recchia with new candidates from both parties chomping at the bit.  One has to go all the way to R+6 to find an incumbent Republican running for re-election with a smaller bank account than Vito Fossella (Ken Calvert of CA-44 and Tim Johnson of IL-15).

As for the other D+1 Republicans, Jon Porter has $1,083,693 in NV-3 and he will need it against Dina Titus.  Bill Young may get a vigorous challenge for once.  He was my congressman in the 70’s (and 80s) and is still there with $555,655 in the bank.  The GOP plan appears to be for Young, who has been in the House since 1970, to take it to re-districting. I haven’t seen it written anywhere but it makes sense.  In four years they hope to draw more friendly lines.  This seems to be our best chance before 2012.

Speaking of low hanging fruit, here come the underfunded and open seats:

NY-23 McHugh $261,698 (O, actually R+0.2)  Oot (not a typo)is seriously underfunded as his opponent but McHugh could be the victim of a late charge if the DCCC has money in its coffers.

NJ-7 Open, R+1.  Linda Stender has a serious cash lead ($845 K) as former firsr daughter Kate Whittman ($307 K) takes on Leonard Lance ($255 K)and others in a primary.  The district has already rejected another first child, Tom Keane, Jr., in a recent GOP primary duel.  We lost this seat by 2.000 votes last time with the Out of Iraq Now party or some such pulling 3,000.  Should win here.

MN-1 Open, R+1.  Jim Ramstad is gone but Ash Madia seems to be facing a money gap against Erik Paulsen.

MN-2, Kline, R+3.  This may be the sleeper of this cycle.  Kline is clearly conservative.  Ramstad and Bachmann’s districts will get the attention and Kline is sitting against Steve Sarvi with just $375 K in the bank.  Attack everywhere and someplace will be open (see Lincoln re: New Orleans capture).

OH-15, Open, R+1.  Mary Jo Kilroy came close last time and is a local official.  In some ways we may have the incumbency factor here.  Steve Stivers has done a great job of fund raising for the Republicans with $599,689.

VA-11, open, R+1.  Feels the same as OH-15.  Again, the GOP has raised cash here: $742,045.

AZ-1, open, R+2.  Scandal plagued Rick Renzi leaves this seat.  Ann Kirkpatrick has a 2-1 fund raising edge over “cowgirl” (not) Sydney Hay in a likely all-female faceoff.

CA-45, Bono Mack, R+3.  New husband (Connie Mack of FL-14) 3,000 miles away may cause Mary Bono Mack to leave this Palm Springs district a little unattended.  At $344,123 she’s one of the most poorly funded incumbents on this list.

NC-8, Robin Hates, R+3.  Self-funder Robin Hayes is loaded with $987 K against Larry Kissell.  No surprises this time, Larry.  Got to beat his pampered butt for real.

FL-15, open, R+4.  Nobody has really geared up to take Dave Weldon’s seat.  Why not us?

IL-18, open, R+5.  Aaron Schock is a loud mouthed kid who the GOP has annointed as a golden boy.  Only he has little cash advantage (only $188 k vs. over $100 K) vs. media savvy Coleen Callahan.  Save us from another one of these congressional brats.  Please.  We have a real good chance, here.

VA-10, Wolf, R+6.  Yes he’s got $715 K but Judy Feder can raise the green stuff, too.  The district is shading more blue.  Is this the time?

OH-7, open, R+6.  Their candidate has $51,819.

CA-44, Calvert, R+6.  Give it a whirl at $222 K.

CA-46, Rohrabacher, R+6.  $331 K in the bank.  Less than half the national average; 40% what the average incumbent carries on this list.

IL-15, Tim Johnson, R+6.  $106,759.  Johnson is a) principled, b)lazy, c)one heck of a poker player d) stupid/”lucky”.  Don’t know bur gee is that a tempting number to cause problems.

According to House Minority Leader John Boehner, the Republicans will begin by Wednesday unveiling a new campaign slogan for the 2008 election, running on the theme “Change You Deserve”.

Are you kidding me? Did Americans deserve 5000 soldiers dead in Iraq? Did they deserve trillions of dollars in debt? Did they deserve a recession, high gas prices, a declining environment, and 8 years of rancid corruption?

And to top that off, Boehner said this:

With both Democratic contenders for the presidency stressing messages of change, Boehner, R-Ohio, has challenged his members to help get the public to view the GOP as a vehicle for new ideas.

But Boehner spokesman Michael Steel admitted it is a work in progress. “It’s a goal that we can be viewed as agents of change,” he said.

What have these guys been smoking?  

(Fascinating stuff; be sure to check below the fold for the full analysis.  What’s your take? – promoted by James L.)

Based on recent generic ballot polls and the current distribution of Republican incumbent and open seats, Democrats would pick up about 25 more House seats in the 2008 election if it were held today.  Republicans might pick up a couple to offset that.

And that’s before we account for future Republican retirements and the massive fundraising advantage Dems have this year.

Of course, the generic ballot numbers will probably change over the next year, one way or the other.  Here’s how the number of House seats Democrats would win varies as the Democrats’ generic ballot advantage changes so you can keep track at home (based on retirements known as of November).  

Click to enlarge.

The colored bands show the maximum and minimum calculations, but the actual numbers are most likely to be close to the solid lines.  Currently the average Democratic generic ballot advantage is about 12; the max I’ve seen this year is 18, the min is 7.

Below, the explanation and the fine print.

Cross posted at DailyKos and Open Left.

Bonus Fun Calculation

If  Democrats in 2006 had had the same wealth of seats available to them to contest as Republicans did in 1994, they would have picked up an estimated 59 seats!  This means the election of 2006 was just as big a win for Democrats in terms of performance as the election of 1994 was for Republicans.

The Fine Print

1.  These calculations are based on the average generic ballot advantage in the final week of the campaign, which we don’t know yet.  All we know are what the current polls say.  So if Democrats maintain their current generic ballot advantage through the end of the campaign season, then we would expect 25 more Democratic seats.

2.  The calculations are based on the current known Republican retirements in the House.  The more Republican retirements, the better for Democrats.  I will post an update later in 2008 once retirements have settled out.

3.  I assume that the campaigns and party strategies in 2008 will be similar enough to those in 1994-2006.  This assumption could be wrong, if, for example, Democrats work just as hard at challenging incumbents as they do at going for open seats.  In that case, the current estimates would be a few seats too optimistic (but the generic ballot advantage would likely increase by a large amount and more than offset that).

4.  Strictly speaking, we wouldn’t want to make any predictions for a generic ballot advantage greater than what we saw in 2006, because it is beyond the range of previous experience.  I wouldn’t worry too much about going a little beyond the generic ballot advantage of 2006, but once we get up into the 18 point generic ballot advantage range, things get uncertain.  And at that point, who cares about predictions?  It would be celebration time….

Predicting the House

The relationship between generic ballot numbers and the numbers of seats won by Democrats is not that great.

Why not?  After all, the generic ballot number takes into account every major and minor factor in individual races, including the national mood.  

The problem is that the number and distribution of seats held by each party varies over time.  For example, in 1994, Republicans had a rich field of conservative and moderate districts held by Democrats to try to take.  Today, there are far fewer.  (Another problem may be changing political habits over long periods of time.)  Previous calculations that took the distribution of seats into account for the 2006 election were almost exactly right.

In this diary, I use the eight most recent elections to create a way to calculate the number of incumbent or open seats won by either party.  The only numbers needed for this calculation are the Democrats’ generic ballot advantage (from polls), the percent support for Bush in 2000 in each district, and the status of each race (incumbent Democrat, open seat held by Democrat, incumbent Republican, or open seat held by Republican).  Note that the best way make these calculations is to run thousands of simulations and count up the outcomes, something I did not do.

The Details

So, how does partisan makeup of a district relate to the chance of a seat switching parties, on average?  In 2006 we had a lot of seats switch from Republican to Democrat – so we can try to answer this question for the R to D switch at least.

Here’s a graph showing the percent chance that a seat switched when the incumbent was a Republican.  The data are divided into categories with a range of 3 points in Bush’s 2000 vote.  Please note:  this graph, or any of the following, is not useful for predicting the chance of a specific seat changing parties in the 2008 elections.

Click to enlarge.

There’s a regular and not unsurprising pattern here.  Democrats were more likely to win in the more moderate districts.  Looking at the data another way (not shown) leads me to believe this is pretty close to the shape of a common type of curve, so we can model it:

Click to enlarge.

The ‘center’ of the curve shows us where Democrats were able to win 50% of the Republican seats: in districts where Bush received 44% of the vote.  Now let’s add in open seats held by Republicans:

Click to enlarge.

With far fewer open seats, the data points look far less organized.  Note that the curve for open seats shifts 8 points to the right.  This shows us the total advantage of being a Republican incumbent.  Of this advantage, 2 points can be accounted for by the inherent incumbency advantage identified after taking fundraising into account (name recognition and so forth); the rest is probably attributable to stronger opponents with more money running for open seats.

These curves have two numbers that are used to describe them: one tells us where the center is – what the level of Bush support was in 2000 in districts where Democrats won 50% of the time – and the other tells us how steep the curve is.  The steepness is about the same for incumbents and open seats.  

At this point we could quit and go home and use these curves alone, because as it turns out, the generic ballot for 2008 is sitting right about where the generic ballot for 2006 was.  But we’d like to get some idea of the possible range we might see for a given generic ballot number, and what happens if the generic ballot numbers change.  

The only other recent year with a fair number of Democrats winning Republican seats is 1996, but it’s still not enough to get a very accurate curve.  Even so, when you look at the numbers, the steepness is not significantly different from the 2006 curves.  The center is shifted 7 points to the left.

But what about the other years?  It turns out we have another way to estimate the center.  We can plot the percent that voted for the Republican in each district versus the percent Bush had in 2000, and with a regression curve, estimate where half the Republicans lose (fall below 50%), which is our number for the center of the curve.  Several different types of regressions lead to similar numbers.

If we assume the curves all had the same steepness in every year, we can check our estimates by seeing if we can predict how many Republican seats Democrats won in each year by multiplying the number of districts with a given support of Bush in 2000 by the chance that districts with that level of support were won by Democrats.  This is repeated for incumbent seats and open seats.  The center is shifted 8 points to the right for open seats.  As it turns out, these estimates work great.  

Repeating the process for Democratic-held seats, using the 1994 election as a basis, is a little trickier because Democrats seem to be a lot better at holding on to seats in conservative districts.  The upshot is the estimates of Republican wins of Democratic seats have a lot more error associated with them.  Fortunately, right now the generic ballot is in the range where even a large relative error in the number of seats picked up by Republicans doesn’t make much difference – 1 plus or minus 300% is still only a few seats.  But, what we can do now is generate some rough curves for Democratic seats in 2006, even though no Democrats lost their seats.  And for fun, let’s look at 1994 too.

Click to enlarge.

One thing that jumps out is that Democrats seem to have a much bigger total incumbency advantage than Republicans.  This, again, may be related to the tendency of Democrats who represent conservative districts to retain their seats.  Or, the Republicans maybe have a bigger actual total incumbency advantage than the 8 points found above.

Now, the key question: can we predict where the center of these curves will be from polling data?  Here’s a graph of the estimated or modeled center versus the final week’s generic ballot advantage for Democrats running against Republican incumbents:

Click to enlarge.

Looks good.  Two points are hollow – 1994 and 1996 – because I am not sure I have all the polling in the average (the other years came from pollingreport.com).  The line is about the same with or without those two points though.  The dashed lines show the range we expect the center to be in 95% of the time, given a known generic ballot advantage.  So now we have a way to relate the generic ballot to the center of our curves up above, and we can use the curves to estimate the number of Republican seats won by Democrats:

Click to enlarge.

Not too shabby.  If you split it up between open and incumbent seats, the calculations for incumbents are usually a little too optimistic, and the calculations for open seats are a little too pessimistic.  This might mean the actual total incumbency advantage for Republicans is more like 10-12 points than the 8 points calculated above for 2006.    

Repeating the exercise with Democratic-held seats results in a much greater error, as there was more error in generating the curves for each year, but again, this doesn’t matter much at the current generic ballot range.

Thus Ends the Adventure

This is the last in a short series related to House elections.  Other diaries discuss the current political climate nationally and factors such as retirements, recruitment, and fundraising in the House races; the the changing landscape in the House since 1994 as far as the seats controlled by each party; the change in voting behavior at the presidential level from 1988 to 2004 (with an eye towards the next redistricting session); and finally, two more diaries showing how much various factors (money, incumbency, party, scandal) hurt or help candidates for the House on average.

Give thanks that this is not your party:

Nov. 20, 2007:

[New York state Assemblyman Greg] Ball is concerned about the electoral outlook for the GOP in the 2008 election cycle.

“George Bush has not only hurt the Republican Party, he’s left the nation without leadership,” the Republican state lawmaker said. “It’s going to be a tough year to run as a Republican at the national level.”

Nov. 20, 2007:

“There’s a big difference between federal and state politics. In Trenton, Democrats had a chance to govern and they did not do well. In Washington, everything hinges now on the economy and on the Iraq War,” [NJ GOP Assembly Minority Whip Jon] Bramnick told PolitickerNJ.com.

Nov. 19, 2007:

“It should be an area of deep concern to Republicans of all stripes. Once you lose the vital center, then you begin to lose the claim that you are the majority party,” said former Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, a moderate Republican who retired in 2006.

He said that in more than four decades in political life, he’s never seen “a higher degree of partisanship or a higher level of intolerance for another point of view.”

Sept. 15, 2007:

“I believe for any Republican to win in 2008, they have to have a clean break and offer a dramatic, bold change,” [Newt Gingrich] said. “If we nominate somebody who has not done that… they’re very, very unlikely to win it.”

Apr. 11, 2007:

“The war in Iraq and public opposition to it has put a pall on Republicans,” said John C. Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri.

“My level of concern and dismay is very, very high,” said Mickey Edwards, a Republican former congressman from Oklahoma who is now a lecturer in public policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. “It’s not that I have any particular problem with the people who are running for the Republican nomination. I just don’t know how they can run hard enough or fast enough to escape the gravitational pull of the Bush administration.”

“We don’t have any candidates in the field now who are compelling,” Mr. Edwards said, adding: “It’s going to be a tough year for us.”

Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, said the party’s presidential candidates were being whipsawed as they tried to appeal to conservative voters who have a history of strong views on issues like abortion and gay rights. “These tests are destroying the Republican Party,” Mr. Simpson said.

Apr. 2, 2007:

“People are concerned and worried about the party’s prospects,” said Steve Duprey, former chairman of the New Hampshire GOP and a backer of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the White House race.

“There’s a certain nervousness I hear that if the war is going badly and we’re still in this intractable fight between a Democratic Congress and President Bush about the course of the war, we may have a tough time.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said, however, that the painful lessons of 2006 have yet to be learned. “I don’t think there has yet been a full appreciation for what just happened” in the November elections, Pawlenty said. “There remains an element of denial about the message that was just sent and the reality we face.”

What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?

These are just a few of my favorite bits of Republican misfortune this year. I’m sure you can think of more.

• VA-Sen: A seat your party holds in a purple-trending state somewhat unexpectedly opens up. The good news is that you have an ideal successor, ready-to-go. He’s won hard-fought elections, cultivated a “moderate” record, and has tons of cash in the bank. What do you do? Well, obviously, if you are the modern Republican Party, you tell him to fuck off. Congrats and thanks to the VA GOP for running Tom Davis out of town by cancelling their primary and scheduling a wingnut festival instead.
• NY-19: The gall! The unmitigated gall! How could a Democrat ever dare to represent Westchester! Why, such things just aren’t done! Well, of course they are (after all, a Dem represents the 18th), but so said the NY GOP after 2006. So they set their sights on Rep. John Hall and rallied around uber-rich self-funder Andrew Saul. Only problem: After months of gangbusters fundraising, it turns out Saul’s up to his ears in ethics violations – and now out of the race. A Republican engaging in corruption? Why, such things just aren’t done!
• NJ-07: Here’s a job no Republican wants: food-taster for Markos Moulitsas. Here’s another job no Republican wants, either: United States Representative for New Jersey’s Seventh Congressional District. Within just a single day of this seat opening up, Tom Kean, Jr., Jon Bramnick and Bob Franks all took a pass. Three up, three down, end of the inning. Better luck in the next frame, compadres.
• OH-15: First there was Jim Petro. But Petro said no. Then there was Steve Stivers. But Stivers said no. Then there was Jim Hughes, but Jim Hughes said no. Then there was Greg Lashutka but Lashutka said no. Then, there was… three months of silence. And finally, Steve Stivers decided he was fer it after he was agin’ it, undoubtedly after Tom Cole twisted his arm 180 degrees behind his back. Hint to Republicans: Money won’t spring loose if you shove it the full 360. Nor will victory.
• CT-02: The NRCC called him a “heavyweight.” Thing is, Mike Tyson is also a heavyweight. No, Sean Sullivan doesn’t sport any facial tattoos, but he might as well be wearing a scarlet letter, given how unloved he is these days in DC. “Persona non grata,” declared one insider after Sully scraped together a miserable $25K in the second quarter. Personally, I prefer another Latin phrase: bigus dickus. Good luck, skipper.

Crumb-bums will be crumb-bums; they can’t help it – it’s just in their nature.

[Originally posted at Senate 2008 Guru: Following the Races.]

It seems like Republicans are doing, as Mitch McConnell might say, their “Washington best” to lower expectations for the 2008 Senate elections.  Here is a collection of interesting quotes from Republicans in the know regarding the ’08 Senate races.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell:

Republicans are unlikely to win back control of the Senate in 2008, their Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, said Friday, gloomily predicting that “holding our own is about all we could hope for.” … “It would take an extraordinarily good day to get back up to 50. So our goal is to stay roughly where we are.” [CNN, 7/20/07]

(Much more below the fold.)

NRSC Chair John Ensign:

“If you scratch the surface, things don’t look necessarily that good,” he said. “But when you get below the surface, things aren’t nearly as bad as what they could be.” [Associated Press, 9/9/07]

and

In a “wide-ranging” interview, Ensign “acknowledged that his party faces a steep, uphill climb in next year’s Senate elections when 21 Republican seats will be up for grabs, compared with 12 for the Democrats.” [Washington Times, 3/26/07]

NRSC Communications Director Rebecca Fisher:

Rebecca Fisher, communications director for the NRSC, acknowledged “the mountain that we’re up against,” but predicted success. [USINFO, 9/10/07]

Anonymous GOP Operative:

“About the only safe Republican Senate seats in ’08 are the ones that aren’t on the ballot,” a GOP operative with extensive experience in Senate races said. “I don’t see even the rosiest scenario where we don’t end up losing more seats.” [Washington Post, 9/2/07]

Unnamed Republican Senators:

“Republican Senators are now talking about losing four seats in 2008.” [Evans-Novak Political Report, 8/29/07]

It is shaping up like Republican leadership expects a four-seat net loss to be the best-case scenario.  I expect we’ll see more commentary from Republicans along these lines as the races further develop.  If you’ve seen any similar quotes already, share them in the comments.