GOP Can Take the Senate

Unlike those Democrats who criticized Robert Gibbs for suggesting that the Republicans might take back both the House of Representatives and the Senate, I think that the White House Press Secretary was right on target with his comment. I'll leave the more complicated House picture for others to analyze (it's considered more likely to switch parties anyway). Instead, I'll look at the Senate, which currently favors the Democrats over the Republicans 59-41.

That margin means that the GOP would need to pick up ten seats in order to wrest away control, since as Vice-President, Joe Biden can cast tie-breaking votes should a 50-50 situation result (which happened briefly in the first few months of 2001, with VP Cheney making similar tie-breaking Senate appearances for the Republicans). Since about only a third of the seats are up for election, there would have to be a remarkable change in the Senate's party composition for the Democrats to lose ten seats. Let's look at this.

The website RealClearPolitics is very good at keeping abreast of the various public opinion polls for races nationwide. By looking at them on a state-by-state basis, I came to my first conclusion: the Republicans will probably hold on to all of the seats they currently hold (even though Ohio seems like a potential loss right now with it being relatively close). This might change during the last few weeks of the campaign as Tea Party GOP candidates Miller and Paul, although currently ahead of their Democratic opponents, appear to be vulnerable in their respective states of Alaska and Kentucky. Assuming though, that they win and retain their party's seats, then what about those currently-Democratic seats in play this year? In Arkansas, North Dakota, Delaware, and Indiana, it is a bygone near-certainty that they will go Republican, taking the Dem lead down to 55-45. But that's still a clear majority, right?

There are several other races where Democratic Senate seats are in trouble. Incumbent Bennet is behind in the Colorado polls. Now we're at 54-46. In California, Washington, Wisconsin, Illinois and Nevada, the polls have the two main candidates in each race pretty much even. That's five seats, and the Republicans are drawing a much higher, more enthusiastic voter turnout in this election season. So unless the trends reverse themselves, all of these seats could easily go Republican, giving them the 51-49 margin they need to run things as a majority party in the Senate.

Although personally a Democrat, I don't see Republican control of both houses of Congress as necessarily such a bad thing. For one, it would makes Obama's reelection in 2012 much more viable, given the almost constant "blame Congress first" mindset on the part of the American public no matter which party is in control. Secondly, losing control of Congress might just be the thing to wake up those inexplicably apathetic Democrats who apparently are destined to sit out this year's election (I don't get people who won't vote because of lack of enthusiasm).

On the down side, it would be harder for Obama to get his judicial nominations confirmed. I imagine that at least one more Supreme Court justice may retire during the President's first term. Also, whenever the opposition party takes control of Congress during an administration's tenure, they almost always begin to start probing around with investigations and "independent" prosecutors to uncover (or manufacture) scandals within that administration. I don't see any change from this pattern happening with Obama and the Republicans.

Still, it's only the beginning of September and we have two full months to go. But I have yet to see the Democrats show the kind of aggressive ads that they would need to have at least a fighting chance. Certainly they have enough material they can use to attack the Republicans. Why aren't they barraging the media with it?