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Dems Start to Panic as Reality of Midterm Woes Sets In




Under pressure, the Democrats are cracking. On both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, there is a realization that Nancy Pelosi's hold on the speakership is in true jeopardy; that losing control of the Senate is not out of the question; and that time, once the Democrats' best friend, is now their mortal enemy. Since January, when Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's Massachusetts Senate seat, the President's party has tried to downplay in public what its pollsters have been saying in private: that Obama's alienation of independents and white voters, along with the enthusiasm gap between the right and the left, means that Republicans are on a trajectory to pick up massive numbers of House and Senate seats, perhaps even to regain control of Congress.


Evidence of the pervasiveness of this view: Sunday's New York Times op-ed page, which featured a series of short essays from leading Democratic and Republican strategists about how Obama could go about staging a political comeback, focused not on November's midterms but on 2012 — an indication that Washington conventional wisdom has already written off prospects of Democrats sustaining a majority in the legislature.


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2004646,00.html#ixzz0u8Ir6CkL

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GOP Sees Path to Control of Senate

WASHINGTON—Democrats for the first time are acknowledging that Republicans could retake the Senate this November if everything falls into place for the GOP, less than two years after Democrats held a daunting 60-seat majority.Leaders of both parties have believed for months that Republicans could win the House, where every lawmaker faces re-election. But a change of party control in the Senate, where only a third of the members are running and Republicans must capture 10 seats, seemed out of the question.


That's no longer the case. The emergence of competitive Republican candidates in Wisconsin, Washington and California—Democratic-leaning states where polls now show tight races—bring the number of seats that Republicans could seize from the Democrats to 11.


Democrats now control the Senate 59-41—after the death of Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who was replaced by Republican Sen. Scott Brown—including two independents who usually vote with them. That means Republicans need 10 seats to take a 51-49 advantage.


Republicans would have to win virtually every competitive race to retake the Senate, without losing any seats of their own—clearly an uphill climb. The trouble for Democrats is that many trends are against them. Surveys show that Republicans are more motivated than Democrats to go to the polls, and that voters are looking for new leadership in Congress.


"I think there is definitely a chance" of losing the Senate, said Democratic strategist Gary Nordlinger, a Washington-based media consultant. "I wouldn't call it a probability, but there is certainly a chance."

Full article at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704875004575375122374132154.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

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ORIGINAL: rulemylife

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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic

No, Sanity. It's ok. Really. Joe Biden was on the talk shows saying the Dems are going to hold the House and Senate. They can all just relax. Really.

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ORIGINAL: mnottertail

Historical evidence of the pattern,  going back further than Abe Lincoln and continuing right up to W. (And no reason to believe anything would change the trend this mid-term). 

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ORIGINAL: mnottertail

Historical evidence of the pattern,  going back further than Abe Lincoln and continuing right up to W. (And no reason to believe anything would change the trend this mid-term). 

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ORIGINAL: Sanity


It would probably help the Dems if the president were popular. Or if the speaker were popular. Or if the majority leader were popular...

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ORIGINAL: domiguy

Wilbur, when are they capping the well or when will Holder be forced to step down?