{"id":1017,"date":"2009-09-01T08:58:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-01T12:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/09\/01\/republican-landslide\/"},"modified":"2009-09-01T08:58:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-01T12:58:00","slug":"republican-landslide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2009\/09\/01\/republican-landslide\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican landslide?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Update:  I&#8217;ve added a link regarding my mention of Larouche supporters.<\/p>\n<p>Republicans &#8212; and some independent pundits &#8212; are predicting sizable gains for the GOP in November 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Call me agnostic.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s no doubt but that President Barack Obama&#8217;s luster has faded since January &#8212; call it freshman jitters, mixed with a natural erosion of post-election euphoria.<\/p>\n<p>That means Democrats who won election in Republican-leaning districts could be more vulnerable, thanks to the shifting zeitgeist.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s also traditional for the party of the President to lose seats in mid-term elections and Republicans have had a good fundraising season.<\/p>\n<p>Will those factors cohere into a political wave, allowing the GOP to seize 10-20 seats?  Maybe.<\/p>\n<p>Here are three reasons for skepticism:<\/p>\n<p>1.  The devil&#8217;s in the details.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/corporate.cq.com\/wmspage.cfm?parm1=369\">Congressional Quarterly<\/a> is predicting that 59 of the top 100 most vulnerable House seats are held by Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>But they also point out that three of the four seats most likely to change hands are now held by Republicans.<\/p>\n<p>To build a wave, you need lots of wins without too many off-setting losses.<\/p>\n<p>2.  The Senate still looks shaky for the GOP.<\/p>\n<p>Of the seven Senate seats considered &#8220;toss-ups&#8221; by CQ, five are currently held by Republicans .<\/p>\n<p>That means Dems have a real shot at expanding their 60-seat majority in the Senate.  If that happens, the GOP could find itself even more marginalized.<\/p>\n<p>3.  Town Hallers and Birthers aren&#8217;t battle tested.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;ve made a lot of noise and won a lot of face-time on cable news.  But will they turn out to vote?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe so.  Hatred of George Bush motivated a lot of liberals in 2006 and 2008.  A similar backlash could develop here.<\/p>\n<p>But a lot of these activists are libertarians, <a href=\"http:\/\/voices.washingtonpost.com\/capitol-briefing\/2009\/08\/town_hall_talk_frank_grills_op.html\">Lyndon Larouche<\/a> supporters, and Ron Paulites.  It&#8217;s unclear whether they&#8217;ll jump on the GOP bandwagon.<\/p>\n<p>One thing&#8217;s certain.  Both parties will look to the special election in New York&#8217;s 23rd district as an early barometer of next year&#8217;s climate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Update: I&#8217;ve added a link regarding my mention of Larouche supporters. Republicans &#8212; and some [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}