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So here we sit out from election 2008 some several months and some days. Things aren’t exactly great for us. The Dems have a 77 seat advantage on us in the House, and sit two seats shy of a filibuster in the Senate. They occupy the White House and are about to start packing the federal courts with some of the most left-wing justices you’ve ever seen. We’ve been clobbered in two straight legislative elections and may well be sitting on a period of 36 years of Democratic dominance in the presidency. Admittedly, this is a bleak position for the party. However, there is some light at the end of the tunnel, and a lot of things to look forward to:
1. 2010 the hemorrhaging stops, one way or the other:
We may not make a huge comeback in 2010, in fact a lot of the math indicates it will be quite the contrary. But, this is the last one where we can expect to reach any new lows. In the House there’s going to be a TON of Democrats who barely won their elections in 2008 and will face redoubled efforts on the part of the RNC, this time without Obama on the ticket. Already scads of districts are seeing rematch elections from 2008. The differences this time will be principally that there’s no charismatic leader to drag them over the finish line, and generally Democratic turnout drops like a stone in midterms. Furthermore, there just isn’t a case to run against Republicans this time around. The Dems have the reigns this time, and they’ve really tapped out the well on voter need to kick out the GOP. In the Senate things don’t look very good. This is class III which is the last Republican heavy class. Very few Democratic vulnerabilities exist to date, and the likelihood is that none will really develop. We’ll probably drop enough Senate seats to where the Democrats get two years of filibuster-proof majority. That’s the bad news. The good news is that it ends there. The Dems will have hit their Senate ceiling and it gets no worse from there.
2. Demographic estimates auger very well for the GOP in the 2010 Census.
The US census comes up in 2010. The ensuing redistricting, according to the best estimates, predict a windfall for the GOP. Texas is expected to pick up 4 additional seats. Arizona should get 2. Georgia, South Carolina, and Utah should each get one. The longshot in the bunch is that North Carolina might gain one. Other estimates are that sometimes Republican friendly Nevada and Florida are both looking for one seat gains. The good news is where these seats are coming from: Blue States. Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania are each looking to cough up a seat. The biggest loss will come from Ohio which is looking to lose two. The longshot is that California might lose one. Other gains and losses are in there, but long story short, Red States can look to pick up 6 additional seats at the expense of the Dems, and they’ll be picked up in states where the GOP controls the legislatures and will probably control the Governorships too. The even better news is that two censuses since the 2000 election have advantaged states George W. Bush carried over Al Gore. The new Census looks to advantage states McCain carried over Obama. This sort of growth has given us significant wiggle room over the 2000 map. If election 2000 were carried out using the 2012 projected electoral vote, Bush would have had 285 electoral votes, 15 more than needed. It’s not enough to lose Ohio and be safe, but it is enough to give us wiggle room with some of the states that are getting more tenuous to carry. It will render New Hampshire and Nevada “dropable” from the 2000 formula. That augers very well for GOP chances in 2012.
3. Obama stopped being history on November 4, 2008.
The US did it already. We made history. Now he’s on the job, and 2012 is a referendum on how he did that. That means he’s at the mercy of externalities largely out of his control (or what he’s done that may have exacerbated such situations). Obama won’t get the blame for the recession, but he will get the blame if things haven’t improved appreciably by 2012. That means the electorate is likely to be pissed at the Dems for not only failing to revitalize the economy, but for spending a couple trillion in the throes of the failure. Europe will start behaving like Europe sooner or later. When they do the argument for Obama the foreign PR agent goes right out the window. Then the argument turns into; he closed Gitmo, he deferred to Europe on a slate of issues, he changed our domestic policies to look just like theirs, and they still hate us. Why bother putting Obama back if this is the way they’re going to be? And if, God forbid, there is a terrorist attack on this country, it happened on Obama’s watch, not Bush’s. And, the later in his term it comes, the worse it looks for him.
4. 2012 Congressional Republicans should make a comeback.
Given several factors, the GOP should be in a good position to rebound in 2012 irrespective of the presidential results. Redistricting should yield a significant advantage to the GOP, particularly if the state houses swing heavy in our favor in 2010. The Census should give us six new seats to play with, and states losing seats sometimes have a nasty habit of shifting the balance of congressional control in the state even though they didn’t get any extra seats to play with. In the Senate there is zero room for Democratic pickups. Only 9 GOP seats will be up, all are safe. The Democrats, however, could have a number of seats in play. Montana, Virginia, and Missouri are all normally red states with Democrats who in 2006 won election by the narrowest of margins. That puts John Tester, Claire McCaskill, and Jim Webb all on the defensive. Further, Robert Byrd could very well retire (or die), and leave this newfound red state looking for new Senate representation. New York has a brand-spanking new Senator who could face a tough fight as well.
5. 2014 could be the 6th year of a two-term presidency.
Though it means 8 years of Obama, it is good news for two reasons. First, 6 year midterms usually post gains for the opposition party. Second, this will be the 2008 midterm class, and so there will be some room for significant Republican gains. Class II is a more heavily Democratic class than Republican right now. At least a few Democrats were elected by tight margins in 2008, and they will be significant targets this time around. Begich in Alaska is almost certainly out. He could barely beat Ted Stevens, Sarah Palin will probably be ripe for this seat by then. Jeff Merkley in Oregon will be a target, as will Kay Hagan in North Carolina. After that there’s a lot of reaching to do, but in a good year could be realized. Mark Udall in Colorado looks far less secure than his brother in New Mexico. Landrieu in Louisiana always sits on the edge of vulnerability. A Bobby Jindal challenge might be just what is needed to knock her out once and for all. Jeanne Shaheen had a close fight against Sununu, underperforming Obama in the state. That could be ripe for a rematch. After that there’s some promising conditionals out there. Tom Harkin will be 75, he might consider packing it in. Carl Levin will be 80, there’s a strong chance he might decide six terms is enough. Frank Lautenberg will be 90, and he quit the job once before, so there is a near certainty he will be done after this. Tim Johnson had a brush with death not long ago, so he might reconsider another term. The good news is there’s few to no vulnerabilities for Republicans in this class, which means virtually all efforts can focus on picking up Senate and Congressional seats.
2016 and beyond are simply too far into the future to predict. It will depend a lot on events yet to happen. Who could have predicted, even after 2004, that Republicans 4 short years later would have taken such a huge dive? But the indicators look good. It certainly isn’t time to rest on our laurels, but the early indicators are very good indeed. Now, there’s some important work to be done:
-Fill out your Census form. The more of us that fill out, the more likely we are to get seats apportioned to friendly Republican territory.
-We must win the 2010 state races! Get familiar with and spread the word about the Republicans running in your state house and senate races. These will be the bodies that determine the redistricting for the 2012 elections. The better we do in 2010, the better we do in 2012.
-Minorities, we need them, and we need a message that appeals to them. That means we might need to give on a few issues. The Democrats largely neutralized us in the south by compromising on the guns and abortion issues. We need to give up on some ares of concern to minority groups to get some more of them on board. Sure, everyone loves the rule of law at all costs on the immigration issue, but is that more important to you than a government that won’t give mass pardons to hardened terrorists?
-Good recruitment is more essential for the legislative races than executive ones. 2012 will basically decide itself as a presidential election. We’re either going to win or lose. We need our best candidates leading the congressional charge. If we’re going to lose it’s sufficient simply to put up someone against Obama who won’t get absolutely killed like Goldwater did in 1964.
If we can get to work on these four, we’ve got a good future in front of us.
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