primitives discuss endangered Democrat senators

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7689098

Oh my.

But it's only February; too early to know anyway, who's going to win, and who's not.

Time for change  (1000+ posts)         Wed Feb-10-10 08:04 PM
Original message
 
5 Most Highly Vulnerable Senate Dems Signal Consequences of Right Turn by Democratic Party 

A recent analysis of 2010 US Senate races by Nate Silver provides bad news for Democrats. Among the 9 Senate seats most likely to change parties, 8 are currently held by Democrats. Those seats include 4 that will be open, including 3 currently held by Democrats (ND, IL, DE) and 5 that will feature Democratic incumbents. The Democratic Party fares no better in the House, for which recent polls show the national electorate leaning Republican. That means the House could easily change parties, unless something significant happens between now and November.

Given that our corporate media, Republicans and conservative Democrats are trying to spin the Democratic Party’s declining fortunes as being due to over-reaching too far to the left, it would be instructive to consider the nature of the five Democratic Senators whose chances for re-election appear to be most seriously endangered for 2010.

Consideration of the 5 most highly endangered Democratic Senators

According to Nate Silver’s analysis, the five most highly endangered Democratic Senators are:

Blanche Lincoln (chances of re-election if she survives the primary 21% to 39%, depending upon opposition)
Harry Reid (chances of re-election if he survives the primary 10% to 20%, depending upon opposition)
Arlen Specter (chances of re-election if he survives the primary 27%)
Michael Bennet (chances of re-election if he survives the primary 27% to 47%, depending upon opposition)
Evan Bayh (chances of re-election 63%)

One could argue about the precise chances of re-election for each of these Senators. But I think there is little doubt that each of them is in substantial trouble.

The other Democratic Senators who are up for re-election in 2010 are Boxer, Inouye, Mikulski, Schumer, Gillibrand, Wyden, Leahy, Murray, and Feingold. Each of those Senators was ranked ideologically among the 33 most liberal US Senators in the 110th Congress, according to a frequently cited political analysis of US Senators. By contrast, only one of the five most highly vulnerable Senators (Reid) was ranked among the 33 most liberal Senators of the 110th Congress, and one other (Bennet) was not a US Senator in 2008. Further consideration of the individual vulnerable Democratic Senators provides additional clues to the trouble in which the Democratic Party now finds itself.

Blanche Lincoln

Blanche Lincoln was ranked among the 7 most conservative Democratic Senators of the 110th Congress. But probably more important than that in her likely political demise was her insistence on fighting against meaningful health care reform. Having the option of government administered health insurance has long been very popular with the American people. An August 2009 poll clearly made that point. The poll asked:

In any health care proposal, how important do you feel it is to give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance – extremely important, quite important, not that important, or not at all important?

The poll results showed that 77% of Americans feel that it is either “extremely important” (58%) or “quite important” (19%). All demographic groups and categories of Americans believe this, even including 67% of self-identified conservatives and 71% of Republicans – as explained in this post.

Yet, Lincoln apparently felt that currying favor with the health insurance industry was more important than what her constituents wanted. She was one of 9 Democratic Senators who made an active (and successful) effort to ensure that federally administered health care (the public option) was left out of any health care “reform” passed by Congress. Specifically, in November 2009 she said about the Senate health care proposal:

I’m prepared to vote against moving to the next stage of consideration as long as a government-run public option is included.

Her intense opposition to the public option is now very well known. That wasn’t previously the case. In July 2009, Lincoln wrote in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: "Individuals should be able to choose from a range of quality health insurance plans. Options should include private plans as well as a quality, affordable public plan or non-profit plan that can accomplish the same goals as those of a public plan.” At that time her Senate seat was not considered to be highly endangered. Now her US Senate career appears to be near extinction.

Harry Reid

Reid is the only currently endangered Senate Democrat whose voting record in the 110th Congress was not substantially to the right of most Democratic Senators. But his situation is precarious because of his position as Senate Majority Leader. In that position Americans holds him substantially responsible for what Congress accomplishes or fails to accomplish. Currently he is unpopular with the Right because he’s a Democrat, and he’s not very popular with the Left because Congress has fallen far short of their expectations.

But it’s more than that. It has to do with what many progressives/liberals see as his lack of leadership on important progressive issues – especially healthcare. Chris Weigant summed up some of the most important problems with that leadership in this November post:

Reid has shown over and over again that he simply does not know how to negotiate in a timely fashion. He usually begins negotiating by publicly stating he will be throwing away all his best leverage in the negotiations – making it much easier for his opponents to defeat him. He has put up with so many delaying tactics on healthcare… Meaning Reid has left everyone with very little elbow room. Which makes it all the easier for opponents to defeat the whole effort… The buck stops at Harry's desk, as the leader of the Senate Democrats.

As if all of this weren't enough, Reid just announced that he's no longer even considering reconciliation as a last resort. Once again, Reid takes the most powerful weapon at his disposal and, instead of wielding it forcefully, actually chucks it over the side of the boat instead. This seems to be Harry's standard operating procedure – surrender before the fight begins.

Arlen Specter

Specter was rated as the fifth least conservative Republican of the 110th Congress. But that’s not saying much, as he voted for whatever George W. Bush wanted the good majority of the time – as did virtually all Senate Republicans. And his voting record was to the right of any Senate Democrat.

Specter must have seen the hand-writing on the wall, as he recently switched to the Democratic Party. His record has been mixed since that time, and he now seems less conservative than the Blue Dog Senate Democrats, such as Lincoln and Bayh. But his party switch have been too little too late. It seems unlikely that after 44 years as a loyal elected Republican, including 29 years as a Republican US Senator from Pennsylvania, that many Pennsylvania Democrats see him as a true Democrat.

Michael Bennet

Bennet was not part of the 110th Congress. He became a US Senator from Colorado in January 2009, when Ken Salazar was appointed Secretary of the Interior. So Bennet doesn’t yet have much of a record. As a freshman Senator who has never previously run for elective office, Bennet faces special difficulties in his re-election bid. Nate Silver rates him as the second most conservative of the ten current Democratic freshman US Senators.

Evan Bayh

Bayh was rated the most conservative Democratic US Senator of the 110th Congress. Worse yet, he was the initiator of the Blue Dog Democratic caucus in the Senate. Worse still, he has been one of the 9 most obstructive Democratic Senators on health care reform, as he even opposed getting around Republican filibusters through the reconciliation process.

Conclusion

Political parties often face difficulties and do poorly in mid-term elections, especially when the economy is not doing well. In that respect, the Democratic Party of 2010 is no exception to the rule.

But the Democratic Party needs to recognize that moving to the right – in other words, kowtowing to corporate interests to the detriment of the American people – is not the answer to their problems, and is likely to result in massive losses in Congress if it continues. To the contrary, it has been the failure of the Democratic Party to do more to improve the lives of ordinary Americans – as did President Roosevelt and his New Deal Congress during our last depression – that has disappointed so many Americans. This failure has pulled down the whole Democratic Party. But it is mostly the more conservative Democrats who are in endangered, not the more progressive ones.

Health care especially is likely to be a major factor in the mid-term elections of 2010. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman summarized this issue last summer:

Voters are ready for major change. The question now is whether we will nonetheless fail to get that change, because a handful of Democratic senators are still determined to party like it’s 1993… The Republicans, with a few possible exceptions, have decided to do all they can to make the Obama administration a failure. Their role in the health care debate is purely that of spoilers who keep shouting the old slogans – Government-run health care! Socialism! Europe! – hoping that someone still cares.

The polls suggest that hardly anyone does. Voters, it seems, strongly favor a universal guarantee of coverage… What’s more, they overwhelmingly favor precisely the feature of Democratic plans that Republicans denounce most fiercely as “socialized medicine” – the creation of a public health insurance option that competes with private insurers…

The real risk is that health care reform will be undermined by “centrist” Democratic senators who either prevent the passage of a bill or insist on watering down key elements of reform. I use scare quotes around “centrist,” by the way, because if the center means the position held by most Americans, the self-proclaimed centrists are in fact way out in right field.

What the balking Democrats seem most determined to do is to kill the public option, either by eliminating it or by carrying out a bait-and-switch, replacing a true public option with something meaningless… Honestly, I don’t know what these Democrats are trying to achieve… If I had to guess, I’d say that what’s really going on is that relatively conservative Democrats still cling to the old dream of becoming kingmakers, of recreating the bipartisan center that used to run America. But this fantasy can’t be allowed to stand in the way of giving America the health care reform it needs.

Well, they already have killed the public option. And they’ve fallen short on other needed progressive changes as well, such as producing an inadequate stimulus bill and an inadequate energy bill. If they continue to fail to use their huge majorities in Congress to put the American people ahead of their corporate donors the mid-term elections of 2010 could produce huge Democratic losses in Congress that shut the door to meaningful progress for a good long time.

I think there's more than just 5 Democrat senators on the endangered species list, but November's far away yet; we'll see.

NorthCarolina  (1000+ posts)        Wed Feb-10-10 08:15 PM
NON-DONOR TO SKINS'S ISLAND
Response to Original message

2. Bayh 63% chance of re-election?

Now that's pretty damn depressing.

Well, now that Dan Coats is in the race, probably less so.

provis99  (1000+ posts)       Wed Feb-10-10 08:22 PM
Response to Original message
 
3. Obama won Indiana for Democrats for the first time since 1964.

Bayh would be a shoo-in if if followed on Obama's coattails. Instead, he stupidly insists on becoming more and more right wing, endangering his chances for re-election because he can't read a damned Indiana poll.

If Bayh were more liberal, given the current ideological sway in Indiana, his re-election chance would be 100%, rather than 63%. 63% chance of re-election is piss poor given that incumbent Senators have a 92% chance of re-election every election cycle.

notesdev  (1000+ posts)        Wed Feb-10-10 09:20 PM
NON-DONOR TO SKINS'S ISLAND
Response to Reply #3

7. Obama's coattails were pretty short in duration, I mean. Olympics, Copenhagen, VA, NJ, and MA... even the sports teams he roots for lose!

cali  (1000+ posts)        Wed Feb-10-10 08:26 PM
NON-DONOR TO SKINS'S ISLAND
THE BITTER OLD VERMONTESE CALI PRIMITIVE
Response to Original message

4. not that I don't agree that it's a huge mistake for the dems to keep swerving to the right but this analysis is seriously flawed. There is a big difference between Arkansas and Vermont.

Time for change  (1000+ posts)         Wed Feb-10-10 08:47 PM
Response to Reply #4

6. As I noted in the OP 

Even 71% of Republicans favor a public option in health care. It's unlikely that there is a state in the country whose citizens would appreciate a Senator doing everything s/he can to keep it out.

Another one of those numbers pulled out of a primitive's posterior, mistaking the excresence for a fact.

SoCalDem  (1000+ posts)        Wed Feb-10-10 08:28 PM
NON-DONOR TO SKINS'S ISLAND
THE SILLY PRIMITIVE
Response to Original message

5. Why vote for a dem who masquerades as a republican?

repubs & independents will vote for a real republican and dems will sit the election out..

pretty obvious to me

rhett o rick  (1000+ posts)        Thu Feb-11-10 10:34 AM
NON-DONOR TO SKINS'S ISLAND
Response to Reply #5

33. There's a quote that goes with that. Dont know it exactly or who said it, but goes like, "If the choice is between a Democrat that acts like a republican and a republican, people will always chose the republican."

lonestarnot  (1000+ posts)      Thu Feb-11-10 10:38 AM
NON-DONOR TO SKINS'S ISLAND
Response to Original message

34. Turn right mother****ers and you're done. But anyone who knows knows that they never were left.

Pugs in dems clothing or now w/o clothes.

kentuck  (1000+ posts)        Thu Feb-11-10 10:51 AM
NON-DONOR TO SKINS'S ISLAND
THE BLUEGRASS PRIMITIVE
Response to Original message
 
36. How many of them are "liberals"?

If none, good riddance. Take their neo-con asses home.

[DumbAss Tanker]

I do hope Dummie 'Time for change' is a paid and influential Democrat strategist. 

The clear reason why these right-leaning Dems (For Dems, anyway) are in so much trouble is that their constituencies are pissed off with them for going left after being elected under another banner entirely.  The latest maneuvers of Lincoln and Nelson are not attempts to get themselves back in the good graces of the Left, but to run from it as fast as their stubby little legs will carry them. 

Stay true to your inner stupid, DU!

 

[franksolich]

The clear reason why these right-leaning Dems (For Dems, anyway) are in so much trouble is that their constituencies are pissed off with them for going left after being elected under another banner entirely. 

Stay true to your inner stupid, DU!

That's it, sir, that's exactly it.

[JohnnyReb]

I hope that in the near future a (D) before a name stands for "DAMNED".

[BlueStateSaint]

I hope that in the near future a (D) before a name stands for "DAMNED".

By this time in three years . . . 

[delilahmused]

Okay let me see if I understand this. The people are pissed because their Democrat reps are veering too far to the right. So, to punish them they're going to vote for a candidate who is even MORE to the right.

Cindie

[Mike220]

How are they being punished for going right? Their numbers went off a cliff when they turned left and voted for Porkulus I, Crap and Tax, Healthcare Deform, etc. Not because they voted against it. Look at the people who did vote against it. They're sitting pretty comfortably.

And 71% of Repubs my ass.

[BEG]

Okay let me see if I understand this. The people are pissed because their Democrat reps are veering too far to the right. So, to punish them they're going to vote for a candidate who is even MORE to the right.

Cindie

Delusion goes all the way to the top:

"Here's my assessment of not just the vote in Massachusetts, but the mood around the country: the same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office," the president said in an exclusive interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos. "People are angry and they are frustrated. Not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years, but what's happened over the last eight years."   ~ Obama

[The Village Idiot]

Btw, Nate Silver is a moron

[The Village Idiot]

Bayh s a right winger??

 

[USA4ME]

I see the primitives are in the "I'm driving and outside the driver's side window is a sheer cliff that falls straight down for several miles so it's time to make a hard left turn" mode.  Good luck with that.

.

[DumbAss Tanker]

I see the primitives are in the "I'm driving and outside the driver's side window is a sheer cliff that falls straight down for several miles so it's time to make a hard left turn" mode.  Good luck with that.

.

Well, it's a great idea from our point of view, but it's awfully hard to stop laughing and let them do it.

[YupItsMe]

Okay let me see if I understand this. The people are pissed because their Democrat reps are veering too far to the right. So, to punish them they're going to vote for a candidate who is even MORE to the right.

Cindie

   That's the exact spin screamin' Howard Dean put on it about 9:00 p.m. the night Scott Brown won.  I got dizzy just trying to follow the logic. 

[Ralph Wiggum]

Btw, Nate Silver is a moron

I liked him when he was simply a baseball writer/researcher.

[Peter3_1]

independents are breaking right now. THE Progressives , formerly liberals, formerly progressives are breaking down to under 20% of the public. Less than 20%$ is a hardly a winning formula. Especially as the affinity of progressives for eugenics (M. Sanger, etal) is slowly finding its' way back into the spotlignt. Hopefully, this time it will be burned out of the American psycology forever.

[Karin]

And remember when "communist" or even "socialist" was a dirty word?  It could get you hauled in front of the HUAC.  Ever since zero got elected, they've been emboldened and have come out from under the floorboards.  I want "commie" to be an insult again. 

[Peter3_1]

Karen, roger that!

[DefiantSix]

And remember when "communist" or even "socialist" was a dirty word?  It could get you hauled in front of the HUAC.  Ever since zero got elected, they've been emboldened and have come out from under the floorboards.  I want "commie" to be an insult again. 

With normal folks, it is still an insult.  'Progressive' cocksuckers, on the other hand...

[The Village Idiot]

And remember when "communist" or even "socialist" was a dirty word?  It could get you hauled in front of the HUAC.  Ever since zero got elected, they've been emboldened and have come out from under the floorboards.  I want "commie" to be an insult again. 

HUAC might come back to hunt down TEA partiers and pro-lifers

[DefiantSix]

HUAC might come back to hunt down TEA partiers and pro-lifers

Naw.  That's what Homeland Security is for in this Ø-ministration.

[The Village Idiot]

It will be nice to see Harry Reid and a few others going down.

[ReaganForRushmore]

So what seats do the Repubs pick up?

Reid?
Lincoln?
Bennet?
Specter?
Biden?

That still breaks 54-46 Dems with RINO's everywhere.

[Chris_]

So what seats do the Repubs pick up?

Reid?
Lincoln?
Bennet?
Specter?
Biden?

That still breaks 54-46 Dems with RINO's everywhere.

Dodd is a possible, as well as Burris in Obama's old seat in Illinios, and then there are Dorgan in ND, and Bayh in IN.

doc

[BlueStateSaint]

Dodd is a possible, as well as Burris in Obama's old seat in Illinios, and then there are Dorgan in ND, and Bayh in IN.

doc

If the NY GOP gets its stuff together, Gillibrand is vulnerable.  If they got a great candidate and the Obamessiah does something stupid (always possible), they might even be able to take Schmuck Schumer out.

[Karin]

I know that Chuck thinks he's invinsible, but his approval rating has slid down to 47 (it was always in the 60's).  It's slid in the big City, as well.  You never know, look at Mass.  He has just enough arrogance to pull off a Coakley and phone the campaign in.