“Democrats are running strong Senate campaigns in states such as Mississippi, Alaska and North Carolina that Republicans have long taken for granted,” according to the L.A. Times.
Republican leaders have had to come to terms with the fact that they won’t be able to take back the U.S. Senate this year.
Pundits believe that the GOP could lose as many as 11 seats in November. Voters are angry about Iraq, about our sinking economy, and about all the GOP scandals. And eight years of Bush has moved even conservative Republicans into Barack Obama’s corner, particularly since John McCain is such an awful presidential candidate. It looks like a perfect storm for the Republican Party.
It is astounding that the GOP may lose Mississippi – which has been a red stronghold for years. If they can’t win in Mississippi, they just can’t win, period.
The only good news for Republicans is that Democratic Senate nominee Al Franken, a comedian, is tanking in Minnesota, where Republican incumbent Senator Norm Coleman is expected to win easily. And Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican in Maine, is also looking at winning re-election in November.
I expect the GOP to do poorly in the U.S. House of Representative races too. What all this means is that Barack Obama, when he beats McCain, will have a very Democratic Congress to work with. And he will have four years to prove that he can do the job. If he fails to do so in his first two years the GOP is likely to make some gains in the mid-term elections. And four years hence Obama could be looking like Jimmy Carter – or he might be the next Bill Clinton. He will have little room for error.
My advice to Republican voters is to vote for Obama. If he tanks, the GOP will rebound and may even be able to take back the White House in four years. However what this means is the GOP better come up with better candidates than Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and John McCain. If the Republicans return in four years with another lame crop of presidential candidates, Obama will be in the catbird seat.
Remember when Newt Gingrich led the GOP back from the dead in 1994? Who will do so in two years? Are there any such leaders on the GOP side of the aisle in the U.S. Congress?
Boy, for all the talk about the demise of newspapers and the rise of blogs, there’s an awful lot of quoting of already written newspaper articles going on here today.
#1,
As I wrote previously, I like newspapers – they just can’t figure out how to stay relevant in this new Internet age. They need to make the hurdle to online media and leave the newsprint behind.
BTW, I start my day, everyday, at http://www.calnews.com. Check it out some time – it collects interesting stories from all over our state. I get quite a few story ideas that way.
The other site I look to every day, besides the local papers, is google.com. I go to their news section and often find story ideas there too. Google also selects stories from all over the U.S., from newspapers and other news sites. You can also program the site to give you news on specific subjects.
Could I come up with enough content without referring to the newspapers? Sure. But anyone can put up email press releases, and Red County does a lot of that. I think blogs allow us to go beyond that and delve into the issues of the day. It is the back and forth on these issues that makes reading blogs interesting, IMHO.
So how do YOU feel about the GOP’s prospects in November? Will the Republican Party be able to sell its candidates despite the presence of Bush atop their party?
If I was still registered Reep the last 7 years would have me changing to Democrat. You might agree with the stated Reep philosophy but no one can agree with leaders who steal. The Reeps got complete control of the Presidency and Congress based on the faith of the American people that these Reeps had family values. Now which family value is it that requires raping and pillaging? Which value is it that says when you have complete control just steal everything that isnt nailed down? Which value is that?