Dems rapidly closing on seats needed to win back a House Maj.

[cally]

I know this is old but I missed it earlier. Ruxeira from Donkey Rising suggests that Dems may be able to take the House. :-) While you're out the site, I suggest the articles on White Working Class Voters. He has many insights and convinced me that we need to gain in this demographic.

http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/archives/001210.php

June 6, 2005

GOP Ethics Mess Lifts Dems' House Prospects
In today's edition of the Washington Post, Mike Allen has good news for Dems hoping to win back a controlling majority in the House of Representatives. In his article, "GOP Worries Ethics Issue May Hurt Party in '06," Allen cites four GOP House members, whose deepening ethics problems have made them vulnerable targets: Robert Ney (OH); Richard Pombo (CA); Tom Feeney (FL) and Charles Taylor (FL). Add to this list the seven Republican House Members Alan Abramowitz has identified as also vulnerable in his April 17 post, plus Tom Delay (see John Judis's New Republic article on DeLay's '06 vulnerability), and it appears that Dems are rapidly closing in on the 15 seats needed to win back a House Majority.

Allen quotes GOP strategist Rick Davis, the former manager of John McCain's presidential campaign:

The combination of gridlock and ethics charges indicate that the system's busted, and the system is the majority party...The contest for us in the bi-election is to explain what we've gotten accomplished in the last two years, and right now, it's not looking so hot. The focus is on the problems, because there isn't that much happening.
Gerrymandering has made it more difficult to unseat incumbents in recent elections. Yet, ethics and corruption issues alone could give Dems new leverage in the quest to regain majority control of the House. Slowly, the outlines of a winning Democratic strategy for '06 are beginning to take form. As Christopher Hayes, noted in "Corruption --- A Proven Winner" in The Nation (flagged in EDM's April 21 post "Cookie-Jar Republicans Give Dems Edge"):

[AX10]

1. We have no choice but to win back a house of Congress....

next fall (06'). We CANNOT wait till 08'! We need a house now. Also, we need governorships and a majority of state legislatures.

[EVDebs]

2. Sen McCains' "10, 20 years...that's not so bad"

see Bob Herbert's 'Heads in the sand' editorial,
www.spectrumz.com/z/fair_use/2004/09_04.html

and Sen Hagel's quote about this administration being divorced from reality (as seen in the MoveOn.org ad)

and Paul Craig Robert's and other R's calling for impeachment spell victory in '06 and impeachment hearings. The military may want to face reality later than the general public, which is why Bush chose Ft Bragg to give the speech there, but soon enough they too will realize that staying in Iraq only to take casualties isn't a sustainable position. Higher tactical goals should be recognized: to whit, what will Islam and the jihadists do once oil runs out in less than 30 years ? Islam will have to answer the question it avoids today, "what went wrong ?"

Bush should have been making these long-term points. Perhaps Dems should do so for the sake of the country. Patriotism today is buying a Japanese-made hybrid. Maybe Detroit will wake up.

[warrens]

3. We're going to take at least two seats in Illinois

Even the red part of this state is turning Dem, mainly because the GOP is so corrupt.