Republican river of tears

Even if McCain by some fluke were to win, he'd be governing with a completely lopsided Democratic majority in Congress. 

Unlikely that McCain would win, though.  Hope for a "permanent Republican majority" have disappeared because not even many Republican voters want it anymore.  But suppose he were to win?  Eyal Press writes at the Nation:

"The Republican brand has been so badly damaged that if Republicans try to run an anti-Obama, anti-Reverend Wright, or (if Senator Clinton wins), anti-Clinton campaign, they are simply going to fail," argued Gingrich in his recent article in Human Events. It's a bit early to say whether Gingrich will be proven right, or for that matter whether the Age of Bush has brought an era to a definitive close. But at the least, it has shattered an illusion, leaving the right in need not merely of an image makeover but of structural repair, something McCain almost surely won't give it, and thus giving progressives an opportunity they have not had in a long time.

So what about Congress?  McClatchy offers a range of opinion, most of it giving Democrats substantial gains.

Sabato [Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the  University of Virginia] at the University of Virginia predicts the Democrats will pick up six to 12 seats in the House and three to four in the Senate. "It could go higher" in the Senate, he said. However, he added that he doesn't think they can win the votes needed to break filibusters. "I don't think there's any real chance they'll get 60."

Cook [Charles Cook of the  Cook Political Report] predicts the Democrats will gain 10 to 20 seats in the House. "If we're wrong, it's likely to be higher, not lower." In the Senate, he predicts the Democrats will gain four to five seats, with an all-but-certain pickup in Virginia, possible gains in Colorado, New Hampshire and New Mexico, and less likely but still possible gains in Alaska, Maine, Minnesota and Oregon.

Rothenberg [Stuart  Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report] predicts Democratic gains of eight to 12 seats in the House and two to five in the Senate. "It could be a few fewer, it could be a few more," he said. "But the Democrats have the advantage on message, on money, on candidates."

Try to picture an aging, befuddled John McCain playing leader while an opposition Congress begins the slow, careful excavation of bodies left by the Bush administration.  Even after a plea for bipartisanship, the Democrats are hardly like to let go an opportunity to build a harsh, damning indictment of the Republican party, unless a Democratic president leads the country away from prolonged political enmity. 

Maybe handing out some serious punishment to the Republican party is more likely if there's a weak, elderly Republican president instead of a strong, bipartisan Democratic leader.  Don't entirely discount the possibility that McCain may, in fact, become president, and that he'll have to face a raging Democratic majority in Congress, out for blood.

Comments

[Will Divide]

McCain is going to get beaten like a gong, like a government mule, like a red-headed step child. Talking about "The Age of Bush" misunderstands what is happening. This is not a phase and our squalid little president is not to blame (or at least the blame is not centered on him.) We are witnessing a complete cultural collapse of the GOP, the climax of a generation, or two, of corrupt practice by incompetent men in service of very poor ideas.

The only thing I can say in their defense is that they only wanted what their fathers had, and truly did not think things could get this bad.

The GOP succeeded because times were mainly good for most people and the media collected good money for playing along. All that is changed now.

[PW]

Well, as I learned living in a rural area in Texas, things are a tad more complicated than that. That's why I included the survey info from the Center for Rural Strategies. I have ranch and farm neighbors -- nice, normal people, volunteers at hospice and for the high school choral society etc. -- who really believe Democrats are demons. I don't think the left could possibly overestimate the damage done to us starting back in Reagan days. Democrats are on a level (not exaggerating, not much anyway) with people who sodomize small children. I don't think there will be a dramatic change until Democrats understand and cope with this stuff. Exceptions: both Dean and Obama have been admired because, well, they're not like "those" Dems!

[Will Divide]

First I'd say your neighbors are among the lucky ones to have kept the farms (there was one in the Divide family that went on the block three years ago). A lot of good people like them in the midwest have been smacked sideways.

Second, though not to discount them, I submit that your neighbors are part of what was once a broad demographic (you said it yourself, from "back in Reagan days") that just does not deliver votes in nearly the numbers it used to, and will deliver fewer and fewer each cycle.

Down the list of GOP woes, but inescapable, is that the true believers are dying off.

[PW]

We've been having huge election turnout numbers lately and most of these people call themselves "conservatives" when they feel Bush or whoever has gone too far.

I was not surprised at the Dem turnout -- enormous -- but very surprised when the Rep turnout was huge, too. As I've noted before, some Republicans voted for Obama out of personal choice while some boasted openly in the polling places that they were voting on Limbaugh's orders for Hillary. We not only have good coverage of this stuff in the local paper, but I'm friends with the local Dem leadership so I hear a lot of other insights into precinct by precinct voting behaviors.

Have no idea how typical all this is. Probably not. We live in a very prosperous county, very hard-working and upbeat, with an unusual amount of civic involvement. The county commissioners are solid Rep. The county seat's city council is much more liberal, diverse.

As this prairie conservation nut travels north from here, into the TX panhandle, west OK and KS, it's easy to see the economic picture changes a lot, a whole lot. There are places in western OK that are heartbreaking. So I know whereof you speak!