HOW ARE THE HOUSE RACES SHAPING UP?

Another day, another Republican decided to retire. 8-term wingnut backbencher Terry Everett (AL-02) turned  70 last February. Today he announced he won't be running again in 2008. Good riddance but don't expect to see anything halfway decent coming out of southeast Alabama. Everett won with 70% of the vote last year, 71% the year before. Bush got 67% of the vote in 2004 and the Cook Index is R+13. It's safe to predict that whoever follows Everett it will be an extreme right wing maniac. Of course the good news is that it is also safe to predict that AL-02 will be one of the only congressional districts in the country to be sending a freshman Republican to Congress in 2009. And that isn't just wishful thinking from DWT. The nonpartisan Congressional Quarterly predicted a Democratic House increase next year.

Barring a tidal shift over the next 13 months, Republicans appear highly unlikely to achieve their goal next year of reclaiming the House majority that they held for a dozen years prior to the 2006 elections.

I wonder if boneheaded moves like supporting dishonest Republican talking points, giving Bush lavish funding to prosecute his wars and satisfy his war-profiteering supporters, saber rattling against Iran, supporting anti-democratic nominees for important jobs, etc will equate to the tidal shift.

Yet despite their inability to get themselves together and do what they were elected to do, "Democrats currently have more opportunities to expand their newly minted majority in the House than the Republicans have to whittle their edge," according to CQ. They rate 82% of the congressional districts completely impervious to partisan change. But that leaves 78 battleground districts, 44 of which are currently Republican-held. Last year the Democrats did lose a single seat and it isn't likely more than 2 or 3 are endangered next year.

The most likely Republican losses include the following seats:
AZ-01- Rick Renzi retiring/facing indictment
CA-04- John Doolittle facing indictment/likely to retire or lose a primary
IL-11- Jerry Weller retiring/possible indictment
MN-03- Jim Ramstad retiring
NC-08- Robin Hayes faces complete collapse of voter support
OH-15- Deborah Pryce retiring
NM-01- Heather Wilson can never run on ethics again
NJ-07- Mike Ferguson supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
WA-08- Dave Reichert supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
AK-A-L- Don Young facing indictment
IL-14- Denny Hastert retiring
NY-25- James Walsh supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
CT-04- Chris Shays threatening to retire/viewed by constituents as having gone insane
FL-13- Vern Buchanan unlikely to be able to steal election two years in a row
NY-29- Randy Kuhl supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
IL-10- Mark Kirk supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
NV-03- Jon Porter supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
MO-06- Sam Graves supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
MI-09- Joe Knollenberg supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
MI-07- Tim Walberg's extremism has frightened his constituents
PA-15- Charlie Dent supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
OH-02- Mean Jean Schmidt
CO-04- Marilyn Musgrave
MN-06- Michele Bachman
WY-A-L- Barbara Cubin
IL-06- Peter Roskam doesn't have Rahm Emanuel interfering to save his seat this year
WV-02- Shelley Moore Capito supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
OH-16- Ralph Regula supporters have wised up to rubber stampism/could die
PA-06- Jim Gerlach supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
OH-01- Steve Chabot supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
PA-03- Phil English supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
FL-24- Tom Feeney supporters have tired of having a criminal congressman
NY-26- Tom Reynolds supporters supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
IL-18- Ray LaHood retiring
VA-02- Thelma Drake supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
OH-14- Steven LaTourette supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
NV-02- Dean Heller supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
PA-18- Tim Murphy supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
NJ-03- James Saxton supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
CA-26- David Dreier supporters have wised up to rubber stampism and closet queen hyocrisy
MT-A-L- Denny Rehberg supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
FL-15- Dave Weldon supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
AZ-03- John Shadegg supporters have wised up to rubber stampism
ID-01- Bill Sali sick and tired of a really bad drummer

And on top of all that they're broke. Actually worse than broke. The NRCC (their pitiful version of the DCCC), which finances the House races for the rubber stampers, has $1.6 million on hand and owes over $4 million. The DCCC has over $22 million on hand. (The Senate Repugs have about $7 million and the Senate Dems have around 3 times that.


UPDATE: DEMOCRATS READY TO SWEEP GOP GARBAGE OUT OF THE NORTHEAST ENTIRELY

Now that is wishful thinking... but still not that far off. That the Republican Party is coming to be a regional Southern party is clear as a bell. How soon is the question. 2008 will make it much more apparent. The Democrats picked up a lot of seats in the Northeast in 2006. They may pick up much of the balance of GOP-held seats in 2008.

Democratic strategists planning for 2008 contend, though, that they have not yet maxed out in the Northeast’s House contests. They will again be going after the sole Republican survivor in New England: veteran Rep. Christopher Shays, whose longstanding image as a moderate Republican maverick enabled him to overcome-- though narrowly-- dissent over his support for the Iraq war among his 4th District constituents in suburbs of New York City.

The party’s national target list also prominently includes other Northeastern Republicans who narrowly escaped the Democratic tide in 2006, such as upstate New York’s James T. Walsh, John R. “Randy” Kuhl Jr. and Thomas M. Reynolds; New Jersey’s Mike Ferguson; and Pennsylvania’s Jim Gerlach; and others, such as Pennsylvania’s Phil English, who received lackluster majorities over unheralded Democratic opponents last year.

Look for these pick-ups:
Jim Himes (CT-04)
Sam Bennett (PA-15)
Linda Stender (NJ-07)
Dan Maffei (NY-25)
Eric Massa (NY-29)
Jon Powers (NY-26)
John Adler (NJ-03)
Also in trouble are 3 more Pennsylvania Republicans where primaries have yet to determine their opponents: Tim Murphy (PA-18), Jim Gerlach (PA-06), and Phil English (PA-03). Will this also be the year New York Democrats finally get rid of Long Island and Staten Island throwbacks, Peter King (NY-03) and Vito Fossella (NY-13) ? And a retirement from John McHugh (NY-23), one of the guilty parties in the Walter Reed scandal, would leave the GOP exactly in the position they've earned in New York State.