REPUBLICANS AND THEIR CLUELESS ALLIES STILL HOPING FOR MODERATE LOSSES IN NOVEMBER

Not all the forces of reaction reside within the Republican Party, nor even just within the Republican Party and it's Democratic subsidiaries, the DLC and Blue Dogs. A few days ago I was attracted to another story about the disarray in the Republican congressional caucuses and about how they would lose more seats in November. But it didn't take more than a few paragraphs to see where the spin was coming from-- and going. First came the laughably conservative predictions from forecasters who are never, never, never correct (identified, of course as "the three most authoritative nonpartisan voices on congressional races"). "They all predict that Democrats will add to their majorities in the House by six to 20 seats and in the Senate by two to five seats." This is as ridiculously lowballing it as these three clowns do every year.

Senate seats, currently held by Republicans, expected to go Democratic for sure or be in play until the last minute:

Virginia
New Hampshire
Colorado
New Mexico
Alaska
Maine
Oregon
Minnesota
Oklahoma
Mississippi
Texas
North Carolina

The Republicans will probably be more successful in defending challenges in:

Georgia
Kansas
Tennessee
Kentucky
Idaho
Nebraska

And 6 to 20 seats in the House? The total will be closer to 40 than to 20 and, indeed, these 3 hacks cover their asses by adding (as always) that "the swing could be larger, but none expect the Democrats to gain enough to be able to push legislation past a Republican filibuster in the Senate or a presidential veto in either chamber." None? Really?

But the real purpose of the story came next:

It's also possible that some of the Democratic gains could come with the election of moderate to conservative candidates-- as happened on Tuesday in Mississippi. That would mean that a Democratic president-- Illinois Sen. Barack Obama or New York Sen. Hillary Clinton--  might have a hard time getting even a Democratic Congress to approve all of their proposals on such issues as health care and taxes.

"Obama can propose new programs by the dozen, but odds are the Congress won't go along with most of them," said Sabato. "There will be enough moderates in both the House and Senate to force a new president to compromise."

Utterly clueless, especially in its assumption that Obama is somehow not "moderate" and that Democrats likely to win will be conservatives. Let's look at the dozen Senate races the Democrats are most likely to win. In Virginia, Mark Warner is a mainstream Democrat very much like Obama. Same for Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, Ronnie Musgrove of Mississippi, and Mark Udall in Colorado. Tom Udall (NM) is also a mainstream Democrat though more progressive on many issues than Obama, as are Mark Begich of Alaska, Tom Allen of Maine, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Al Franken of Minnesota, Rick Noriega of Texas, and Andrew Rice of Oklahoma.  The only actual conservative Dem with a chance to win is Kay Hagen in North Carolina but her corporatist approach will probably doom her campaign as badly as even further right Bruce Lunsford's (KY) will doom his.

And in the House, there are plenty of populists and progressives likely to beat GOP incumbents from Darcy Burner (WA), Eric Massa (NY), Mark Schauer (MI) Martin Heinrich (NM), Larry Kissell (NC), Jim Himes (CT), Victoria Wulsin (OH), Gary Peters (MI), Dennis Shulman (NJ)... and then there are the progressive Democrats like Donna Edwards replacing right-of-center Establishment and corporatist hacks like Al Wynn. Fast approaching primaries will tell us if the same scenarios will play out in Georgia (where Regina Thomas is taking on far right Democrat John Barrow) and Iowa, where Ed Fallon hopes to bring the disgraceful career of Blue Dog shill Leonard Boswell to a close).