How Many Seats Do The Democrats Stand To Pick Up In November?

We've written before about the 1936 congressional election. The Depression was raging, Democrats had been steadily building a majority since 1932, and Roosevelt was re-elected in a landslide. The Democrats only gained 5 seats (net) in the Senate (although Nebraska Republican George Norris quit the GOP and became an independent). But that left the Republicans with only 16 Senate seats. Over in the House the Democrats had a net gain of 12 seats, upping their total to 334 (76.7%), while the Party of Greed and Selfishness, rightly blamed for the Great Depressed, lost another 15 seats-- aside from the 12 that went to Dems, one to a Progressive Party candidate in California and two to the Farmer-Labor Party-- leaving them with a total of 88 members of the House (20.2%).

2008 isn't 1936... at least not yet. But today CNN reports that congressional polling numbers are showing strong Democratic gains in the offing. "Generic Democrats" are stomping "generic Republicans" again. The fact that all Republicans are generic and that the Democratic cause is furthered by incredible candidates who are anything but generic-- progressive leaders like Darcy Burner, Vic Wulsin, Alan Grayson and Dennis Shulman on the House side and Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall, and Andrew Rice on the Senate side-- greatly strengthens the Democrats' chances to make significant gains.

So which party has the upper hand in the fight for Capitol Hill?

The answer, according to a new national poll, appears to be the Democrats. In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Tuesday, 56 percent of those questioned are backing the Democratic candidate for Congress, while 42 percent support the Republicans.

That's a change from immediately after the GOP convention, when the Democrats had only a 3-point lead over the Republicans, 49 percent to 46 percent.

According to this morning's Diageo/Hotline poll, Obama's numbers have continued to climb as voters focus on the economy. Can the Democrats, generically speaking, blow this? Of course they can; they're Democrats. They could get behind the Bush Regime bailout/giveaway for example. They would do them in.

Fortunately, many non-generic Democrats and Democratic candidates will not be following Hoyer down that particular corporate pathway to Hell. Democratic challengers have gas prices, health care, the mortgage crisis, Iraq, unemployment, inflation, the Wall Street meltdown, and corruption all breaking in their favor. Watch Steny Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel try to balance that out with boneheaded, self-serving fealty to corporate donors.

Reactions from Blue America candidates to the bailout have been strong and uniformly mindful of the best interests of working families, not of Wall Street executives. Today Vic Wulsin, the progressive Democrat running against clueless corporate shill Mean Jean Schmidt in southern Ohio, added her voice to the rising chorus of skeptics and reformers. She's not supporting the $700 billion boondoggle that way it currently stands. Her line in the sand is that it must contain adequate congressional oversight of the Treasury Department and that it must place restrictions executive compensation for companies who will benefit from the plan. She wants Congress to make sure that everyday Americans facing home foreclosure are given assistance long before anyone starts talking about golden parachutes.

“The politicians in Washington don’t seem to play the same rules we live by and now they are asking American taxpayers to pay for the mistakes of corporate executives on Wall Street. Making a smart investment to keep our nation’s financial sector up and running is the right thing to do, but it is not our responsibility to cover for the excesses and mismanagement of CEO’s... While Congress and the current administration have been asleep at the switch, Southern Ohio is facing record home foreclosure rates. Politicians in Washington put themselves first, put money first and put special interests first, but I will not support writing a $700 billion check to Wall Street without making sure government is accountable to the people in my district first.”

Darcy Burner is running against Washington state's most consistent corporate shill, Dave Reichert, who has taken money from every corporate interest-- from Big Oil to Big Banks-- and then voted for their interests instead of for the interests of his own constituents. He's infamous as one of Bush's worst rubber stamps in Congress. Today, Darcy explained, in great detail, to voters in suburban Seattle why she doesn't support the Wall Street bailout the way it stands now and what she would do instead.

Darcy and supporters (non-fat cats)

“Over the past decade, with the removal of protections that had been in place since the Great Depression, we abandoned all checks on bad behavior by banks. As a result, we face a financial crisis of historic magnitude. It should never have come to this.

“The Bush administration and its Republican allies enabled, encouraged and ignored the bad behavior on Wall Street that created this mess. Now they say that that without the largest taxpayer-funded bailout in human history -- at a cost of more than $2,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States -- our economy is at risk of collapse.

“If we are going to bail out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion or more, then taxpayers must get significant reforms and real protections in return. Congress needs to take the time to get this right. They should move forward in a calm and orderly way, and not be stampeded into endorsing a bad deal. First and foremost, we must not just hand over a blank check to an administration and a financial sector that has failed us. Again: no blank check.

“Instead, let's put in place reforms with real teeth. Any bailout plan must include provisions that address the following points:

1) We must protect taxpayers.

a. The financial institutions that made the poor decisions that created this mess should bear as much of the cost of their mistakes as possible, and taxpayers should be given a stake in the bailed out firms in proportion to the size of the bailout they receive. When these companies return to profitability, taxpayers must be able to recoup some or all of their investment.

b. The financial institutions must be held accountable for accurately representing the quality of the assets they’re unloading so that they cannot game the system. Mechanisms could easily be put into place to ensure that companies and their executives who misrepresent the quality of the assets they sell to the government are held accountable if those assets turn out to be of significantly inferior quality.

c. People who chose irresponsible risk should have prime responsibility for paying for the consequences of that risk. That means, for instance, that creditors of the financial institutions who made loans bearing especially high rates of return in the days leading up to the crisis should not necessarily recover all of their money at taxpayer expense.

2) We must not reward bad behavior. Any firm that takes advantage of the bailout must accept restrictions on out of control CEO pay. The taxpayers should not be on the hook for golden parachutes for failed executives – they have a right to know that the money they are handing over will not disappear into the pockets of the same people who created this mess in the first place.

3) We must help communities, and work to protect the value of the assets taxpayers are acquiring. If Wall Street deserves generous government assistance, then Main Street deserves a little help too. If we are acquiring sub-prime mortgages, the homes that provide the collateral for those loans retain more value if they are occupied than if they are abandoned. In addition, the blight of homes abandoned because of unrealistic mortgages drags down not only the homeowners in question, but whole neighborhoods and communities. Homeowners with delinquent mortgages should be offered renegotiated mortgages that will give them greater opportunity to stay in their homes.

4) We need accountability. Congress must have explicit oversight of bailout efforts. No unelected member of the administration should have sole authority over so much of the taxpayer’s money.

“If Congress implements these sorts of taxpayer protections, this bailout could end up having a positive effect on our economy in the longer term as transparency and accountability are restored and sensible regulation puts our economy back on a sustainable track. But let’s be clear: this is a sad moment for America. Our economy is likely to sink sharply lower now for a time. As a result, thousands of Americans will lose their jobs through no fault of their own. Trillions in wealth held by ordinary people in the form of home value and investment value will be erased. Let's make sure we take the appropriate actions now so this never happens again.

“And finally, while this crisis is not a time for excessive partisanship, I would point out that Congressman Reichert and I have a basic philosophical difference on these issues. Time and again, Congressman Reichert has supported the economic policies of the Bush administration that have put us in this mess. For instance, he voted for the misconceived 2005 Bush Bankruptcy Bill that, as BusinessWeek pointed out last year, is a major factor in driving up the foreclosure rate and has made the housing slump worse, thus contributing to our current difficulties.

"We need change, not more of the same. We need a government that stops focusing on showering favors on the wealthy and powerful corporations, and instead does its job by protecting the interests of the people of this country. I will be that sort of representative.”

Like I said, neither Vic Wulsin nor Darcy Burner is a generic Democrat. None of the candidates endorsed by Blue America are, and if you'd like to help make sure Vic, Darcy, and other Democrats like them get into Congress in November, our Blue America ActBlue page makes it very easy to do that.