GOP Leader Downplays 2010 Expectations
You heard it here first, the GOP will not gain control of Congress in 2010.
Texas Senator John Cornyn is trying to dampen expectations for the GOP in November’s elections:
Texas Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, predicted on Sunday that the GOP will make gains in November’s midterm elections but efforts to overtake Democrats may take two election cycles.
“If everything goes our way, I can see a pathway there,” Cornyn said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Realistically, I think it’ll be a two-cycle effort.”
You heard it here first, the GOP will not gain control of Congress in 2010.
I used to like Cornyn back when he was a conservative. But his Republican lobotomy took place sometime when I wasn’t looking, and he became Michael Steele.
Maybe he’s just trying not to jinx it?
He’s talking about the *Senate*. Everyone knows that the chances of the GOP taking the Senate this election are remote, though significant gains are expected. The House, on the other hand, the Republicans are favored to take.
When WE DO and WE WILL I will expect this LOSER to resign his position!
I think Cornyn’s wrong. He’s living inside the DC bubble, therefore he’s as clueless as the rest of the political chattering class. I hope they’re ready to govern when they win. I have a feeling they won’t be.
Some opine that the best outcome for the GOP this November would be to just fall short of recapturing both houses. This would put the Democrats in a hideous situation: namely, they’d still be in nominal control, but unable to move any meaningful legislation with their razor-thin majorities without GOP permission. Indeed, the GOP would effectively gain de facto control of Congress anyway by making tactical alliances with any surviving Blue Dogs.
Even more delicious, the above scenario would likely result in vicious intra-party leadership battles among the Donks over who would replace Nancy Pelosi as Speaker (who’ll keep her seat) and Harry Reid as Majority Leader (who won’t). If this comes to pass, the most dangerous place in Washington will be the space between Little Chuckie Schumer and a TV camera. 😉
He is talking about the Senate …
The House is already a foregone conclusion – get used to Speaker Boehner. The GOP has a 40% chance of taking the Senate.
If Reynolds hadn’t misattributed that last line to Joyner I wouldn’t have bothered coming by. Only Mataconis could be that boneheaded.
The election in 2010 is irrelevant. The damage has been done. Like a huge and mortally wounded beast, a Nation destroyed from within is taking a last few lumbering steps into history.
My goal for 2010 is very simple — gridlock
That can be accomplished without the GOP necessarily taking control of either the House or the Senate.
Okay, let’s say we don’t take either chamber. So what? Do we really want a repeat of 1995-96, where the Democrat in the White House was able to set himself in contrast with the crazy reactionary right-wing lunatics in Congress, while simultaneously taking the credit for all their accomplishments? No thanks.
Let the Democrats keep the House and Senate. The GOP can gum up the works by getting close, and the Democrats will continue to own the recession.
I guess the only positive is the flakes and hacks in the Republican party aren’t as bad as the flakes and hacks in the Democratic party……
I like it how Cornyn’s “interpreters” tell us what he’s saying! Personally I think the Republicans will make modest gains but will not regain control of either house. This prediction isn’t worth much, but I think I do understand that the environment of the election will different than currently. What most partisans here don’t seem to get is that the atmosphere of the election season is totally different from non election periods. Elections are when people actually have to make choices against the background of a relentless barrage of ads reminding them of the merits and demerits of both parties. At the moment the generic polls show voters unhappy with the Democrats but with scant enthusiasm for the Republicans. And does anyone really believe after two months of propaganda aimed at reminding voters of what they stand for and what a huge success they made when last in office, that this level of enthusiasm is going to increase? As with most mid terms it will come down to turnout. If the Democrats do a half decent job of rallying their constituencies, Republican gains could be modest indeed. If they are modest then what follows wil be interesting.
Doug Mataconis says:
Monday, August 16, 2010 at 15:13
“My goal for 2010 is very simple — gridlock”
And this is your formula for how the country should be governed.. Sclerosis. Given our many and manifest problems, two wars, not to mention the rise of China, this seems a dangerously myopic option.
If we replace the current crop with others that turm into Repulicrats and Democans upon their arrival in D.C., what difference will it make anyway? They just support their donor base. None of them will spend less.
We no longer have government in D.C., state houses or even city halls. Its all politics all the time.
Robert Fuller
Hopewell, NJ
If we replace the current crop with others that turn into Repulicrats and Democans upon their arrival in D.C., what difference will it make anyway? They just support their donor base. None of them will spend less.
We no longer have government in D.C., state houses or even city halls. Its all politics all the time.
Robert Fuller
Hopewell, NJ
If we replace the current crop with others that turn into Repulicrats and Democans upon their arrival in D.C., what difference will it make anyway? They just support their donor base. None of them will spend less. Tax, borrow and most of all spend. Its all they know.
We no longer have government in D.C., state houses or even city halls. Its all politics all the time.
Robert Fuller
Hopewell, NJ
“The GOP can gum up the works by getting close, and the Democrats will continue to own the recession.”
As if the GOP hasn’t been doing that from the moment they became the minority in Congress…as for “owning” the recession, it’s amazing the collective amnesia in this country, considering the recession started with the previous president, not the current one…by the way, if the GOP were to gain political power, how would they get us out of the recession? What would they do to balance the budget? Hmm?
Joe,
We had an economic boom in the late 90s thanks in no small part to the fact that neither the Republican Congress nor President Clinton could fully enact their respect agendas
Doug Mataconis says:
Monday, August 16, 2010 at 16:28
Joe,
We had an economic boom in the late 90s thanks in no small part to the fact that neither the Republican Congress nor President Clinton could fully enact their respect agendas”
Doug, with due respect we had an economic boom for two reasons. One, Clinton and before him George Bush senior, had passed tax increases necessary to get the deficit under control and two, and even more importantly, the PC revolution occurred.
I’ll give you the Tech Bubble but, you don’t seriously believe that tax increases lead to economic growth do you ? Oh, you probably do
If the majority of Americans went to the polls in 2008 and voted for a man that spent every Sunday for 20 years praying for God to d**n America, what makes you think they won’t do it again in 2010? I see no hope. Change, yes, but hope? No.
I expect the Old Hands, inside and outside the Beltway,
to be surprised by the new rules of the game, as the
People provide immediate, forthright feedback to their
representatives on the economic pain they will begin
to feel in January, when taxes and Inflation start up.
“…you don’t seriously believe that tax increases lead to economic growth do you ? Oh, you probably do”
Now there is an interesting bone of contention…obviously we are in the middle of a recession, but many people are really worried about our fiscal/debt problems…now, if we are to solve those problems, surely tax increases will have to be part of the solution, right? Unless someone has some magical way to fix these problems only with budget cuts…
“…many people are really worried about our fiscal/debt problems”
I propose we go back to the clinton budget system which produced all those surpluses.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/3xx/doc387/pb03-98.pdf
clinton ‘surplus plan’ projected size of govt spending in 2007:
2.304 trillion.
bush ‘deficit plan’, actual size of govt, 2007:
2.78 trillion.
******************************
clinton 2007 projected revenue: 2.446 trillion.
actual 2007 revenue: 2.54 trilllion.
******************************
so if we kept the centrist democrat vision of govt’s size from the 90’s, our surplus in 2007 would have been 236 billion, instead of the projected 142 billion.
Thank you, John Cornyn.
“Realistically, I think it’ll be a two-cycle effort.”
cornyn sees what I see…
2012 features almost twice as many democrat senate seats up for grabs as gop. The senate gains in 2010 will be based on almost twice as many gop defending their seats as democrats.
2012: nelson(fl), nelson(nebraska), webb(virginia), conrad(nd), tester(mt), and bingamen(nm) are the high-lited red state dem races.
The only blue state gop senator on the ballot will be scott brown in ma.
multiple scenarios of these democrat senators switching parties, or announcing retirement, before 2012.
if I were advising rubio…
run a good race in 2010, and you have a 50% chance of winning(although I personally think he has an 80% chance).
Play 2010 hard, but position oneself for 2012.
Crist will not be on the ballot. The state of the democrat party in fl is in ruin. Their party nominee is neck and neck in support with the Alvin Greene choice of dems in SC.
It depends on how many undocumented democrats go to the polls – http://www.BorderInvasionPics.com
So now 2012 is when the GOP takes over the Senate? Has one major party ever taken over the Senate while a president from the other major party has won reelection? Republicans now are supposed to pin their hopes on Nelson in Florida, Webb in Virginia, Tester in Montana, and/or Bingamen in New Mexico either retiring or switching parties? Meanwhile, the state of the Democratic Party in Florda is “in ruin” simply because Kendrick Meek is polling so poorly? Keep hope alive, I guess…
“Has one major party ever taken over the Senate while a president from the other major party has won reelection?”
let me rearrange that a little for you…
Has any president won reelection, in the same year that his party lost the senate?
as for wave elections making the liklihood of party switching…
06, arlen specter.
94, shelby and nighthorse campbell.
or one could consider the jim jeffords jump, as with arlen, with a near evenly divided senate.
“Keep hope alive, I guess…”
there really is none.
the dems offer me a painful death by debt cancer in less than 5 years, but the gop in their current incarnation might keep it away for another 10 years.
Pick your party, and when you want to get completely fleeced, but the outcome is never in doubt.
“Has any president won reelection, in the same year that his party lost the senate?”
Considering the current GOP frontrunners…if you really think that Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, or Mitt Romney are going to beat the president, well, good luck with that…
“as for wave elections making the liklihood of party switching…”
Ok, so apart from Nelson in Nebraska, or maybe even Lieberman (who certainly isn’t guaranteed reelection in 2012), which Democratic senator would jump to the GOP?
“there really is none.”
Tell me, were you this pessimistic before the Dems took back the Congress in 2006? When the GOP had control of everything, was the future bright and sunny? Or do we have to go all the way back to the glorious Republican Revolution of the 90s…
Finally, in regards to that “debt cancer”, I will pose the same question I asked elsewhere…how exactly do we get out of that without tax increases (which I would imagine you are opposed to?)…I highly doubt that budget cuts alone will get us out of this particular hole…