Why Republicans need not worry about 2006

Yesterday, Howard Fineman noted that “with George W. Bush’s presidency mired in the muck of hurricanes and doubts about the war, you’d think Democrats would be bursting with energy, eagerly expecting to regain power. But, in a roomful of well-connected Democrats the other night, I was struck by how gloomy they were. They can’t stand Bush, but didn’t have much faith in their own party’s prospects.”

Indeed, Democrats are wise to keep their expectations sober. Despite the polls, the indictments, the blunders and the foreign conflicts, I predict that the Republicans will once again carry the day in 2006, retaining control of House and Senate (and obviously the Presidency and the Supreme Court).

The reasons for this are partly technical: Thanks to Republican redistricting, the House is now so gerrymandered that not many seats are genuinely competitive. However, much of the problem with the Democrats are self-inflicted: no leader, no message, no unity.

The Good News for Democrats

According to Political Wire "a new Winston Group (R) poll that shows Americans turning away from the Republican party... Those surveyed had less confidence in Republicans to handle a wide range of issues, including education, Social Security, health care, jobs and energy prices. Democrats beat Republicans by at least 9 percentage points in each category. In addition, Democrats were also viewed as better able to handle war in Iraq and the economy. "

The Washington Post continues on this theme:
“On almost every front, Republicans see trouble. Bush is at the low point of his presidency, with Iraq, hurricane relief, rising gasoline prices and another Supreme Court vacancy all problems to be solved. Congressional Republicans have seen their approval ratings slide throughout the spring and summer; a Washington Post-ABC News poll in August found that just 37 percent of Americans approve of the way Congress is doing its job, the lowest rating in eight years.

On the ethics front, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) is under investigation for selling stock in his family's medical business just before the price fell sharply. The probe of well-connected lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a former close associate of DeLay, threatens to create even more troubles for Republicans. Finally, the special counsel investigation into whether White House senior adviser Karl Rove or others in the administration broke the law by leaking the name of the CIA's Valerie Plame is nearing a conclusion.”

Hold the victory party celebration invitations

Sounds like the country is ready for a change, doesn’t it? The problem is that the country (and thus the people responding to all these polls) doesn’t elect the Congress: individual congressional districts do, and individual states. If the majority of people who dislike Republicans happen to live in REALLY Blue states anyway, who cares?

So, let’s look at why the Democrats are ice skating up-hill:

According to Stewart Rothenberg of Roll Call, "Democrats need a net gain of 15 seats to take control of the House of Representatives” (taken from Political Wire).

“At this point, most of the macropolitical indicators favor the Democrats...However, "if the overall environment seems to favor Democrats in House races, a race-by-race assessment of the party’s prospects is not nearly as upbeat. The party has a number of good opportunities, and it is poised to make gains. It’s just that those gains, while possibly considerable, are likely to leave the Democrats as the minority party after the midterms.""For now, Democrats can count on gains in the low to middle single digits — probably from four to eight seats. That would be a good step toward possibly taking control in 2008, but it would keep the House in Republican hands for Bush’s final two years."

And that's just the House!

Larry Sabato looks at the Democratic chances for taking over the Senate after next year's elections, noting that "Katrina, Iraq, gas prices, growing national debt, President Bush's unpopularity, and other factors might conspire to produce Democratic gains or even a takeover."How to do it? Assuming Democrats can hold all open seats (MD, MN, and possibly NJ) and win the close Democratic seats (WV, FL, WA, ND), they would need six seats to take control.Two Republican senators -- Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) -- "are in deep trouble, and may be ripe for the plucking." To get the other four seats, "there appear to be only five possibilities in the nation: the Tennessee open seat of retiring Senator Bill Frist (R), plus defeats of incumbent GOP senators Conrad Burns (MT), Mike DeWine (OH), Jon Kyl (AZ), and Jim Talent (MO). All of these are possible, none at the moment is likely."

As if all this wasn’t bad enough, John Dickerson in Slate offers additional reasons to be pessimistic, including the total lack of leadership in the Democratic party, and the fact that the Republicans have plenty of time between now and the election to turn their reputations around.

Of course, a Democratic Revolution is not an impossibility, and they too have plenty of time to refine/create a national message. Furthermore, the Democrats look much stronger to capture several state-houses in the upcoming election. Nevertheless, although it is way too early to be placing bets now, Republicans at the national level really need not worry TOO much. While this tells us very litte about the policies of the Republican or Democratic parties, it does tell us much about the current structure of American government.