From Political Wire:
New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan (D) announced she will challenge Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) for the U.S. Senate next year.
Democrats need to pick up a net of four seats and the White House to control the Senate next year or a net of five seats. The current Senate class is the class of 2010 which, as we all remember, was a massive wipe-out year for Democrats as the Democratic holds in vaguely contested seats were enabled by allegations of witchcraft, outright craziness, and Teabagging extremism. Otherwise, the Republican wave swept up seats in states that typically swing about five points more Democratic than the nation as a whole.
There are two seats that in my mind lean heabily Democratic take-over (Wisconsin and Illinois), and then a bevy of seats that, in a neutral political environment are winnable by good campaigns (Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania) and another couple of seats that need a little bit of luck or a favorable national environment (North Carolina, Arizona if McCain retires, Indiana if the candidate is a teabagger). Two Democratic seats are at risk (Nevada and Colorado), I would put Nevada at more risk than Colorado. So best case Democratic scenario is a net plus seven or eight, decent case is net plus 6, and an oh-shitter is net even to net plus two as the 2018 map is ugly for Democrats as it is a 2012 class in an off-year electorate.
Getting Hassan to run increases the probability of a net pick-up and building a cushion for 2018.
Xboxershorts
We have a very VERY interesting candidate on the Democrat side in PA looking to unseat Toomey. (ALso, I dare say, Toomey is pretty widely reviled in all but the most conservative circles in PA)..
But check out John Fetterman…
https://billypenn.com/2015/09/21/john-fetterman-for-senate-why-a-6-foot-8-tatted-up-harvard-grad-from-western-pa-is-running/
Elizabelle
Wiki list of Senate seats up in 2016.
Bobby Thomson
@Xboxershorts: unfortunately, Toomey isn’t liked because he supports gun control. Hopefully Sestak runs better this time.
gf120581
I’d say the Dems only have to worry about NV. They can’t get anyone to run in CO.
Keep an eye in MO too, as Blunt is getting a surprisingly strong challenge.
And McCain’s reelect numbers are hideous, so he’s vulnerable even if he runs.
Served
IL is heavily Democratic in presidential years, and our R Senator Mark Kirk has been making an absolute fool of himself regularly already. Even Republicans are murmuring about his health post-stroke.
He’s likely to face Tammy Duckworth in the general.
schlemazel
But we all know it takes 60 Senators to get anything done. Not that we shouldn’t try for 51 but it is depressing to see how high a wall the goopers have built.
Xboxershorts
@Bobby Thomson: God Bless the admiral, but I do not want him running. I am all in for John Fetterman, a true progressive.
And Toomey is widely reviled for much more than his position on guns. From where I sit in deeply red, extremely rural Potter County, he’s viewed as a wishy washy follower.
low-tech cyclist
We need a good pickup in 2016, because Richard actually understates how stacked 2018 is against us.
Not only is it in a midterm year – always bad for us – but we’ve had three consecutive good years with the class of 2018, picking up 4 seats in 2000, 6 in 2006, and 2 in 2012. We’ve squeezed as much gain as possible out of this class, and the only question about 2018 is whether we lose just a couple of seats, or whether it looks like 2014 all over again.
So next year, we not only need to retake the Senate, but we really need a buffer against losses in 2018.
(Just took a look at the class of 2018: the GOP holds only 8 out of 33 seats in this class. And looking at the actual seats, we’ll be lucky to hold a net of -4 in 2018.)
Citizen Alan
Is it just me or does following U.S. national politics sometimes feel like being trapped in the early stages of a zombie apocalypse. Every single election is another exercise in “can we get this under control or is will this be the tipping point into post-apocalyptic nightmare?”
GregB
As was said below, this is good for the Democrats in the hunt for a good Senate candidate, bad for NH Democrats because it leaves the Governor’s seat vulnerable to a poaching from the R’s. They already have recruited the son of former Governor John H. Sununu and and brother of former Senator John E. Sununu, Chris Sununu.
Though the Democrats have won 9 of the last 10 elections for Governor this will be a hard fought battle for both the Governor and the Senate.
Good luck to Governor Hassan.
Keith G
That’s good news in NH.
After watching her announcement video, I’d like to see her on the stump as HRC’s VP candidate (except for the fact that we need her to kick Ayotte’s ass).
dedc79
@low-tech cyclist: Looking beyond the Senate problems for 2018, it’s clear DWS needs to be replaced with someone who has an actual strategy for midterm elections and winning at the state level.
FourTen
Duckworth has got it sewn up, and then she’ll be ready for the Veep spot in 2024.
JimGod
@low-tech cyclist: The fact is simple: the Democrats need to take the Senate in 2016 cause we’re losing it in 2018, guaranteed. Rodham Clinton will only have 2 years to liberalize the federal court system, get Breyer and Ginsburg’s replacements on the Supreme Court, and try to get some legislation passed. After 2018, it’s right back to where we are now, cause we’re not taking the House back at all this decade. Depressing but this is the reality of the US federal political situation.
JimGod
@FourTen: God I hope not. She’ll be a fine “butt in the seat” for the Senate but she is not really the best candidate. There are better options out there. And I live in IL, I am familiar with all IL political traditions.
Roger Moore
@schlemazel:
Not really true. It takes 60 Senators to pass legislation, but they’ve eliminated the filibuster for appointments other than the Supreme Court. That’s going to make a huge difference if we get a Democratic president at a majority in the Senate. I wouldn’t be surprised if they eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations, too.
David Koch
McCain may not even win his own primary
Tom Q
@Roger Moore: If the GOP continues to abuse the filibuster, and there are gains ripe for the taking, I wouldn’t be surprised if the next session saw the filibuster overthrown entirely. There was essentially no public reaction against the changes re: judicial appontments, so I doubt there’d be any political price.
And, yes, I recognize the fear of a non-filibusterable GOP majority, but 1) there’s a solid chance the presidency will stay in Dem hands, which is an even stronger firewall than the filibuster and 2) the frustration of the past decade or so could well lead to a feeling of “let’s solve our current problem, and cross the next bridge when we get to it”.
Another Holocene Human
@Citizen Alan: Well except for 2006 and 2008.
That’s why the Greeks said hope was the cruelest affliction of all.
phoebes-in-santa fe
I think one of the most important things the Dems have to concentrate on in the next three years is GETTING OUT THE VOTE. Both in 2016 and 2018. And I don’t think we can leave it up to Wasserman-Schultz or the other leaders. This has to be a grass roots organisation.
I’ve already decided not to work for a specific candidate but rather to start an organisation called “Vote TWICE Dems – 2016 and 2018”. I’m getting a website set up and I want to see if we can make any difference.
Another Holocene Human
@David Koch: 2016 would be a great year for all that ground work registering Latin@s in Arizona to vote to finally pay off.
The bad thing is that the economy is looking up so the snowbirds are back … and many of them brag about voting in multiple states. That ought to be illegal in federal elections at least.
John M. Burt
@Citizen Alan: No, it’s not just you.
The decaying husk of that which was the party of Lincoln has got to be put to rest.
I think we have to do what they did and work at the level of the state house, the county council and even the school board to turn back their gerrymandering and voter ID scams.
It is my hope that soon, possibly by the time of the nation’s quarter-millennial in 2026, the Repub party will have ceased to exist as a national party, which will allow the Democrats to resume their traditional place as the nation’s conservative party and for a new second party to arise on the left, just as the Republicans originally arose to the left of the Democrats.
Paint the electoral map blue, and then start painting it green.
Another Holocene Human
@phoebes-in-santa fe: Someone here in our neck of the woods started a PAC to move our hidden in March municipal elections to November. He makes a great case that it’s wasting county money to run 500 elections every year anyway. Plus it’s a non representative electorate. It’s a start, anyway.
Another Holocene Human
@John M. Burt: The current chair of the shittastic Florida Dem Party is belatedly following the example of the Florida AFL CIO and says they are starting an initiative this year to recruit municipal candidates. Lotta red city commissions in Fluhduh.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Holocene Human: In ’08, I was saying immediately after the election that 2010 was probably going to be a Republican landslide, for the same reasons as 1994 only more so.
2006 was the one that amazed me. It’s really unusual for Democrats to have a wildly successful midterm like that. But it’s hard to overstate the awfulness of the Bush administration, and how obvious it was by that point.
Another Holocene Human
OT: birds singing outside the window and my cat is just so excited about that
Gravenstone
re. Wisconsin; for what it’s worth, the Club For Growth PAC has already started heavily smearing Feingold in prime ad buys. They’re terrified that the dolt Johnson will be properly turfed off into some useless wingnut welfare gravy train role.
Another Holocene Human
@Matt McIrvin: It’s a frickin’ shame, you’d think they’d give the D’s a chance to govern. After all, the exec agencies were positively stuffed with George the Worst appointees and the third rate hires of the second rate directors. Obama got blamed quick for assloads of stuff he had absolutely no control over.
Look at how nicely things are humming now by comparison.
jurassicpork
I got your Monday Motivation right here: Exposing Fox’s lies and tropes about the UCC shooting and the gun culture.
Another Holocene Human
ot: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/amtrak-passenger-train-derailed-in-vermont-abc-news/
Vermonter train derailment due to rock slide debris on the tracks. It was kind of ugly, apparently. Though I’m not sure why the wire service went into a discussion of PTC. This is a maintenance of way (MOW) issue. Who owns the tracks right there would be my first question.
Another Holocene Human
This is what happens when you call the cops
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/video-shows-california-cops-punching-unarmed-woman-in-brutal-arrest-for-a-seatbelt-violation/
Silly white lady, she though being a cop’s daughter meant she could blatantly complain on the cops.
JimGod
@Another Holocene Human: The best thing would be to eliminate most of these worthless local elections and the redundant layers of local government with them. Ontario seems to do fine with electing your municipal mayor and council, and then having your mayor and all the other mayors make up your county council. Maybe they have a county council chairman election. Then provincial and federal. Just 3 layers, 4 if you count the indirectly elected county/regional municipality. Then we could be rid of townships, library districts, park districts, fire protection districts, water reclamation districts, cat herding districts etc. We could also stop electing clerks, corners, recorders of deeds, circuit court clerks, assessors, sheriffs, all stuff that should be civil service jobs. Too much democracy can be a bad thing.
louc
You know, if the Democrats had kept Howard Dean and his 50 state strategy, we wouldn’t be in this bind. Thanks, Rahm Emanuel!
And yeah, liberals really need to take a page out of the fundy conservative Christian playbook and start running for everything, including dog catcher. But *especially* the state legislature.
gf120581
@Gravenstone: Given the last poll had Russ beating him by 14, one can understand their panic.
Johnson and Mark Kirk are the two incumbent senators who would be wise to start making post Senate plans immediately.
geg6
@Xboxershorts:
He’s great. I’m voting for him in the primary. Would love to see the tattoo/cargo shorts/biker dude with the Harvard degree on the floor of the Senate.
FourTen
@JimGod:
Don’t give me all that purity nonsense. What do you want, the Senate, or a warm feeling that ‘you did what you thought was right.’ In that case how’s that Nader presidency working out for you! Not a dime’s worth of difference after all!
Patricia Kayden
I wish a Democrat would challenge Manchin.
JimGod
@FourTen: What, in the name of Jesus, Buddha and Allah are you prattling on about? I said she’s perfect for the Senate but not for VP. That makes me a purity Trotskyite leftist? You have to support Tammy Duckworth for Vice President or you’re a purity troll? Get the fuck outta here, Mary Lou!
Another Holocene Human
@JimGod: If done right, those super-county school districts are actually a more rational and fairer system. There are huge inequalities setting up districts by county or town. Not to mention the segregation.
Anyway, our mayors here couldn’t make up a council because the unincorporated populations around Florida are YUGE. I think they’re fools, too, but that’s just me. (They laugh, muahahaha, I pay less taxes, then whine and cry when the municipality won’t spend its money to fix their roads. Oh, and no mosquito abatement for you either. Who’s making out now?)
I used to live in Mass where everything is incorporated and the counties were just a shell that ran the courts. Their income was court fees. They didn’t have elected judges (a progressive reform that has a mixed record of success), so no extra elections, either. I liked that system.
Another Holocene Human
@JimGod: If you could even make heads or tails of that comment you’re a better man than me.
catclub
@Another Holocene Human:
Tell it to MSF
Turgidson
@gf120581:
I was worried that Kirk would fashion himself into an Illinois equivalent to the Maine ladies – electorally invulnerable and well-liked despite voting with the braindead zombie brigade almost every time it mattered. I was comforted by the fact that he just barely beat a truly pathetic candidate in a historic wave year for the GOP, but he seemed like he might pull off the “Republican that a lot of Democrats like for no good reason” scam that we see sometimes.
But he’s decided to go full-metal moron instead. I’d be amazed if he didn’t lose by double digits given some of the foul things he’s said about his fellow Illinoisan Obama lately and how little he’s deviated from the dipshit caucus.
Another Holocene Human
@louc: You’re right about state lege but there’s a problem you’re not considering: money.
The Dems don’t have trouble fundraising for urban districts that favor them (and cost a lot due to TV buys). But they have nothing to counter the business-interest corporate fundraising machine propping up the GOP and ALEC. They airdrop buckets of cash into hard-to-work rural districts to make sure the state lege is stocked with stupid, bought off corporate yes-men. The Dems can’t, don’t even seem to try to, match their funds. There are Dems in these districts but it’s hard to reach people door to door when they’re spread out in a rural area. You need to raise the profile of the raise to GOTV. (Dems have also fucked themselves from what I’ve seen by not urging straight Dem ticket voting. I would have told them to fuck themselves 10 years ago, but the party is a lot purer now, hardly any Dixiecrats left even way in the hinterlands and you don’t have folks running D as pro-life or anti-gay, although apparently you can still be rough on labor.)
Another Holocene Human
@catclub: Eisenhower is the last president who had any real control over the military. I don’t even know how you change that.
gf120581
@Turgidson: One wonders just how his stroke affected him, because he’s had some really bizarre comments lately.
He’s basically screwed, however. He had everything going for him in 2010 (low turnout midterm, great GOP year, shitty opponent) and he still only eaked out a 1% win. Now, in a Presidential year, against someone like Duckworth? He might as well just retire and save himself the humiliation.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Holocene Human: Oof. That train goes past my house a little further on.
Matt McIrvin
…no, wait, that’s the Downeaster that goes past my house. Never mind…
JimGod
@Another Holocene Human: I’m studying political science in grad school and the fact is the Jacksonian ethos of elect everything cuz the people know all is what screwed us. Then comes the progressives who move local elections to different times so national forces won’t affect them. Soooo stupid. There is just a more efficient way to do local government and it’s sitting just north of the border. They have school board elections, municipal elections, and I do believe you vote for county/rural municipality if you’re unincorporated, varies by province. There are less layers and less offices. Who gives a fuck if your coroner is a Democrat or your Recorder of Deeds is a Republican? Another reason to hate Andrew Jackson.
I mean look at this and weep: http://www.governing.com/gov-data/number-of-governments-by-state.html
There is no reason IL should have over 9,000 units of government.
Another Holocene Human
@Matt McIrvin: Ehh, you change trains at North Station, cross Causeway street and take the elevator into the subway to catch the Orange line to Back Bay Station where you can pick up the Acela every other hour to New Haven, CT, where you can transfer to the Springfield Shuttle on the Inland Route and then change at Springfield station for the Vermonter, which is cancelled, so cross the street to the Greyhound/Peter Pan terminal …
Calouste
@JimGod: The US also has about 30,000 police departments. I.e. one police department covers on average only 10,000 people.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Holocene Human: I still pine for the missing, probably impossible North Station/South Station Amtrak link that was supposed to be part of the Big Dig project. I’d be able to walk about a mile and a half (a few hundred feet as the crow flies, but that’s another story), hop a train and ride straight to New York.
Bobby Thomson
@JimGod: it sounded as though you were arguing that there are better Senate candidates to be named later.
Another Holocene Human
@JimGod: I guess you’d know better than me. My source on all things IL politics was my late grandmother, and her big issue was state legislators who spent their time in Springfield plotting how to use state government to make themselves rich. She actually missed some of the weird old aspects of IL politics like electing the top two vote getters.
Off cycle elections wherever I’ve lived seem to be supported by the GOP and the “leading citizens” because they know broke folks ain’t gonna turn up to vote. It also makes it really cheap to buy elections.
I figure the Progressives (angry farmers with pitchforks) wanted elected judges because they wanted judges who would not foreclose on their farm. These days, it’s the reactionaries who abuse this system. Judge isn’t homophobic/racist/hanging/reactionary enough. Too many diversions to drug court and out of the system. Judges if voted on should be voted on by peers only. Lawyers know the truth about the judges in town.
Coroner should not be an elected position. In fact, it should be licensed. This is even more critical in small towns where they have totally unqualified coroners doing the work of a medical examiner. Miscarriage of justice and everything else.
Another Holocene Human
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t think it’s impossible. I understand there’s a hole in the ground for it, but at this point it would be pretty fucking expensive to carry out.
There are much bigger critical needs on the NEC, though, and we can’t even get funding for those. That 30mph curve in Baltimore stands out. And there are some bridges that, ugh, need replacing. And there’s New Jersey. Tsk, tsk, tsk, New Jersey.
eta: there is talk of ME to NY service via Grand Junction, it *could* happen … you know :)
Matt McIrvin
@Another Holocene Human: Massachusetts has town school districts, though. Having come from Fairfax County, VA I think this is a terrible idea.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Holocene Human: TRENTON MAKES THE WORLD TAKES
Another Holocene Human
@Calouste: I like the proposal I saw today (was it on BJ? or RS?) that police officers be licensed by the state. There would have to be a stronger regime in place to revoke licenses than the one to police doctors (they go in front of other doctors who, oddly, never revoke their license). The notion was to put a halt to dep’t hopping by bad cops.
But fundamentally, the smallest PDs shouldn’t exist. There seems to be a trend in Florida right now to shut down parasite depts. If anything, the wages are outstripping what they make in questionable fine income.
Another Holocene Human
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, see my first paragraph, I think it’s a bad idea for all the reasons I gave.
There were SOME positives to city schools. Some cities had a rep for high taxes/good schools, others for low taxes/shitty schools. So parents could choose to pay more taxes and get good schools, and that was a great experience. Lot of buy-in by community into the schools. However, poorer people got priced out of the district. Lack of diversity. Kids with shitty cheap parents went to bullshit schools from hell, still get dumped on society at age 18. So, I think the IL district idea is better than what we had going on in Mass school wise.
JimGod
@Another Holocene Human: It used to be for the IL House you elected 3 people per district, you got 3 votes, give all 3 to one guy, 2 to one and 1 to another or all 3 to 3 separate individuals. You had rural and suburban Democrats and Republicans in Chicago! That ended in 1980, 2 years before I was born. The Progressive movement wasn’t farmer-based, that was the Populists. Progressive were upper-middle class WASPS who were just appalled, APPALLED at the filthy Catholic ethnics and their nasty little party machines, so lets decouple local elections and make them non-partisan and lets make judicial elections (which are stupid to begin with) non-partisan so the one cue voters could use gets thrown away. Not the best moment in American history IMO.
Richard Mayhew
@Patricia Kayden: Okay, so let’s say a “true” Democrat opposes Manchin. What are the possible outcomes:
a) Manchin wins the primary, and wins the general and continues to caucus with the Democrats in the Senate
b) Manchin wins the primary and decides to go rogue and sell his vote to the best bidder on every damn vote in the Senate
c) Manchin wins the primary but loses the general as the West Virginia liberal base (all seven of them — meeting at the Morgantown Sheetz on the sixth Tuesday of the month) stay home
d) Manchin loses the primary and goes Lieberman and wins in November
e) Manchin loses the primary, and the “true” dem gets crushed in November
f) Manchin loses the primary, the Republican nominee is caught Cameroning a goat while saying no to fracking money, and somehow the “true” Dem wins the general election in a squeaker
From a liberal point of view, scenario F is most desirable, Scenario A is most likely, and all other scenarios are very disfavorable. Assigning probabilities to those scenarios, F is the least likely.
FourTen
@JimGod: Kiss my majority-building butt you defecting, dissembling, holier-than-thou narcissist.
Richard Mayhew
@JimGod: Really interesting paper on how that electoral system changed behavioral incentives compared to first past the post plurality systems that most US voting groups use by Greg Adams — multi-member districts (2 Reps to 1 Senator) allowed for far more diverse sets of potential winning coalitions so a far more diverse ideology set could win in the same district.
JimGod
@Richard Mayhew: What’s more is the study from the late 60s that showed the IL House was proportional in its outcomes; 45% of the vote to Dems, they got 45% of the seats. The State Senate was first past the post and would give 56% of seats on the same 45% of the vote. It never should have been abolished.
JimGod
@FourTen: Vote for the Workers World Party!! Long Live Chairman Mao and most Glorious Revolution of IL Workers and Peasants!! Smash the Duckworthian elite and the Democratic bourgeois!!
There, since you seem to be inferring things I didn’t say, I’ll just say what you want to believe I said and make your day!! May the Jade Emperor bless and keep you! And we wish a special blessing on your house.
JimGod
@Bobby Thomson: There might be, but she is what we’ve got, and I intend to voter for her of course, as the nominee. But in a parliamentary/legislative setting, it’s butts in seats that count. You want more Ds than Rs, my statement is she will fill that role perfectly. You vote the party, not the person, in a legislative setting. Americans don’t get that concept at all.
jl
If reactionary GOP House Speaker candidates keep sprouting like weeds, I hope enough chaos is generated to produce a Speaker Pelosi. Maybe I am becoming addicted to GOP reality show style politics.
I’ll worry about the 2016 Senate elections next month,
EriktheRed
@JimGod:
The only thing that really excites me about having Tammy Duckworth in the Senate is being able to say I’m personally acquainted with a US Senator.
Otherwise, I’m with you. So far she’s been kinda “meh”.
EriktheRed
@Roger Moore:
God, I hope so. Personally I’d like to see the filibuster nuked altogether.
EriktheRed
@phoebes-in-santa fe:
A big part of getting out the vote is going to be convincing potential voters that there are other important elections to vote in besides the Presidential ones.
EriktheRed
@FourTen:
Hey, he’s not complaining about Duckworth being a Senator, just saying there are other candidates better for a potential Veep spot.
Cervantes
@FourTen:
What did you think JimGod meant? I see no way to get to your response from what he wrote.
Hunter
@Served: I wouldn’t miss Kirk at all (although he’s been good on LGBT issues), but I couldn’t think of who would be opposing him. Duckworth would be a good choice.