While I do think that it is far too early to start celebrating, I am, at least, beginning to think that the Republicans just might be able to gain a sufficient number of seats in the Senate to finally remove ‘Dingy Harry’ Reid from his current majority leader position. And my increasing level of confidence has much less to so with Karl Rove and his supposed prophetic little ‘white board’ that proved itself pretty useless in 2012, than it does with Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.
Because it’s now Mr. Sabato who says that the Republicans have a "strong and increasing chance to control the next Senate," in projecting that the GOP could take up to eight seats on Nov. 4. Sabato writes in his latest "Crystal Ball" analysis that, "Our projection remains a five-to-eight seat Republican gain in the Senate, and with less than three weeks to go we would much rather be holding the cards Republicans have been dealt versus the ones dealt to the Democrats as both sides play for a Senate majority."
There are several "unusual and even a few bizarre features on the landscape," Sabato goes on to say, pointing out that the midterm election is "a classic sixth-year itch election" that will see the incumbent president's party lose seats in both the House and Senate. But he also says, "We're just arguing about exactly how many." And then adds, "Overall, it is indisputable that Republicans will have more critical victories to celebrate than Democrats when all the ballots are counted." So as I say, I remain cautiously optimistic.
But there is also now something that has become the generally accepted opinion that as Americans become more dissatisfied with Barry "Almighty’s" handling of thing, it’s increasingly possible that their opinions could show up in the ballot box and tilt the scales even more in the direction of the GOP. Barry is garnering some of the lowest approval ratings of his supposed career, with a new ABC News/Washington Post poll released Wednesday showing that just 40 percent of respondents approve of how he is doing his job.
The poll showed that Barry's public support is dropping rather precipitously and that that drop has at least something to do with how he is handling, or mishandling, the Islamic State (ISIS) threat. At the end of September, 50 percent of the public approved of his actions against ISIS, but Wednesday's poll shows that it’s now only 35 percent who now approve. Republicans have also been criticizing, and rightly so, Barry's rather piss-poor response to the growing Ebola crisis, saying that he has been too slow to protect the public.
Still, Sabato said that at least in a few states the Democrats are holding tight in Republican territory, when observers, at least initially thought the Republican candidates would win pretty handily. In some states, such as Alaska, Georgia, Kansas, and South Dakota, the races are deemed as toss-ups, and some, like in Georgia, could end in a runoff vote, delaying the decision about which party will end up with control of the Senate. So as I said, we shouldn’t be counting our chickens just yet. And may not be able to do so until January.
Part of the issue, at least according to Mr. Sabato, has to so with the fact that supposed ‘Independent’ candidates are competing in places where Democrats "would have a devil of a time winning." However, he does go on to note that party loyalty will probably win out in the end. Lest we forget, Democrats only need 50 seats to maintain what Sabato termed a "Biden majority" in the Senate, as the vice-president votes to break ties, but Republicans need 51 seats, and it’s just a few weeks that remain until the election.
Overall, said Sabato, "it's not impossible to imagine the GOP having a good enough night that they get to 51 seats without Georgia or Louisiana." Meanwhile, Sabato does not predict large changes in his predictions for the House. Lately, the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee has canceled ad spending in some Republican-held districts they'd hoped to win, allocating the money to other races seen as highly competitive or tossups. So we’ll have to wait and see if that turns out to have been the right move.
And as Democrats are focusing on protecting their incumbents rather than going after Republican seats, "that gives us further confidence that the Republicans will in fact add more seats to their majority, but probably not significantly more," said Sabato. "Our outlook remains a six-to-nine seat Republican net gain." Overall, Crystal Ball lists 232 races as leaning Republican, 189 Democrat, and 14 as tossups or leans. Of the latter 14, three are held by Republicans and 11 by Democrats.
So I would hope most of us who are now tired of watching what it is that Barry, ‘Dingy Harry’ and old ‘Botox Nancy’ are doing to this country will go out and vote for whatever Republican it is that we have the opportunity to vote for. We need to ignore the silly third party candidates running and be able to recognize that most of those who are running under the guise of being an ‘Independent’ are really nothing more than Democrats who think they fool us into voting for them. We can ill afford to fall for such blatant political trickery. The stakes are just too high!
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