(Please rec if you want to achieve this goal--we're on a roll, let's shoot for the whole enchilada!)
How would you like to see Joe Lieberman become the most powerful man in the United States Senate?
That, fellow Kossacks, is a question you need to be asking yourselves this morning, because that nightmare scenario is not a fantasy, but a genuine possibility.
This is the second in what will be an ongoing series from now through Election Day. The first edition, which I was fortunate enough to have rescued, can be found here.
If you'd like to cut straight through my analysis and go right to the point, here's a link to the ActBlue page I've created to help us get our filibuster-proof majority: The Search for Sixty Senators. I'll provide the link again at the bottom, but for now, we cross the jump...
It's 2009. Barack Obama has been fairly elected and sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, and has substantial majorities in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Everything looks rosy for Democrats. Barack Obama's promises of "The Change We Need" should now be coming to fruition.
But they're not. Because the Democrats have only 58 Senators plus Bernie Sanders in their corner, and the Republicans--joined often by turncoat "Independent" Joe Lieberman--are threatening to filibuster everything in sight. Progress in the Senate is grinding to a halt, and the American people are becoming frustrated as the United States sinks into an inevitable, deep recession. Eyeing the 2010 elections and aided by a compliant media, Republicans are already beginning to chip away at President Obama's approval ratings.
Once we have the Presidency, the House, and the Senate, the Republicans will have only ONE weapon left in their legislative arsenal--the filibuster. And you know they will use it. And they'll blame Barack Obama for not being "bipartisan".
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I know, this is a future problem, and we still need to get Barack Obama elected in the first place. That's goal #1, no doubt about it.
But wouldn't it be nice if we could get him elected with a filibuster-proof Senate majority at his side?
Of course. That is something we should all be working for. So let's see how we get there from here.
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Here's what we've got so far: 37 unchallenged Democratic incumbents, plus Bernie Sanders (who doesn't love Bernie?), who is also not up for election this year. So we start with 38 Senators.
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How do we get from 38 to 60? For that quest, I first turn to Nate Silver and his brilliant work at FiveThirtyEight.com (and cross your fingers for me, Nate, my NL team's in 1st place by 2 points as of today!).
Here's how Nate's projections see things currently:
Now, as far as I'm concerned, if Nate says they're safe, they're safe. That's 13 more Democratic seats (a Democrat will be selected to replace Joe Biden, possibly his son Beau).
Now we're at 51. Right back where we started. Time to start encroaching on the Repugs.
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Back to Nate's chart above, to the two "Likely Dem" seats. Now, Nate may be about to update his Senate Scorecard for all I know, but these look like two different races to me.
To begin to go beyond Nate's analysis, I look at three other sites, and I'm going to reference them all here and get that out of the way:
RealClearPolitics.comPollster.comElectoral-Vote.com
Now, I like the look of Lautenberg's race: RCP's average has him up by 9, Pollster says he's up by 8.5, and E-V says he's up by 8. That's good enough for me, considering his long-term incumbent status. Frank makes Senator #52.
The other race that Nate lists as "Likely Dem", though, is starting to worry me. John Sununu is gaining ground on Jeanne Shaheen. As we know, New Hampshire isn't a lock for us this cycle, and Sununu is undoubtedly being helped by McCain's strong support there. A few weeks ago this race looked like a Democratic lock, but now we've got Shaheen up only 2.6 in the RCP average, up by 5 on Pollster, and up by only 2 on E-V. Considering the way Sununu is gaining ground--a (likely outlying) Ras poll there recently showed him UP by seven, this race is nowhere near safe. Jeanne Shaheen is on the endangered Senators list, so she needs our help! See the donation links below.
As long as she hangs on, though, Jeanne Shaheen is Senator #53.
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Next up: Nate's "Leans Dem" category, which again is a tale of two very different races.
Mark Udall's race in Colorado has tightened a bit, but he's still showing a fairly solid lead overall--RCP by 6, Pollster by 5.5, E-V by 5. He still needs our support, and I'm leaving him on the list, but he's looking solid, Obama's gaining in the state and I'm going to call him Senator #54.
The other race, featuring Orange to Blue candidate Mark Begich, drives me nuts. Here we have a solid progressive who was CRUSHING that corrupt piece of shit Ted Stevens, and then Sarah "Russia from my House" Palin gets the VP nod, and all of a sudden, Ted "I'm under indictment" Stevens is right back in this race. Begich was running away with this one, but now he's up 6 according to E-V, and only 3.7 on RCP and a slim 2.4 on Pollster. As unbelievable as it may be, Ted Stevens, under indictment and God knows how many investigations, still has a shot to beat a true Blue Progressive. Mark Begich needs your help--but if he gets it, he can still be Senator #55.
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I'll save you some scrolling. Here's Nate's Scorecard again. We're crossing over to the Dark Side and taking the battle to the enemy on his home turf from here on out.
Luckily, we've got some good news coming out of these races.
First up: Al Franken. Last time I did this, Nate showed Norm Coleman with a 71% chance to retain his seat. But Al is plugging away, and we've got it down to 58%. RCP, Pollster and E-V all show Coleman's lead having narrowed to between 3-4 points. Ladies and gentlemen, think of all the wisecracks and one-liners, not to mention intelligent progressive thought, we will miss out on over the next six years if we don't make Al Franken Senator #56. He's good enough, he's smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like him!
Moving theoretically deeper into enemy territory--Nate's "Leans GOP" category--we find good news in two of these races, and inertia in the other.
Jeff Merkley is making big gains as Oregon solidifies behind Barack Obama, and in recent polls has overtaken incumbent Gordon Smith. I think he has a better shot at taking this seat than Nate may give him credit for, but it's a tight one--the RCP average shows Merkley up by a miniscule 0.8%, Pollster has him up by 1.7 and E-V shows Merkley with a 4-point edge. This one is tight, folks, but Merkley is making huge strides, and I think, with our help, he will be Senator #57.
Kay Hagan is making similar gains in North Carolina, where her polling numbers vs. Elizabeth Dole are, not surprisingly, coming up as Barack Obama gains ground in the state. RCP shows Dole up by 1.5, but Pollster shows Hagan up by 1.9, with E-V giving her a 3-point edge. This one may be a barnburner. Kay Hagan is in a 12-round prizefight, and she needs the best we've got to make her Senator #58.
I wish I had better news to report from my home state of Mississippi, but the polls haven't moved much here yet between Ronnie Musgrove and Haley Barbour-appointed Trent Lott wannabe "incumbent" Roger Wicker. Musgrove's no progressive darling, but he'll be with us on the economic issues, and he was a good education governor--he made Mississippi the first state in the union with an Internet-connected computer in every classroom. Right now, RCP doesn't show an average, but Pollster and E-V along with some recent polls agree that Musgrove is down by about 5-6 points. We're pushing the edge of the envelope here, but I'd like to digress a moment and talk about something that may help Ronnie Musgrove--Barack Obama's debate performance. It's becoming accepted that Obama passed the "commander-in-chief" test in the debate, and we have anecdotal evidence that he showed a lot of people that he is NOT what the Right has painted him out to be. Now, the focus of this--and, from a Presidential-race view, rightly so--has been on the effect this will have on the blue-collar voters of Ohio and Pennsylvania. But I actually think Obama will benefit just as much, if not MORE, from his debate performance across the South. I'm not gonna play bones with word games here--down here, it's all about race and religion, and Obama isn't gonna bring over the hardcore racists or the evangelicals who are busily hating gays while they wait for the Rapture. But there is also a "soft" racism amongst some white folk in Mississippi--people who may generalize about black folks in general, but make exceptions for people they have come to know. I think there is a decent-sized contingent like that throughout the South, especially amongst the younger generation, and that Obama in the debate may have, and please excuse me, seemed "white" enough to become palatable to those kinds of voters. Anything that helps Obama helps Musgrove, and while it's a long shot, a change in 2-3% of the white vote here could make Ronnie Musgrove Senator #59.
Which puts us with Joe Lieberman as the most powerful man in the Senate, able to join the Republicans at will to filibuster anything they want. Now, I know there's an argument to be made that Lieberman would be committing political suicide by doing so, but I don't care. He's dead to me. I want to reduce him to total irrelevancy. And as far as I'm concerned, if you talk like a Republican, and you walk like a Republican, you're a Republican.
So we have to go into the belly of the beast, the "Safe GOP" seats, and find one we can win.
Last time around, I thought that race might be Jim Martin in Georgia, but he seems to be losing ground against Saxby Chambliss. So we need to look elsewhere.
There are an awful lot of good progressives, sadly, who are in these "Safe GOP" races. Guys we love, like Rick Noriega, Scott Kleeb, and Andrew Rice. They're all Orange to Blue candidates and I wish they would all win.
But they're in very tough fights, and all three are down by double digits in every poll. So we have to scour the landscape a little harder for Senator #60. I've done so, and I think I've found a guy who has a shot.
Bruce Lunsford is gaining on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky. It's still a longshot...down by 11 on the RCP average, but down only 8 on E-V and 7.4 in the Pollster composite. And he's been gaining. A recent SUSA poll, though it could be an outlier, showed him only 3 points behind. And he's doing it on thin air--he's only raised $6,100 across all of ActBlue! We can do better!
Everything I just said about Obama and the South applies to Appalachia too. And Mitch McConnell is about to help pass the biggest bailout in American history. If Lunsford starts hitting him on that and hitting him HARD--and he may even need to run away from Obama a bit to do so--maybe, just maybe, Bruce Lunsford could pull a Daschle and knock out the Repug's leader, thus becoming Senator #60.
I know it isn't anywhere near easy and it probably isn't even likely, but it is still possible for us to have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate come next January. Please help these candidates to make that happen:
The Search for Sixty Senators (everybody mentioned in this column on one page)
I'm setting the initial goal for this group of 8 people critical to our country's future at $10,000. I've kicked in what I can afford--a little for each of them--myself. Please join me for whatever amount you can and let's get Barack Obama a filibuster-proof majority of SIXTY SENATORS!