Like newspaper columns or op-eds, most blog posts are opinion pieces. Investigate reporting in a blog post is just as rare as it is from a newspaper columnist or in an op-ed or editorial. Lately there hasn’t been much fodder for commentary. It’s not so much that there isn’t any news. There’s always news. It’s more that the news presents a dreary sameness. Too many people are unemployed. The economy hasn’t collapsed but it’s growing too slowly. The casualties in Afghanistan have declined, for which I am thankful, to just one or two a week. That’s not because we’ve accomplished any objectives we have there that we hadn’t accomplished in 2004 but more because we’ve reduced the force there to what it was seven or eight years ago and the operational tempo has declined. The Eurozone is in danger of collapsing, as it has been for the last half dozen years. There’s barely a story that wouldn’t have been just as appropriate a year ago or two years ago or more.
This morning as I made my regular rounds of the op-ed pages only one item caught my eye—Larry Sabato and Kyle Kondik’s prudent advice that Democrats’ capturing of the House in 2014 may be a lot harder than many Democrats may think:
Electoral history and the nature of the 2014 races indicate that Democrats actually stand a greater chance of losing the Senate than they do of winning the House.
Since the start of the modern two-party system in the mid-19th century, the party of an incumbent president has never captured control of the House from the other party in a midterm election. While many presidents have held the House for their party, in 35 of 38 midterms since the Civil War the incumbent’s party has lost ground.
One reason is turnout. Since 1866, the average turnout rate in presidential elections has been 63%, while it has been 48% at midterm. The drop-off comes disproportionately from the presidential party. Voters from the out-of-power White House party are usually energized—read: angry and eager—to vote against the president, especially by the six-year mark.
Could the Democrats take the House? Sure. They could also lose the Senate. I certainly hope that President Obama has a Plan B. His recent IMO belated overtures towards Congressional Republicans may be a sign that he’s realistic enough to know that if he’s to accomplish anything during his second term ignoring the Congressional Republicans probably won’t be an option.
Update
Stuart Rothenberg does a district-by-district analysis:
At this point in the cycle, Democrats probably need to put at least another two dozen additional districts into play — in addition to the ones I have cited above — and hold most of their own vulnerable seats to have a chance of netting 17 seats in the midterm elections. It’s a very tall order.
I would bet money that the Republicans hold the House. I think the gun debate might tell us about who holds the Senate.
There is one seat held by a Republican in Illinois (in the Champaign, Bloomington, Decatur, Springfield area) which the Democrats could take with a better candidate, but that’s probably the extent that the map was designed to carry. There are 2-3 Democratic seats in Illinois that the Republicans could carry in an off-year election, if they field a decent candidate.
I won’t hold any expectations for the GOP to either keep the House or take over the Senate. My hope, though, is that they at least keep the House, to avoid a slum-dunk last two years of Obama-policy-making, and somehow win the Senate. Oh what a relief it would be to see that dreary, deceitful Harry Reid slink away into the background, never to be heard from again!