From The Hill:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a message for Republicans this fall: Bring it on…
…Despite some predictions of a huge GOP wave this fall, Pelosi says it’s not going to happen: “One thing I know for sure is that Democrats will retain their majority in the House of Representatives.”
When one realizes that Critz ran against ObamaCare and in favor of gun rights and against DC – ie, against Pelosi – then the message one takes away is that Pelos is simply hoping to duplicate her efforts of 2006 and 2008: she wants to run in GOP and conservative districts with centrist, “blue dog” types who, once elected, will be slavishly devoted to Pelosi and the liberal agenda.
To be sure, she must expect that a lot of Democrats will lose in November – but she’s expecting to moderate the losses to the point where 218 people have “D” after their names on November 3rd. And, truth be told, she can do that – entirely within the realm of possibility. If – and its a big if – the voters in various districts can be essentially fooled as badly as they were in 2006 and 2008.
I don’t think, however, she’ll be as successful as the hopes. The peculiarities of the PA-12 special won’t carry over even in to the PA-12 general in November. There’s at least an even money chance that in the re-match, Burns will come out on top (a lot of that will be determined by how well Toomey does at the top of the PA ticket…if he wins, he might carry a few over the finish line with him). The impending Djou win in the Hawaii special is probably more indicative of November.
Good to keep in mind that Democrats in the special elections leading up to 2006 lost and lost and lost…and then won. It can work like that – and I think it will.
Like this – back in PA, Sestak is riding high from his amazing, come-from-behind win over entrenched, establishment-backed Arlen Specter. And yet Rasmussen has him, in that blue State, only up by 4 over Toomey who has been off the public radar while Specter and Sestak battled it out. That is the sort of bounce which vanishes – and Toomey’s first post-primary ad will, I think, be highly effective in starting to define Sestak as too liberal for Pennsylvania.
I still make no public predictions beyond my 30-35 House seat gain of earlier. Pelosi would be happy with that – and so would I: she’d be happy she gets to continue to be boss, I’d be happy that she and her Democrats would get full blame for the upcoming double-dip heading in to the 2012 cycle. But the ultimate outcome of November will be defined by two things:
1. Public anger about government as an entity.
2. The GOP’s ability to craft a message appealing to this.
The first is a given, the second is up to the GOP. Right message properly presented and the results in November will be astounding. Absent that, the GOP will still score gains, but not of any historical significance. We’ll see how it comes out.
UPDATE: Either convinced they can win or composing a political suicide note, Democrats look for big tax and spend bill before Memorial Day.
Bring it on, Nancy!
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