Harry Reid's High Hopes

[babylonsister]

Harry Reid's High Hopes

Harry Reid is not an optimistic man, but even he predicts big gains for Democrats in 2008. Even voters in the reddest of red states want to punish Republicans.


Terence Samuel | May 19, 2008 | web only


Harry Reid is optimistic, a rare state for the Democratic Senate majority leader and self-declared cynic ("It means I'm disappointed less often," he says). Given the current political mood it would be hard for him not to be.

This year, voters have taken every opportunity to punish Republican candidates at the polls, most recently in Mississippi where a Democrat easily won a special election last Tuesday for a House seat in a district President Bush carried in 2004 with 62 percent of the vote. This has sent congressional Republicans into a frenzy of panic and recriminations about their prospects this fall. Reid's upbeat mood suggests how deep the GOP's troubles are. This week, he declared that Democrats will defeat popular two-term incumbent Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who today is ahead in every poll. Collins, a moderate Republican with a reputation for working across the aisle (a reputation Reid feels is undeserved), currently leads her Democratic challenger, Rep. Tom Allen, by double digits and has a favorability rating in the 70 percent range.

"I believe that Maine is going to be our Rhode Island this time," Reid said, referring to the 2006 race in which Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse beat incumbent Republican Lincoln Chafee, who had a favorability rating above 60 percent in Election Day exit polls. Voters decided that, even though they liked Chafee, they would not help President Bush and other Republicans by re-electing him.

By itself, a Collins loss in Maine would be a GOP disaster, but in all likelihood it would also signal a Democratic landslide across the country.

"We're going to pick up some seats," says Reid, who counts 11 competitive races in which Democrats have a chance to pick up ground (Arkansas, Colorado, Texas, New Hampshire, Maine, New Mexico, Minnesota, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, and Oregon). Reid, seeking to keep expectations in check, would predict only moderate gains. "I think we'll pick up four seats, five seats." You can tell from talking to him, though, that he hopes, and believes, it'll be more.

Republicans tend to agree. "We're not winning in places we ought to win just by being Republicans," lamented Tom Cole, the Oklahoma congressman who heads the National Republican Campaign Committee, the House GOP's campaign organization. The GOP worries that its loss of three seats in three special elections this year could spell doom in November.

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http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=harry_reids_high_hopes

[Demeter]

1. Harry Should Hope For a Peaceful, Quiet Retirement

because he hasn't earned it, by any means. And a lot of "regular folks" have been cheated of theirs, while Harry played tiddelly winks with George and Nancy and the GOP.