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And now that we’ve resolved that . . .

Stu Rothenberg has reported at Real Clear Politics that the chance of Republicans taking back the House in 2010 are “zero.” “Not ‘close to zero.’ Not ‘slight’ or ‘small’,” he adds helpfully. “Zero.” Changes of this magnitude require a wave, says Rothenberg, and no such wave is on the horizon.

Rothenberg is one of the best practitioners of political soothsaying, which is essentially the art of taking current trends and assuming that they will continue indefinitely in the future. The problem is that they never do. If they did, the Yankees and Mets would play each other every year in the World Series, and none of the major political events of the past century, from the 1994 elections to (say) the Russian or Chinese Revolutions, would have taken place.

In 2008, seven Pa. Democrats won House seats with 60 percent or less of the vote: Dahlkemper (PA-3) (51 percent), Altmire (PA-4) (56 percent), Sestak (PA-7) (60 percent), Murphy (PA-8) (57 percent), Carney (PA-10) (56 percent), Kanjorski (PA-11) (52 percent), and Murtha (PA-12) (58 percent). At least two of these (Sestak and Murphy) are conceivable Senate candidates, one (Murtha) is under a serious ethical cloud, and another (Kanjorski) was arguably the weakest Democratic incumben in the country. All benefitted from being able to run against George W. Bush and nearly all from Obama’s strength in the state, which he carried by 11 points.

It’s too early to predict the 2010 races when many of the candidates are not even known. But can there really be this many contested districts in one single state and no–literally no–chance of a switch next year? With a President who by his own admission is calling for the largest deficits in American history, and by a year from this time could well be losing two major wars? Ask the Yankees, this year’s consensus World Series champs. They’re in third place, with a three game losing streak.

April 28, 2009 at 12:37 pm

--Michael Livingston

Tags: House of Representatives, Republicans, Stuart Rothenberg

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