By Dave Anderson:
Using the most recent cross-tabs fromR-2000/Daily Kos polling, the South continues to be very strange politically. That is not unusual, that is the typical three second description of the South in the United States for the past two hundred and ten years. But it is useful for the 2010 elections to remember how strange the South is:
If I was a political scientist or Nate Silver, I would look at the Approve Obama and Net Dem Generic ballot columns, and argue that the Democrats should crush in the Northeast, and do decent by picking up some open and soft Republican seats in the Mid-West and West while getting punch in the gut in the South. Overall the election would be a wash to a small net change one way or another.
If I was Charlie Cook, or other district by district analyst, my biggest question when I look at the political scientists and these numbers would be where are the Democratic gain districts? The Northeast is fundamentally tapped out, there may be a pair of districts in New Jersey that could flip, another one in New York, and then PA-6 and PA-15 are definately flippable. There is Delaware at Large as well, assuming Castle retires or runs for the Senate, and that is it in the Democratic stronghold that the Dems could potentially gain. There are four or five districts in California, and a few other districts here and there in the Midwest, but the Democrats have at most twenty offensive opportunities nationwide. More likely, the Democrats have fifteen or so target flip districts.
However the Republicans can reasonably target every single white Southern Blue Dog with a decent chance of winning. That is at least twenty five seats on their platter, plus another dozen or so seats elsewhere that are R+10 or better that is currently represented by a Democrat. So the Republicans are working with twenty or so more flippable districts than Democrats, and most of those districts are in the Republican strong-hold of the South. The district by district guys would predict a Democratic wipe-out in the South and then a wash to a slight Democratic edge everywhere else.
For my money, they can have the Blue Dogs, every last one of them. They won't vote reliably with their President or for anything progressive. So who needs them?
ReplyDeleteThe strategy of picking off a few Blue Dog votes here and a few Blue Dog votes there to pass particular pieces of legislation just seems to lead to compromises that gut the purpose of progressive legislation.
Let the Dogs out. Then work hard to recruit candidates that will run on platforms that benefit the voters in their districts.