Last week, Stan Greenberg and James Carville released some polling data and issued a warning to the Washington Elite.
Mr. Carville, who managed Mr. Clinton’s 1992 election campaign, said, “what you should do before you vote Tuesday morning is kind of look around and try to record in your mind what everything here looks like. Because Wednesday, it ain’t going to look like that…. There is basically going to be nothing left standing.”
In some ways, that’s true even before we have a vote. Take a look at the Republican members of the powerful tax-writing Ways & Means Committee. Do you see how many of them decided to retire once they found themselves in the minority?
Rep. Jim McCrery (REP-LA-4th)– retired
Rep. Wally Herger (REP-CA-2nd)
Rep. Dave Camp (REP-MI-4th)
Rep. Jim Ramstad (REP-MN-3rd)– retired
Rep. Sam Johnson (REP-TX-3rd)
Rep. Philip English (REP-PA-3rd)– behind in the polls
Rep. Jerry Weller (REP-IL-11th)– retired
Rep. Kenny Hulshof (REP-MO-9th)– ran for Governor
Rep. Ron Lewis (REP-KY-2nd)– retired
Rep. Kevin Brady (REP-TX-8th)
Rep. Thomas Reynolds (REP-NY-26th)– retired
Rep. Paul Ryan (REP-WI-1st)
Rep. Eric Cantor (REP-VA-7th)
Rep. John Linder (REP-GA-7th)
Rep. Devin Nunes (REP-CA-21st)
Rep. Patrick Tiberi (REP-OH-12th)
Rep. Jon Porter (REP-NV-3rd)– behind in the polls
It’s obvious that, regardless of what happens next Tuesday, that committee won’t look the same next year. Let me give a different example. Look at the Homeland Security Committee. No Republican on this committee is a sure loser (except Danny David Davis, who already lost his primary). But, in a major wave election, this committee could be decimated.
Rep. Peter King (REP-NY-3rd)
Rep. Lamar Smith (REP-TX-21st)
Rep. Christopher Shays (REP-CT-4th)– in a tight race
Rep. Mark Souder (REP-IN-3rd)– in a tight race
Rep. Thomas Davis (REP-VA-11th)– retired
Rep. Dan Lungren (REP-CA-3rd)– in a tight race
Rep. Michael Rogers (REP-AL-3rd)
Rep. Dave Reichert (REP-WA-8th)– in a tight race
Rep. Michael McCaul (REP-TX-10th)– in a tight race
Rep. Charles Dent (REP-PA-15th)– in a tight race
Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (REP-FL-5th)
Rep. Gus Bilirakis (REP-FL-9th)– in a competitive race
Rep. David Davis (REP-TN-1st)– defeated in primary
Rep. Paul Broun (REP-GA-10th)
Rep. Candice Miller (REP-MI-10th)
I could do this for any number of committees and the results would be similar. When Carville says that nothing will look the same, this is what he’s talking about.
A harbinger?
Take a look at these photos in this Huffpost article:
McCain Home-State Offices Remain Empty While Polls Tighten; Obama Offices Bustling
Oh my. go take a look.
I think you meant David Davis, not Danny, who’s from Chicago and quite safely seated.
I wish I believed there would really be nothing left standing, but a change of faces doesn’t necessarily = tsunami. Everything will depend on Dem willingness to make fundamental changes that could threaten their own newfound power and prospects. For example rescinding the radical shift to an imperial presidency (aka the unitary executive), mandating uniform election process in all states and districts, undoing gerrymandering, neutralizing the Electoral College’s ability to distort elections, ending the bribocracy that is our current system of government, and shifting debate rules and campaign finance process to expand political influence beyond just two parties. That’s just for starters.
All reforms of this kind tend to diminish the hegemony of the party in power. How the Dem regime deals with them will reveal once and for all how much elections and voting really matter. If the election goes as expected, we will have the potential of a lifetime to make deep and necessary changes to our political environment. I hope this is the kind of thing Obama really means by his annoying wish to “reach out” to the bad guys. It will take courage and high moral/political intelligence to pull it off. If the Dems manage to put country before crude partisan calculation and do the right thing, they will be remembered in the history books as the makers of America’s most golden age. The time has never been more right to rise to the challenge. One thing is certain: they won’t do it unless we make them.
Too bad Peter King is still getting re-elected. He’s a loony bin.
yeah, he is. But he’s not going to be Dan Burton-crazy as the ranking member of that committee.
Peter King is likely to get reelected, but I did hear an ad from his campaign this morning on the radio. That’s the first ad I’ve ever heard King run during the prime morning drive time in eighteen years. His lead may not be as secure as a lot of folks imagine. The voters on Long Island are really starting to hurt as the financial debacle begins to take a big bite out of area on top of the slide in real estate. King’s got nothing to offer his district but more of the same and even less influence in the next Congress than he did in the last.
Oh, I do hope you’re right. He’s so wrong-headed and loud and obnoxious. Long Island ought to have rejected him long ago.