With the passing of Teddy Kennedy, many are asking who will step up and replace him. It’s a good question. One thing we know for sure is that the culture of the Senate is changing, and changing rapidly. We already know for a certainty that 10% of the Senate will not be back in 2011. The following ten senators are not running for relection.
Kit Bond of Missouri
Sam Brownback of Kansas
Jim Bunning of Kentucky
Roland Burris of Illinois
Judd Gregg of New Hampshire
Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas
Ted Kaufman of Delaware
Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts
Mel Martinez of Florida
George Voinovich of Ohio
There are also some members who may be voted out of office in the 2010 election. According to Nate Silver the most vulnerable incumbents are:
Chris Dodd of Connecticut
Harry Reid of Nevada
Michael Bennet of Colorado
Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania
Richard Burr of North Carolina
Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas
David Vitter of Louisiana
The odds are against any of those incumbents losing, but I’d be surprised if they all survive. The next session of Congress will probably see 10-12% turnover in the Senate. As things stand today, twenty-four senators first took their oath of office in 2007 or later. Two of the twenty-four (Burris and Kaufman) are retiring. But if we add the 10-12 new members that will enter the chamber in 2011 to the twenty-two relatively new members sworn in since 2007, we get about a third of the senate being made up of members who joined after the GOP’s meltdown in 2006.
Some may wonder how the partisan makeup of the chamber will change. But regardless of whether the Dems hold, lose, or increase their numbers, we know that it will have a lot of new blood. If all the incumbents are reelected, the Senate will still only have 54 members who voted on the Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq (including 15 of the 23 that voted against it).
The big question is: what does it mean to have such a large turnover for the culture of the Senate? These new members won their seats in a horribly polarized environment. They won their seats with the assistance of a newly assertive grassroots (on the Democratic side) or on the platform of Bush dead-enderism and the Politics of Palin. Cross-aisle cooperation in the Senate is at an all-time low. Is there even a place for Teddy Kennedy’s style of deal-making anymore?
Who could break this impasse?
There are also some members who may be voted out of office in the 2010 election. According to Nate Silver the most vulnerable incumbents are:
Chris Dodd of Connecticut
Harry Reid of Nevada
Michael Bennet of Colorado
Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania
Richard Burr of North Carolina
Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas
David Vitter of Louisiana
You can kiss Richard Burr and Arlen Specter good-bye. Dodd will just get by in the end. Reid? I wouldn’t mind if he lost. Bennet? It depends on who else Colorado has that is better.
You really think Arlen is toast?
I pray he is toast. In the primary.
Yes, I do. And it’s not just because I am voting for Sestak. Who votes in primaries? The base. The motivated voter. That’s not Arlen’s base. Those aren’t the people who are going to vote for him. Do you think Specter is trustworthy after the ’10 election? I don’t. Besides, just wait until Sestak goes up with the ads of Bush and “Man On Dog” Santorum praising Specter.
Sestak definitely has the electorate he wants, but I don’t see the black community voting for him in big enough numbers. Maybe more than 50%, maybe not. Specter is enormously popular here, believe it or not. He’s given labor pretty much every vote they’ve ever asked for. He’s got the labor vote. He’s going do well with the teachers. Sestak is going to clean up with intellectuals and high information liberals. He might do well with vets. But he’s got a long way to go to avoid getting blown out in this thing.
I have a feeling you’re right. I know more than one high-information PA liberal who likes Specter. Someday, we’ll have a real revolutionary turn of the tides, but it’s not likely to be in 2010.
That said, I don’t get the impression that Specter can count on the labor vote this time. He may get it, sure, but he can’t afford to take it for granted.
One thing that may work in his favor is how bloody unpopular he is outside of PA. I’ve noticed that, barring exceptional circumstances, outside pressure tends to make local voters dig in their heels. Just because someone is moderately displeased with the hometown boy doesn’t mean they will take kindly to outsiders bashing him. It’s dumb, but it’s a pretty universal human reaction.
Do you really think labor is going to go for Specter after the EFCA mess? I guess I don’t get why Specter is so popular. Besides, look at the Governor race. Do we even know who is running on the Democratic side? Are there any announced candidates? Do we really want a Republican appointing a new Senator in a few years?
Calvin, my best friend growing up was the head of the teacher’s union in a Delaware County school district for most of the last decade. He’s probably to my left and he’s totally partisan to the marrow. When it looked like Specter was going to run against Toomey in the Republican primary, he and a colleague of his told me that they were going to reregister as Republicans to vote for Specter in the primary.
Does that paint a picture for you?
Yeah .. it does … I just don’t get the appeal is all .. I mean he voted for all of Bush’s worst abuses .. he’s the poster boy for saying one thing .. and voting the opposite
And I presume you know why I think Burr is toast.
Burr is toast. Republicans can only salvage it by primarying him with someone like McCrory. Although McCrory didn’t do too hot up against Perdue for governor.
Burr loses against a generic Democrat. That’s why he’s toast. And there are some names popping up with name recognition although only one candidate has openly said he was running.
And Burr might find that the larger number of Hispanic voters in NC might not help someone who won over Erskine Bowles by a last minute introduction of the issue of illegal immigration and Latino bashing. And that in 2004. Some of that larger number of Hispanics might remember that.
First classy thing I’ve seen the bastard do.
very impressive.
The real question is which Republicans are going to break ranks in order the re-establish the courtesy of the Senate and end the GOP scorched earth policy. The openness has to come from that side of the aisle. Right now Lugar and Hatch are probably the only ones likely to make that sort of a break but given the iron hand of Mitch McConnell, that event is not very likely until Republicans have some more legislative losses.
Which is why Democratic unity in the short term is a significant factor in being able to restore the possibility of a working bipartisanship. And Democratic unity on core values important to defining the limits of bipartisanship. Heads the elephant wins, tails the jackass loses is not bipartisanship.
I see it happening organically. I’d be horrified, but if Kirk wins in Illinois and Simmons wins in Connecticut and Ayotte wins in New Hampshire, you’ll have three new Republicans who are going to have to cross the aisle from time to time. The GOP needs to build up a new roster of endangered moderates.
The GOP needs a paradigm shift as significant as the one in 1964. They cannot hold on with clever tactics alone. And that’s where they are. They used to be able to win and not interested in governing; now, they seem not to be interested in winning, just interested in being a pain the the donkey’s ass. They seem to measure success by the Democratic reaction to them.
They measure success by campaign contibutions, and at present, they are raking in the cash and favors from the health industry.
The media blitz is called the “air war”.
Before too long, they will understand the limits of air power.
A good self-financing field campaign undid their air power in 2008. If Democrats are smart (debatable at this point after letting Howard Dean go and their tone-deafness on healthcare), the will strengthen their field campaign again.
The big question is,
Since Democrats have refused to tackle the issue of electronic elections, will Republicans steal their seats?
Living in Ct. I can attest that indeed Chris Dodd is in a very vulnerable position. Whoever runs against Dodd may very well win. I can take or leave Dodd and personally I like the man, but Ct. maybe in a throw the bums out mood come 2010
Bennet- one of his major R. challengers (Beauprez) bowed out this week. I think that happened after Nate did his analysis.
However, Obama’s backtracking on many campaign promises has stalled the “bluing” of Colorado. Perhaps even reversed the trend. This will not help Bennet.