Task Gets Taller for G.O.P.

[cal04]

When Senator Wayne Allard, Republican of Colorado, announced Monday that he would not seek re-election, the uphill battle for his party to reclaim the Senate in 2008 became an even steeper climb.

By the numbers, Republicans were already at a disadvantage. Twenty-one Republican seats will be open, compared with 12 Democratic seats. And not having a Republican incumbent on the ballot in a competitive state like Colorado complicates matters for Republicans.

Already, campaign politics is infusing substantive debates on Capitol Hill. Many of the incumbent Republican senators who have stepped forward to oppose President Bush’s Iraq policy face re-election. (Senator Gordon H. Smith of Oregon started the trend late last year, followed by others, including Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota last week.)

Even before Mr. Allard’s announcement, Colorado was emerging as a gateway to the West for Democrats, who have won the governor’s office, two House districts and a Senate seat in the last four years. Those successes helped seal the Democratic Party’s decision to hold its 2008 national convention in Denver. And now, the state will be host to one of the most closely watched Senate races in the nation, too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/us/politics/16pintro.html?_r=1&ref=washington&oref=slogin

[CTLawGuy]

1. great news

:bounce:

[Rydz777]

2. Dominici

I'm wondering about Pete Dominici of New Mexico. He's 75 and if he doesn't run again, that should be a Republican Senate seat that Democrats will take.

[northofdenali]

3. Let's hope bot Dominici and Ted Stevens (R-AK)

see the light, or concede their senility, in 08! Stevens, however, swears he'll run again. And, if he does, he'll win.

[SpiralHawk]

4. Pistol Pete - he do love him those Big Energy Corps

What a fabulous thing for the citizens of the USA if Pistol Pete sat down and shut up.

No doubt his corporate big-buck cronies will be grief stricken.

[soothsayer]

5. Well, they've already made the pie higher...

[gratuitous]

6. This, more than anything, keeps Lieberman in line

Joe knows that his window of influence shrinks day by day, because after the 2008 election, the Democrats aren't going to "need" him to sustain a majority in the Senate. If he is not to be reduced to total irrelevance come 2009, he needs to start getting right with the party he betrayed, and Mr. Reid shouldn't make re-entry any too easy.

How does your "victory" taste now, Joe? Does it have an ashy quality to it? Did you really buy into that "permanent majority" rhetoric?