Charlie Cook: The chances of Republicans winning the Senate have plummeted.

[babylonsister]

And ftr, written in the future on the west coast!

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cr_20100915_3587.php

When Winning Is Losing
The chances of Republicans winning the Senate have plummeted.

by Charlie Cook

Saturday, Sept. 18, 2010


In late October 2006, almost three months after this column projected that the GOP would likely lose the House and stood a 50-50 chance of losing the Senate, I upped my estimate of the total number of House seats that Republicans would drop. This prompted a prominent conservative blogger to write that I had "jumped the shark."

Not being particularly hip on pop culture terms, I naturally consulted Wikipedia and found out that "jumping the shark" was an idiom to describe the moment of downturn for a previously successful enterprise. It's a reference to an episode of the old television sitcom Happy Days, when Fonzie goes to Hollywood and jumps over a shark on water skis. That was the point in the series when many viewers thought the show had gone too far. Viewers of the current TV show House might be familiar with this concept as well. To finish the story, the conservative blogger, after the 2006 election ballots were counted, graciously apologized, but as a result of the experience I learned a new term.

That phrase came to mind on Tuesday night when Delaware voters opted for ideological purity over political pragmatism by nominating an unelectable tea party candidate, Christine O'Donnell, over moderate Rep. Michael Castle for the Senate. Republican chances of scoring a net gain of 10 Senate seats and a majority suddenly plummeted, from maybe a 30 percent chance to something more like a single-digit chance. The Democratic nominee in Delaware, New Castle County Executive Chris Coons, is a very good candidate, one who would likely beat any Republican in the state, except Mike Castle. With Castle gone, so is the seat for the GOP, and the party must now effectively run the table to win a Senate majority.

To secure the Senate, Republicans must first hold all 18 of their own seats. (The only races in any real doubt are the open-seat contests in Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, and New Hampshire.) Next, they must win the open Democratic seats in North Dakota and Indiana and defeat Democratic incumbent Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas -- three outcomes that appear likely. Finally, they must win all seven Democratic-held seats that The Cook Political Report has in the toss-up column: the open seats in Illinois and Pennsylvania, and the seats of Barbara Boxer (CA), Michael Bennet (CO), Harry Reid (NV), Patty Murray (WA), and Russell Feingold (WI). If Republicans fall short in any one of these contests, they will have to pick up one more seat in either of the open-seat races in Connecticut or West Virginia. It's certainly possible, but the odds are much worse now that Castle has lost.

more...

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cr_20100915_3587.php

[LiberalFighter]

1. The stars need to be aligned.

That means a Republican being able to find something between their legs besides their hand.

[Arugula Latte]

24. That's adultery!

:o

[MidwestTransplant]

2. And now that Murk is running in Alaska

[Cha]

3. Yeah, they jumped the bloody shark alright,

Charlie.

[Awsi Dooger]

4. He saved that anecdote for 4 years?

Damn, that's impressive

[Hawkowl]

5. Never had a chance to begin with

Insane. That is what the rethuglicans are. Especially if they thought they were somehow magically going to take the Senate this year.

[harun]

15. +1, voting no on everything and not putting forward one idea is not going to

impress anyone. Not with Dem's trying to get votes on many items where over 70% of the public is for them.

[blm]

22. Pollsters were part of the delusion - they get tapped more often for closer races...

or rather, closer-APPEARING races.

[mercuryblues]

6. republicans

did not jump the shark when their leaders outed a spy.
did not jump the shark by starting an illegal war of aggression
did not jump the shark firing US attorneys because they were unwilling to bring frivolous charges against dems
did not jump the shark when they took money from the Koch brothers to start the bagger uprising
did not jump the shark when Jeff the Cannon Gannon was received a highly coveted press pass and spent a LOT of time in the WH
did not jump the shark when federal agencies held fake press conferences
did not jump the shark when they paid journalist to write favorable articles on their policies
did not jump the shark when.. you get the idea

But let O'Donnell win a primary.... that is jumping the shark?

This quote comes to mind:

The limbic brain inside a right-winger or a Republican or a conservative or your average white power activist, the limbic brain is much larger in their, in their head space than in a reasonable person and it’s pushing against the frontal lobe, so their synapses are misfiring…..it is, it is a neurological problem that we’re dealing with.
- Janeane Garofalo

[tanyev]

7. Shark jumping. The new Republican competitive sport.

[icnorth]

8. The sharks are smiling...

[Phx_Dem]

9. ROFLMAO!!!!

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

10. With Murkowski running as an Independent, Alaska is now in play (nt)

[vaberella]

19. You think we can take it?! I always figured that Alaska would turn Blue. n/t

[sad sally]

25. And she was fired up this morning - ready to even take on DeMint

[bigdarryl]

11. I got a feeling Cook is going to be saying this also for the Congress in about a month

YOU HEARD IT HEAR FIRST!!!

[book_worm]

12. the polls indicate that WA is moving away from the GOP as Murray surges.

and PPP is expected to have good news next week on CA.

[lumberjack_jeff]

13. I find it extremely implausible that Rossi could win in WA. n/t

[OhioBlue]

14. He forgot Ohio

open seat currently held by George Voinovich (R). It is between Portman (R) and Lee Fisher (D). Polls are going for Portman, but if Fisher can run a better campaign and frame Portman as the trade/economic/budget adviser for Bush with free trade deals, busted budgets, etc.... he can still win.

[karynnj]

23. He didn't forget it - it is currently held by a Republican

and he says they have to hold all Republican states.

FWIW, you had me scared for a minute.

[Arkana]

16. They're not going to beat Patty Murray, at the very least.

She's up between 6 and 9 points in the latest polling.

[golfguru]

18. I agree, her commercials are shredding Dino Rossi //

[golfguru]

17. If GOP wins the house

with a simple majority, they do not need the senate to kill
any democratic bill not to their liking.

In the senate they need 43-45 seats to filibuster any bill they do not like.
So I am not expecting many progressive bills to pass after November. The new
crew coming in after this election will be more right wing than the current,
because of many teabaggers winning.

[totodeinhere]

21. Correct, all they need is a few more Senate seats, not necessarily a majority. n/t

[gkhouston]

20. Good. Let's improve our odds in the House, too. n/t

[GSLevel9]

26. with a DEM senate the GOP retains a "boogey man" for '12

they'll use a Pub house to block EVERYTHING and then in '12 will blame it on Obama and the Senate when a lot more weak DEM Senators come up for election.