I can’t see the Democrats winning the House in 2012. To begin with, reapportionment in key states will dig them into an even deeper hole. And I have a queasy feeling about candidate recruitment: who wants to take on an incumbent Republican with a gazillion dollar war chest thanks to “independent” big-dollar right-wing organizations? And don’t even get me started on the atrocious leadership at the DNC, the DCCC, and the DSCC.

I agree it’s not likely, but I think it’s also a possibility. The electorate hates both parties, and are just in the mood of throwing the incumbants out.

If they once again vote heavily to oust incumbants, then there’s a chance for the D’s to retake the House AND lose the Senate IMO.

I’m curious about the 60% chance for Obama winning the White House. That seems low to me historically, but then again I’m not sure. Do you know what the “average” is for an incumbant with over 18 months to go before the election?

I think your average incumbent has like a a 2/3rd shot at winning re-election

Thanks, I was thinking 2/3 or 3/4 also.

But didn’t a bunch of dem incumbents loss recently? badly? terribly?

Obama might have screwed their chance to win either.

Goosh! voting for 1 of 2 of the Oligarchy gatekeepers….Hey my fellow Americans,there are other political parties other than DEM & GOP for chrissakes!

Given the performance of the 2008 Senate, I am not entirely convinced this is good news.

Can’t really take Exra Klien seriously. He’s making his mark in the MSM as Jokeline Prt Deux. He was touting the benefits of Health Care Reform just last week.

I believe that was the same Health Care Reform that reformed the House of Representatives last November.

Oh, I thought we were discussing incumbant Presidents. At least that’s where I was coming from.

Yeah, a whole bunch of Dems just got a real beating. Well deserved IMO.

I still firmly believe that had that wave of Democrats we voted in in 2008 would’ve acted like Democrats they could’ve had a majority for a generation or two.

Had they passed a REAL stimulus (with some direct work projects, not tax cuts) and followed that up with REAL health care reform, such as single payer, and then topped it off with REAL financial reform to prevent this crap from happening again, I believe they would’ve been rewarded exactly the Democrats in the 1930′s were rewarded.

FDR won FOUR elections when he made it clear he represented the people over the elites. IMO had Obama and the Democrats done the same, they would’ve likely increased their majority in 2010 instead of suffering the beat down they got.

I would place Obama’s re-election chances at roughly 100.00000%

The Republicans had not just a good turnout in 2010 for a midterm, they had a good turnout. They don’t have all that many more people to get to the polls. The Democrats will turn out in vastly greater numbers simply because it’s a Presidential election. While they are voting, they will vote for other Democratic candidates.

The rule about not losing one house when you win the other is probably just a reflection of turnout.

The D’s will absolutely gain in the House, perhaps enough to take control back, or maybe just fall short. It’s hard to see how they gain in the Senate, or even hold on, but a good turnout makes a big difference.

It’s still a long way until the elections but I have to agree with Markos to a certain extent. Though I’m not a huge fan of Democrats like he is, he makes a valid point that the Republicans aren’t making any new allies with what they are doing. Appeasing the ‘baggers is a full time occupation and it doesn’t leave a lot of room to do sane things. I would go further that since their only reliable base is the above 65 crowd, they are losing voters through attrition at a pretty fast clip as well. No, I don’t think the Republicans will hold the House or the Senate after 2012, history and stats aside.

That said, I don’t see how it makes a difference at all who holds the legislature or executive branches, since all are Republicans now.

Obama’s Number One Accomplishment as President Bipartisan has been to Reconstitute and Strengthen the Republican Party.

If you recall, Dubya Bush and the R’s had nearly destroyed the Party. All it needed was a boot on its neck.

That boot could have been any one piece of major Progressive Legislation.

Dubya had most assuredly ruined the Bush name forever.

Now, thanks to Obama, JEB is a serious contender.

Obama even polished Jeb’s knob for him two weeks ago with the Approbation of JEB’s destruction of Public Education.

Obama thinks NCLB, vouchers and Charter Schools are fantastic. And so is JEB!

Obama will destroy the Democratic party, which would be a good thing. It wouldn’t leave the Republicans unopposed, but would allow for truly progressive parties to fill the void.

The truth of what Davis was doing will inevitably come out, and it could potentially put our top officials in prison for life, or even on death row. Indian and Pakistani media have reported that Davis’s mobile phones revealed contacts with 27 top Taliban leaders, and investigation showed that he was plotting bombings against civilian targets in Pakistan with them. The purported pretext was to create a rationale for US seizure of Pakistan’s nukes.

This would explain Obama’s, Clinton’s, Panetta’s, Kerry’s and Munter’s desperate efforts to free our rent-a-Rambo diplomat. We’ve imprisoned, tortured and killed people, some of them innocent, and gone to war on less evidence than already exists. An independent counsel investigation must be authorized, and the Republican House might just do so, albeit for political rather than principled reasons.

Obama isn’t terribly bright, and he’s playing a very dangerous game in Pakistan. Our drone strikes and covert activities could very well lead to an Islamist government there, and India looks set to return the Hindu rightwing BJP to power. The risk of a massive war, possibly nuclear, would be high.

We shouldn’t be afraid. The truth will set us free.

That said, I don’t see how it makes a difference at all who holds the legislature or executive branches, since all are Republicans now.

It makes a very slight difference. It is unlikely that the Democrats would abolish unions or pass laws prohibiting all abortions. This is pretty weak tea, but we are looking for differences in differences.

My hope: Feingold wins big in Wisconsin, and builds a progressive constituency for a run in 2016. There is a populist opportunity here, but it is going to take someone savvy and a lot of luck to seize it. The era of the DLC Democrat is coming to a natural end. The DLC have recreated the old Republican Party ca. 1950-1960. We need a Democratic Party again.

I’m sure one of the reasons the Pakistani’s released him is that they got pretty much what they wanted from him while he was in detention. The reports said he was disoriented and traumatized. I wonder how that happened?

Oy, what a choice. Who cares. A pox on all 3 houses: WH, house, senate, Rs, Ds. May they all rot. Ditto NYS, esp the gag producing new gov.

Obama doesn’t abolish unions, he just turns them into neutered poodles – see Obama getting the UAW to shill for the next NAFTA. The Reds and Blues play the game slightly different, but they’ve still basically got the same owners.

I didn’t know Feingold was running for anything.

Well, not to worry — Obama and his handlers have it all figured out, the way to motivate the base is to get the radical liberals to swallow their anger about all the compromises he made with the refucklicans.

Now, shut up and swallow.

…ooops, he said “hardcore” not radical.

Voters have a choice in 2012.

It’s a choice between a wolf and a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

As to whether it makes much difference who wins, I would ask: who is more likely to get away with gutting the social safety net and the whole shebang — a wolf or a wolf in sheep’s clothing?

With that in mind, I fully expect Obama to win re-election since, as a proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing, he effectively pursues a corporate, right-wing agenda without the progressive push-back that we had when there was a Republican in the White House.

If the Democrats lose both the House and the Senate in 2012, it may be a blessing in disguise. Perhaps Obama democrats will finally rouse themselves from their torpor and man the barricades in the mistaken belief that this is what Obama wants them to do.

“It’s a choice between a wolf and a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Well said.

How little we learn from the past, which has a nasty habit of repeating itself precisely because we learn so little from it. The Democrats will not regain the House next year, and they will likely lose the Senate. This is because they insist on behaving like the far-right Republicans instead of representing the public interest. That party long ago decided it wanted to get in bed with the corporate bosses. And people don’t like a party that says one thing and does another, like the Democrats do. They stay home and don’t vote at all, no thanks to Democrat hacks going out of their way to discourage third-party-building, so the Republicans will once again cheat their way to seizing control of all three branches of government.

Why this isn’t obvious to some people even after the horrors of the past decade is a mystery.

This post is making the mistake of treating Intrade like a poll. The people betting on the House are not necessarily (or even likely to be) betting on the Senate.

I’d read those numbers to indicate folks bullish on Dems see the play as taking the House while those bullish on the GOP see them playing for the senate. Of the two, it would seem people focused in on significant Dem house gains are more confident in their position.

Of course, it’s two years out – we can’t discount the impact of people simply working various investing systems trying to make money.

Who else has the name and ability to raise money to take on Walker early next year?

I too had no idea Feingold would be running for anything, but, a run for guv up there would be way extremely cool. But is Walker up? They only have two-year terms?

(re:gannonguckert@27)

Recall seems almost inevitable at this point … but next January is a ways off.

I want to emphasize one assertion you made, because I think it’s really true, and I think very few consider it:

I too think Obama isn’t terribly bright. Much closer to the traditional “dumb blonde” caricature than not, i.e., comes off a lot better as long as he keeps his mouth shut.

What used to be called “industrial psychologists” (I’m sure it’s a fancier name now) have ranked the professions for intelligence by looking at the folks at the top of the different fields. It’s far from real scientific, but they say generals are the least intelligent of those who top their profession, while philosophers are the brightest, with musicians and mathematicians just behind, etc.

I think Obama is probably about as smart as the average military general. Otherwise, how else to explain the ignorance that has him forever a day late and dollar short, trying to study up and figure out what’s going on in the situations he faces?

You had to be truly ignorant and grasping to have pulled Summers, Bernanke and Geitner out of your ass for economic leadership in Jan., 2009, right?

Way cool by me.

As to the subject of this post, I see no way the Dems hold the Senate. 22 Dem seats are up, and, what, 6 of them will be open, because the current occupant is retiring? Repubs have only 11 seats up, only two which will be open.

I think Obama gets a Republican Senate, and given his clearly conservative tendencies anyway, the USA gets shafted much, much more.

Indeed, I think the 100-year event could happen, i.e., that both houses flip while the incumbent Prez is returned to office, because I doubt the Teabaggers will be nearly as successful; they’re being exposed as fools, and independents should come back and could well get the Dems over the 20-ish seat hump to re-take the House.

That’ll give us a very closely divided house, with the usual Dem fractiousness, a Repub Senate, and the pathetic Prez surpassing Millard Fillmore for uselessness, cuz Fillmore only got one term.

I do not know who can up with the saying, “don’t change horses in midstream. With most of the democrats the DCCC and DSCC are fielding, these are not horses people. These are not mules, but a subspecies of the jackass call burros. You do not knows what these clowns will do next. Captain “O” will perform a miracle and lead them in the fetal position off a cliff.

Regarding your 2nd-to-last paragraph, one could be pretty damned smart and still not be looking that great as POTUS. Who was the last one who looked really good? Clinton and Reagan could be endearing at times based on personality, at least to voters on their side of the aisle, but it’s a nearly impossible job, and not getting any easier as time goes on. Not that Obama hasn’t been worse than I’d hoped in several ways, but still, faced with an insane Republican party, warped corporatist media, a far-Right SCOTUS and the inherent desire to get re-elected and get other Dems elected in a money-intensive system, it’s fncking hard not to sympathize at times.

I’m normally an enemy of conspiracy theories, but I’m fairly confident the Repugs didn’t pull off a black box voting win in 2012 for two reasons:

1. Expectations for Dems were so good after the Bush fiasco that it risked exposing the potential for vote tampering to a wider audience.

2. More importantly (since the lap-dog media probably wouldn’t/couldn’t give the voting machine story legs anyway), they didn’t want it. With the economy in trouble on multiple levels and a slew (slough?) of foreign policy debacles in progress, why grab the hot potato? Let the Dems juggle it for a couple of years, then blame them. Which is what’s happened.

This is not 20/20 hindsight: I was saying the same in August 2008. Could be confirmation bias, but…

But to your final point, yes, Summers in particular was a WTF moment. If I’d wanted all the bad actors from the Clinton admin back, I’d have caucused for Hillary. Maybe I got that backwards!

obama’s upcoming giving republicans all the cuts they want to programs that help people including social security, medicare, and medicaid will make sure republicans hold the house and gain the senate. Oh and it is certain that obama will make permanent his bush tax give away on steroids to the rich.

Yes it is amazing. Well said.

It seems to me that Obama is quite intelligent, but that he often appears dim because he’s an opportunist whose pronouncements are limited to praise for American exceptionalism, hegemony, and trickle-down economics.

I think that above all he sees himself as a member of the establishment, keen to refute any suggestions that he may be radical or populist.

He seems content with discharging the ceremonial functions of the presidency, ready to sign off on whatever policies that the various factions of the ruling class may agree on.

Your argument for plausible intellectuality is certainly plausible, but I think the egos that get to the White House mostly want to be wildly successful, even more famouser, and that the Big O would like to be as resoundingly famous as Lincoln. His route was to be a transformational president, since that’s what gets you Washington-Lincoln-FDR status.

He had the opportunity: transform the criminal-based capitalism running amok, transform Bush’s corrupt DOJ, transform health care by ramming through the public’s preference of public option or medicare buyin for all. He could have done all of those with his political capital coming out of Nov. 2008. The war situations are much more difficult, but the others would have made him a transformational president. He failed epically in each regard, condemning him to legitimate comparisons with Millard Fillmore.

So, I dunno…not so smart, methinks…