Early Thoughts on House Races

It's way too early to get too in-depth on the 435 U.S. House races taking place next year, but I thought I'd give a brief list of seats that I consider either "moderately vulnerable" or "in serious danger" of changing party hands in 2008. To arrive at these conclusions, I am going under the assumption that the Democratic Presidential candidate will be Hillary Clinton, a scenario in which I believe more seats will become vulnerable than if John Edwards or Bill Richardson were able to pull off a surprise Lazarus-like victory. As I said, this is a very rudimentary outline, and at the end of the day, may prove to be far from prophetic.

Moderately Vulnerable Democratic Seats
AZ-08 (Giffords)
C0-03 (J. Salazar)
CT-02 (Courtney)
FL-22 (Klein)
GA-12 (Barrow)
IL-08 (Bean)
IN-02 (Donnelly)
IN-08 (Ellsworth)
IN-09 (Hill)
IA-03 (Boswell)
KY-03 (Yarmuth)
LA-03 (Melancon)
ME-01 (Allen--running for Senate)
MN-01 (Walz)
NH-01 (Shea-Porter)
NY-19 (Hall)
NC-11 (Shuler)
OH-18 (Space)
OR-04 (DeFazio....if he runs for the Senate)
SC-05 (Spratt)
WV-01 (Mollohan)
WI-08 (Kagen)

Democratic Seats In Serious Danger
AZ-05 (Mitchell)
CA-11 (McNerney)
FL-16 (Mahoney)
GA-08 (Marshall)
KS-02 (Boyda)
PA-04 (Altmire)
PA-10 (Carney)
TX-17 (Edwards)
TX-22 (Lampson)


Moderately Vulnerable Republican Seats

CA-04 (Doolittle)
CA-26 (Dreier)
CO-04 (Musgrave)
FL-13 (Buchanan)
IL-11 (Weller--retiring)
IL-18 (LaHood--retiring)
MD-01 (Gilchrest.....strong primary challenge could unseat incumbent)
MI-09 (Knollenberg)
MN-06 (Bachmann)
NV-03 (Porter)
NJ-07 (Ferguson)
NY-25 (Walsh)
NY-26 (Reynolds)
NY-29 (Kuhl)
NC-08 (Hayes)
OH-01 (Chabot)
OH-02 (Schmidt)
OH-16 (Regula...if he retires)
PA-06 (Gerlach)
VA-02 (Drake)
VA-11 (Davis...if he runs for Senate)
WA-08 (Reichert)
WY-AL (Cubin)

Republican Seats in Serious Danger

CT-04 (Shays)
MN-03 (Ramstad--retiring)
NM-01 (Wilson)
OH-15 (Pryce--retiring)


I haven't been following House races too closely thus far. Have I missed anything significant with this list?

Just As I Expected

At the beginning of summer, the widespread speculation throughout Washington and the mainstream media was that the war in Iraq was approaching its sunset. Even Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell warned President Bush last May that Republican Senators were right on the cusp of abandoning him and favoring some sort of change of course on the war. I predicted at the time that they were bluffing....and it appears I was right. The fact that nominal military progress has apparently been made by General Petraeus following the surge probably made a change of course that much more impossible, but even if the deterioration of conditions from six months ago had continued to spiral post-surge, I still don't believe enough Republican defections would have eventuated to sustain a Bush administration veto. After the Democrats in Congress got rolled once again by setting expectations for a change of course so high for the month of September and not being able to deliver a single item on their wish list, the new conventional wisdom seems to be that we're no closer to ending this war (or even beginning to end this war) than we were at this time in 2003.

The worst part of it is that American public opinion matters not at all. Every poll taken since the "momentum-changing Petraeus report" has indicated a continued loss of confidence in the American people regarding our open-ended commitment in Iraq. Yet we will continue to stay the course for the foreseeable future. Just this morning on the Sunday gabfests, likely 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton confirmed that if elected President, she'll maintain a near-permanent U.S. troop presence in Iraq. That strikes me as Hillary lowering the expectations bar for Iraq even in 2009 and beyond.....the first of many baby steps likely to come that will ultimately equate to a post-Bush administration Iraq policy that is only cosmetically different than the Bush administration Iraq policy.

From a political standpoint, such a scenario increases the likelihood of reduced morale among the Democratic base if Hillary is elected President in 2008. If we're still in Iraq heading into the 2010 midterms, it's gonna be a Democratic bloodbath at the polls, setting the stage for impenetrable Republican Congressional majorities for the coming decade due to reapportionment following the 2010 Census. Few partisans are willing to recognize that today, but I hope listening to Hillary's gradual backsliding on Iraq policy as we heard today on "Face the Nation" and "Meet the Press" starts to plant the seeds of doubt in the minds of primary voters about the short-term and long-term merits of a Hillary Clinton candidacy next fall.

On an unrelated matter, I find myself hoping for yet another Democratic defeat this week in regards to the proposed expansion of the SCHIP program, providing government health care for children. I support the expansion on its merits, but the monstrously irresponsible and predatory funding mechanism proposed by Congress (yet another cigarette tax) is an instant dealbreaker for me. Despite conventional wisdom, the SCHIP expansion is a political land mine for Democrats because public support, while appearing to be overwhelming, is very soft, as evidenced by how little media attention the issue is receiving. On the contrary, the low-income demographic of cigarette smokers, a natural Democratic constituency on the surface, will be anything but soft in its indignation of being singled out for yet another tax increase.

It's no accident that so many Republicans have signed on for the SCHIP expansion. Not only does it allow the Democrats to proudly contradict their "party of the working man" ethos with the tripling of the most regressive tax in existence, it helps pols like Iowa's own Chuck Grassley (an ardent supporter of the SCHIP expansion) to do the bidding of the state's insurance industry barons and shift the cost of health care from Principal Financial and onto the backs of the most politically powerless taxpayers. The bottom line is that the SCHIP expansion, as currently funded, would dramatically raise the taxes of families making $30,000 per year to subsidize free health care for children (or young adults up to age 25!) in families making $75,000 per year. It's every bit as much of a reverse redistribution of income as any of Bush's past tax cuts.

Unfortunately, there's probably a 50-50 chance that the House of Representatives will have the votes to overturn Bush's promised veto. The Senate has already produced the necessary 68 votes to overturn the veto, and pressure on soft House Republicans and conservative House Democrats who previously voted against the expansion will be enormous. They need a couple dozen converts for a veto-proof majority, and I'm leaning slightly towards that threshold not being crossed. Amazing how just like this summer's horrendous McCain-Kennedy immigration bill, the Democrats in Congress have to count on opposition Republicans to keep them from digging their own political grave.

MN-03 and Other Hot Congressional Races

As is common following Labor Day the year before the next election, the 2008 Congressional races are starting to take form. We're months away from the first primaries, but things are already starting to get interesting with some major retirement announcements in the pipeline. The two biggest are obviously Virginia Republican John Warner and Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel. Both are traditional red states, but the Dems are poised to put forth two very strong contenders that put them at even odds or better of taking both seats.

In Virginia, popular former Governor Mark Warner has already announced his candidacy, and early polls show him with a commanding lead over all of the three most likely Republican opponents (Tom Davis, Jim Gilmore, and George Allen). I'm betting Davis, a suburban moderate from the northern Virginia, will get the nomination, and he could prove to be a worthy challenger for Warner....at least more so than Gilmore or Allen. Even if Davis does turn out to be the challenge Warner, I'd still put the odds at 2-1 in Warner's favor here.

Nebraska's a different story. Former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey has expressed interest in getting in the race, and would easily be the strongest Democratic candidate in crimson red Nebraska, but my opinion is that he'd still be the underdog in a Presidential election year where Hillary Clinton would be a huge millstone around the neck of a Democrat in a state like Nebraska. The mountain for the Democrats got even higher today when former Nebraska Governor and current Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns announced his candidacy for the state. Johanns is very popular, and doesn't seem quite as removed from the political lexicon as Kerrey, who's been out of the Senate since 2000. We have our work cut out for us with this race.

Closer to home, the surprise retirement announcement from suburban Minnesota Republican Jim Ramstad gives us a 50-50 chance at picking up another House seat. Ramstad is a widely respected moderate Republican in an affluent Hennepin County district that has been trending Democrat in recent election cycles. If the Republicans are wise enough to nominate another moderate (or at least pseudo-moderate) in the Ramstad mold, they'll most likely hold the seat, particularly with the help of Senator Norm Coleman, who I expect to do very well here. But if the GOP nominates a hard-core conservative like State Representative Erik Paulsen or former gubernatorial candidate Brian Sullivan, I'd bet against them.

For their part, the Democrats also need to play this one smart. An aggressive anti-war candidate who talks in platitudes about education and health care is likely to do well here, but a fiery economic populist won't. One name floated around is youthful State Representative Melissa Hortmann, whom I don't know enough about to either pick or pan. But another oft-cited contender I'm not as crazy about is Buck Humphrey (grandson of Hubert and the losing Secretary of State candidate from 2002). I'm not sure how good of a candidate Buck is or isn't, but I think the Humphrey name has become more of a liability than an asset at this stage, particularly in this youthful yuppie-fied district. The candidate who would be our strongest, 2006 gubernatorial running mate Judi Dutcher, has unfortunately taken herself out of contention with last year's E-85 gaffe a week before the election. My guess is that Dutcher would be the presumed frontrunner for both the nomination and the overall election if not for that uber-snafu.

The next couple months are certain to be full of activity in Washington, with more retirement announcements and new candidates stepping up to the plate. Hopefully, it'll be as exciting watching events unfold as it was two years ago at this time when the seeds of the Democratic Congressional takeover were first planted.

"Prison Break" Season 3

Last night, my favorite TV show of recent memory "Prison Break" returned for its third season. The first season of "Prison Break" was genius, the most brilliantly crafted seasonlong narrative I've ever seen on a network television season. Unfortunately, the premise only lent itself to a single-season run. The second season dealt with the prisoners after the escape. It certainly had its moments and was still loads of fun, but most everybody agreed it became a caricature of itself as the narrative stretched on and on and on. Yet viewers kept tuning in, entertained by the insanity and riding out the train until it came to a stop.

While some of the major storylines were resolved at the end of season two, ratings were such that the series has returned for a third season, generally getting off to a fresh start with a new setting and several new characters. I anticipated a loss of audience, and was apparently right as ratings for last night's premiere are down nearly 25% from last year's season premiere. Qualitywise, the new season looks to be another fun ride, but the cache the series had in its first season is lost and the effort to keep the thin premise afloat is increasingly evident. I fully intend to ride out "Prison Break" till the end and may actually find this season's events to be a worthy renaissance, but I would bet money this will be PB's last season as the audience will only have so much patience for this limited capacity story to play out.

I have some political analysis to add to the blog, hopefully by tomorrow night, regarding recent Congressional retirements, so be patient with me.

734 Down, None To Go

Wow. I gotta start posting here more frequently again. It's been a busy few weeks, particularly this past weekend as I took my annual September road trip to northern Minnesota. I stayed overnight in the logging town of Grand Rapids this year and visited an old neighbor buddy who now lives and works there. More importantly, this was THE trip in which I officially conquered the state of Minnesota.

The precise moment of conquer was Saturday afternoon at 1:07, when I drove through Millerville, a tiny burg of 110 people in Douglas County in west-central Minnesota. It was the last of 20 Minnesota communities that I had not yet visited after years of Minnesota road-tripping. A journey that unofficially began in 1998 finally came to a close 734 towns and nearly 10 years later.

The greatest drama came earlier in the day, however, as I finally got the nerve to drive through the one town that I've been putting off for years due to its reputation....and that town is Red Lake, the Indian reservation community recently infamous for the worst school shooting massacre since Columbine two years ago. The community of Red Lake is about 15 miles into the reservation.....a reservation widely considered the most hostile in the country towards outsiders, so much so that the old tribal chief required visitors to have passports when they entered the reservation. The setting is beautiful, with windy roads travelling through the lush pine forests of northern Minnesota and occasional overlooks of Red Lake itself (Lower Red Lake anyway), the largest lake in the state besides Lake Superior. And although the communities on the reservation didn't look quite as harsh on a sunny Saturday morning before 9 a.m., they nonetheless posed a sharp contrast to the beauty of the land and served as a constant reminder that I was "the enemy" in this territory and would be well-advised to drive on out of there as quickly as possible. After a little over 20 miles of navigating the reservation, I made my escape and breathed a huge sigh of relief to have passed on through under the radar of local unfriendlies or the corrupt tribal police, particularly after listening to numerous horror stories from my friend the night before.

Even with all 734 Minnesota communities behind me, I still plan to make annual pilgrimages up to northern Minnesota every September. The fall colors are already evident up there by mid-September and there's just something about that crisp late summer air in the northern Minnesota woods. I wouldn't want to live there given my preference for wide open spaces, but I never pass up an opportunity to visit.