Top Democrats head for the exits
By: Manu Raju and Josh Kraushaar
January 6, 2010 04:17 AM EST
[link to
www.politico.com]
The grim outlook for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections just got a little worse.Four top Democrats—including veteran Sens. Chris Dodd and Byron Dorgan—all prepared to pull the plug on their campaigns in a 24-hour period that began Tuesday, and in the process, offered an unnerving glimpse at the perilous election year ahead.
With Dorgan’s stunning retirement announcement Tuesday evening, Democrats are now facing their bleakest election outlook in years—and the very real possibility the party will lose its 60-40 Senate supermajority after the November elections. On the House side, the prospect of heavy 20-30 seat losses is already looking increasingly likely.
“It’s not good news for Democrats,” said Roy Temple, a Democratic strategist. “The reality is this is going to be challenging year, and this is an additional challenge you would prefer not to have. Because of the success of the last two cycles, there are a lot of seats to defend. This is just an additional complication.”
Dorgan’s announcement was accompanied Tuesday by Michigan Democratic Lt. Gov. John Cherry’s decision to end his floundering bid for governor, and by the revelation that both Dodd and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter would announce Wednesday that they would not seek reelection.
There is some silver lining in the Democratic cloud: Ritter, Cherry and Dodd were all struggling to gain traction and their departures could actually increase Democratic chances of holding those offices.
Several top-tier prospects immediately surfaced in Colorado as potential Democratic candidates for governor. In Connecticut, Democrats expect that state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal will run in Dodd’s place, providing them with a stronger nominee than the embattled five-term senator.
Yet the retirements of two senior Democratic senators, and the suddenly altered landscapes in Michigan and Colorado, continue a wave of Democratic bail outs that began with a burst of retirements by veteran House Democrats representing competitive districts, followed by the stunning late December party switch by freshman Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith.
In the meantime, President Obama’s and the Democratic Party’s poll ratings have slipped across the board, generic polling is now generally more favorable to Republicans and a handful of promising Democratic House candidates have abruptly ended their campaigns.
Suddenly, the sad sack GOP is looking at its best shot in three election cycles of making serious gains in November.
“Sen. Dorgan’s retirement coupled with the recent spate of retirements by House Democrats show the national mood is swinging against them,” said Carl Forti, a GOP strategist. “With [Sen. Blanche] Lincoln and others in a precarious position, Democrats will have to thread the needle to get back to 60 seats.”
In Dorgan’s case, Republicans now have a very strong chance at picking up his seat in Republican-oriented North Dakota, a state which Barack Obama lost by eight points in 2008 and John Kerry lost by 27 points in 2004.
Dorgan said his decision had nothing to do with his re-election campaign, where he had yet to face stiff competition – though the popular GOP Gov. John Hoeven could have possibly jumped into the race and forced the senator to wage a fierce campaign. In the wake of Dorgan's announcement, North Dakota GOP Chair Gary Emineth told POLITICO that he believes Hoeven is likely to run now.
In a memo to staff and later to the press, Dorgan said that he came to his decision over the holiday season and wanted to pursue interests outside of politics, including writing two more books, working on energy policy and teaching.
“[M]y decision has no relationship to the prospect of a difficult election contest this year,” Dorgan said. “Frankly, I think if I had decided to run for another term in the Senate I would be reelected.”
Still, his decision forces Democrats to defend yet another open seat in addition to Delaware and Illinois—two states where Democrats typically run up the score but where the GOP is poised to run competitive candidates this year. And it comes in a year in which Democratic incumbents including Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Arlen Specter, appointed Sen. Michael Bennet and Lincoln are battling weak polling numbers.
“Remember the old Tareyton cigarette slogan? ‘I'd rather fight than switch?’” said Alex Castellanos, who advises the Republican National Committee. “Now that the Democrats are expected to drop under 60, we will probably see other retirements as Democrats decide they would retire than fight.”
Despite the souring outlook, Democrats are hopeful about their chances in five of the six states where Senate Republicans have their own retirement-related problems– Ohio, New Hampshire, Missouri, Florida and Kentucky. They envision a scenario where the economy will yield job growth heading into the midterms, and expect that public perception of the party will brighten if Congress gives final approval to the Democrats’ sweeping health care bill and approves other measures on the ambitious agenda.
Some Democrats give little credence to the retirements, noting that they have no broader meaning other than the fact that individual lawmakers chose not to run for reelection.
“These guys quit sometimes,” said Jim Jordan, a Democratic strategist.
The timing—the first week of the new year—and the locales of the retirements makes them hard to dismiss as isolated incidents, however.
In Colorado, the epicenter of the recent Democratic resurgence in the interior west, it is telling that Ritter, a 53-year-old former Denver prosecutor who cruised to victory in 2006, would unexpectedly pull down the curtain on a promising career and that Bennet, the senator he appointed to a vacant Senate seat, would be in jeopardy of losing it.
In Michigan, a state battered by job losses but still a reliable Democratic bulwark in state and federal races in recent years, the heir apparent to two-term Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm is similarly quitting before even starting, unable to raise money or get out from under the shadow of what has become a deeply unpopular administration.
And back in Washington, Democrats were all but blindsided by Dorgan’s decision to retire rather than seek a fourth term in a seat that only he may be able to hold. Neither the Senate majority leader nor the White House even had a statement prepared.
Compounding the problem for Democrats—and spreading the pain to all three Democratic campaign committees Tuesday—the one Democrat who may be able to hold Dorgan’s seat is Rep. Earl Pomeroy. But if he vacates North Dakota’s at-large seat, that would create another problem: Republicans would be positioned for another House pick-up.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31186.html
