Democrats poised to gain power not seen for decades

BYLINE: Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau

SECTION: Main News; Pg. A1

LENGTH: 2143 words

DATELINE: Washington

Democrats are closing in on a Senate royal flush.

Although still a long shot, they have raised their goal to a magic and rare 60 members, a filibuster-proof majority of enormous significance.

Depending on how things break Nov. 4 in a handful of states, Democrats could move from a tenuous Senate majority to that filibuster-proof margin for the first time in three decades. Republicans haven't had such a margin since 1911. If Democrats also keep their House majority, which is all but certain, and win the presidency, they would wield power unrivaled in Washington since Democratic President Lyndon Johnson in 1965.

The filibuster is a quirky but potent weapon that allows a minority of 41 in the 100-member Senate to block - and just as important, influence - all legislation before it even gets to the president. If Democrats win the White House, the filibuster would be the last institutional power left to the GOP.

Republicans, who for months have been measuring success in this election not by how many seats they win but how few they lose, have taken lately to campaigning on the dangers of unchecked political power. Democrats currently hold a working 51-vote Senate majority. Nine more would put them at 60, and they might not even need that many if they can lure remaining GOP moderates on big issues.
6 to 9 seats

Top Senate analysts are putting Democrats' haul this year at from six to nine seats, with the potential to topple even GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia if voters move in a great heave on election day to sweep out incumbents in reliably Republican states.

Other establishment GOP brands also may be heading for defeat: Elizabeth Dole, wife of former GOP presidential nominee and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole in North Carolina; and John Sununu, scion of former New Hampshire Gov. and White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu.

The shock in Senate races isn't that Democrats are winning the Republican West, but that they're on the verge of taking seats in the South, the GOP's stronghold since the Reagan presidency.

"Why are we talking about a race in Mississippi at all?" marveled Jennifer Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the Cook Political Report.

Political oddsmakers say Democrats have all but sewn up Senate seats in Colorado, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Virginia and possibly North Carolina. They have strong shots at taking Oregon and Alaska; are in toss-ups in Minnesota and Mississippi; and are making runs at Kentucky and Georgia.

The only hope Republicans had of picking up even one seat was Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's in Louisiana, and she is coasting with a comfortable lead.

"I don't think Republicans are going to lose in Kentucky or Georgia, but I wouldn't bet more than a quarter on it the way things are going," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. "It's going to be a wave election for Democrats. It's going to be big."

That would be the second wave in a row, a rarity in politics, following the 2006 election that toppled Republican control of Capitol Hill. Voters traditionally retrench after a sweep for one party.

If Democrats reach a 60-vote majority and take the White House, it would be the first time since 1979 that either party held the presidency and both chambers of Congress with a filibuster-proof Senate. But even that minimizes the historic magnitude because Democratic President Jimmy Carter had so little control over his own party.

The better comparison is Johnson in 1965, Sabato said. Johnson was a former Senate majority leader and president who exercised pre-eminent power, enacting landmark civil rights, immigration and health care legislation known as the Great Society.
Stars aligned

Democrats are riding almost cosmic political forces: President Bush's deep unpopularity, a weak economy, a banking panic with a $700 billion rescue a month before the election, Republican presidential nominee John McCain's badly managed campaign and Democrat Barack Obama's well-run one, a string of GOP retirements, the corruption trial of Alaska GOP icon Ted Stevens, and a strong third-party candidacy in Minnesota that could split the GOP vote and put comedian Al Franken in the Senate.

"When 91 percent of people say the country is seriously off on the wrong track, an all-time record," Sabato said, "and the president is at 23 percent approval, 3 percent below President Richard Nixon the day he resigned, it's just a question of how many seats the Democrats pick up."

The GOP Senate campaign committee is campaigning to "Save the Filibuster." Just three years ago, Republicans were so confident of their majority that they threatened to use what they called the "nuclear option" to eliminate the filibuster for judicial nominees.
GOP warnings

"Liberals are bent on handing Barack Obama a filibuster-proof Senate majority to rubber-stamp his radical agenda," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, vice chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee pleaded to donors.

Democrats are skewering Republicans who voted for the bank bailout, despite Obama's strong support for it. That includes McConnell, often attacked as a partisan but who hailed the rescue as one of the Senate's "finest moments," for its rare bipartisanship.

A McConnell loss in Kentucky would be an earthquake, similar in magnitude to the defeat of former Senate Majority Leader and South Dakota Democrat Tom Daschle in 2004. It's the kind of year, said Nathan Gonzales, political editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter, where "normally safe incumbents start to become vulnerable."

Still, there are potential complications for Democrats even if they reach a 60-vote majority or close enough to lure enough moderate Republicans on some issues to get to 60.

Democrats depend for their current majority on two independents, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Sanders is reliably Democratic, but Lieberman, a former Democratic vice presidential nominee who broke with his party on Iraq and was shunned in his 2006 re-election primary bid, is campaigning for McCain. There is no love lost between him and Democrats.

Moreover, several potential new Democrats would come at the expense of moderate Republicans, such as Gordon Smith of Oregon and Minnesota's Norm Coleman. More troublesome, these same Democrats lean right, and might be prone to break ranks. These include the conservative Ronnie Musgrove in Mississippi, Virginia's Mark Warner, campaigning as a moderate, and Kay Hagan, who could topple Dole in North Carolina.

"I don't think they can count on Warner's vote 100 percent of the time," said Duffy. "Hagan ought to be careful about what she does and how she votes."
The top Senate races

* Thirty-five seats are up for election, including midterm vacancies in Wyoming and Mississippi. The current Senate breakdown is 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans and two independents. Republicans are defending 23 seats to the Democrats' 12, including five GOP retirements. The Democrats' dream is to pick up nine seats to give them a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority. The last time either party gained nine seats was in the 1994 GOP landslide, when Republicans recaptured the House for the first time in 40 years and retook the Senate.
* Alaska: Incumbent Republican Ted Stevens versus Democrat Mark Begich. Stevens, 84, finished testifying in his own corruption trial two weeks before the election, making the 10-hour flight between Anchorage and federal court in Washington, D.C., to hit the campaign trail. Stevens has miraculously narrowed Begich's 17-point lead to a dead heat by stressing his ability to bring home the bacon. Beginning his long tenure in the Senate in 1968 and known in Alaska as "Uncle Ted," some think Stevens could win if he is acquitted or even if the verdict is mixed the prosecution bungled and the judge threw out some evidence. Despite his frosty relationship with Gov. Sarah Palin, the GOP vice presidential nominee, Stevens could ride her coattails in this solidly GOP state.
* Colorado: Open seat vacated by retiring Republican Wayne Allard. Democrat Rep. Mark Udall has a big lead over former GOP Rep. Bob Schaffer, a conservative from the eastern part of a state at the crumbling edge of the GOP's long lock on the West. Democrats won a Senate seat here in 2004 and the governorship in 2006. GOP presidential nominee John McCain is beginning to cut back advertising here.
* Georgia: Incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss versus challenger former state Rep. Jim Martin, a Democrat. A GOP loss here would be a shocker, signaling a Democratic landslide. Even Democratic pollsters say Democrats have "no business" winning here. Yet Chambliss is being hurt by his vote for the $700 billion bailout, and Martin is getting a heavy assist from his party. Chambliss has seen his 20-point lead in September dwindle to two.
* Kentucky: Incumbent Republican Mitch McConnell, challenger Democrat Bruce Lunsford. Former President Bill Clinton won this red state twice, but Obama doesn't have a chance here, which makes McConnell's slippage all the more surprising. McConnell, seeking his fifth term, is the Senate Republican leader but finds himself in a tough fight. Lunsford is a wealthy businessman whose nursing home business was beset by controversies, and he failed at earlier statewide bids for governor. Yet the latest polls put the race at a tie.
* Louisiana: Incumbent Democrat Mary Landrieu, challenger Republican John Kennedy. The only place Republicans hope for a pickup, but Landrieu has a comfortable lead.
* Minnesota: Incumbent Republican Norm Coleman, challenged by Democrat Al Franken and Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley. Franken is a professional comedian embarrassed for failing to file tax returns. He lacked traction from the outset. But Coleman, a comparatively popular moderate, is also a first-termer who barely won his last race as a Republican in a deep blue state in a very bad year for Republicans. Fact is, neither major-party candidate will win with more than 40 percent of the vote because Barkley is polling in the high teens, boosted by an endorsement from former professional wrestler and Gov. Jesse Ventura. Lots of mudslinging in this race. Former GOP Gov. Arne Carlson endorsed Obama, and Coleman asked the McCain campaign to stop its robo calls in the state.
* Mississippi: Open seat vacated when Republican Trent Lott retired last year. Republican Roger Wicker was appointed to Lott's seat; his challenger is Democrat Ronnie Musgrove. Obama is unlikely to win Mississippi, but with a voting-age population that is 33 percent African American, the nation's highest, his coattails are giving a big boost to Musgrove, a very conservative Democrat.
* New Hampshire: Incumbent Republican John Sununu, Democratic challenger and former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen. Shaheen has been leading for months and few think Sununu can close the gap in a state shifting Democratic. Sununu, the Senate's youngest senator, is not being written off yet, because he beat Shaheen to win his seat. But McCain is equally behind despite nonstop campaigning. Democrats have had their eye on this one all year.
* New Mexico: Open seat vacated by retiring Republican Pete Domenici. Republican Steve Pearce and Democrat Tom Udall squaring off, and it's not even a contest. Udall has a crushing 20-point lead, and it looks like he could join his cousin, Mark Udall, in the Senate.
* North Carolina: Incumbent Republican Elizabeth Dole, challenger Democrat Kay Hagan. Some analysts say insider polling shows first-termer Dole is toast. Wife of former Senate Majority Leader and presidential nominee Bob Dole, Dole lives in Washington and has come under attack for being out of touch with Tarheels. The national Democratic committee is throwing money at the race; Democratic registration gains are phenomenal, adding 300,000 new voters to Republicans' 64,000; and Obama is running close, gaining sharply among white voters over John Kerry's showing in 2004. All signs are of a wave washing out Dole.
* Oregon: Incumbent Republican Gordon Smith, challenger Democrat Jeff Merkley. Smith, a moderate and wealthy frozen-vegetable magnate, has broken sharply with President Bush on Iraq, the environment and gay rights, and runs ads tying himself to Obama. But in a nationalized election where such distinctions don't seem to count, Merkley, the state House speaker, was beaten up in a tough Democratic primary and polls have had the two tied at times, but everything is moving in Democrats' favor here.
* Virginia: Open seat vacated by retiring Republican John Warner. Republican former Gov. Jim Gilmore faces former Democratic Gov. Mark Warner. The moderate Warner is a shoo-in. This former Confederate capital will soon have two Democratic senators and could help put Obama in the presidency, the way trends are moving.

Wonderful news, but I have reservations. As I have said before, conservative Democrats are probably worse than moderate Republicans when it comes to Dream, or any positive immigration reform.

Still, a Democratic supermajority would be awesome and better for us than any GOP majority or even the status quo. The comparison to Johnson was good, but Johnson himself was brought down due to his involvment in Vietnam and his insistence on continuing there, at the expense of funding his Great Society programs (Republicans insisted on slashing it for continued Vietnam funding).

Just wait until next Tuesday!

I wholly agree with you. I too would like to see a Democratic super majority in Congress. But one thing that gives me ulcers is that these Democrats sometimes break ranks very publicly.

As much as we criticize the Republicans for their failed policies, one thing you gotta give them is that the Republicans move in lockstep, in tandem with the party. When word comes down from their political gods (the leadership), all the minions get in line.

The Democrats, have a penchant for question the word coming down from the leadership which is good because it prevents a bad bill from being passed. But goddamn, I wish, sometimes, the rank-and-file would show some loyalty.

if it is a 60 seats, all we really need is for all them to vote for dream, and maybe throw a couple of moderate republicans for insurance as well lol

Here are some more news...




Schumer: 60 Senate seats possible but unlikely


WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. presidential nominee Barack Obama's fellow Democrats will likely fall a bit short of winning a Senate majority large enough to hold off procedural challenges, a chief party strategist said on Sunday.

But Democrats seem certain to pickup enough Senate seats to get "a lot done" and "help change the country" when the new Congress convenes in January, said Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, chairman of the Senate Democratic campaign committee.

Democrats control the Senate 51-49. They would have to gain nine seats to hit 60, the number needed to end Republican procedural hurdles known as filibusters that can kill or at least slow legislation.

"As for 60, that's very, very difficult," Schumer told CBS's "Face the Nation." "It's possible, but unlikely. And the reason is because the terrain is so tough."

Schumer noted that many of the 11 contested Senate races where Republicans are vulnerable are traditionally Republican. None are traditionally Democratic.

Still, as Schumer put it: "The bottom line is: I think Wednesday morning Democrats are going to be very happy, because we're going to pick up a whole lot of seats."

"With 56, 57, 58 (Senate seats), we'll be able to get a lot done in the Senate and help change the country," Schumer said.

Republicans blocked much of the Democrats' agenda the past two years -- on matters from expanding health care to withdrawing troops from Iraq -- with filibusters.

Democrats figure that if they can get close to 60 Senate seats, they will be able to pickup a couple of moderate Republicans to end many filibusters.

Congressional Republicans have been hurt by the ailing economy, the long-running Iraq war and the unpopularity of their party's leader, President George W. Bush.

Democrats are expected to expand their majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives to perhaps their highest levels in decades. Democrats hold the House, 235-199.

Analysts have said House Democrats may pickup upward of 30 seats. The last time Democrats had a filibuster-proof Senate majority was three decades ago.

Thirty-five of the 100 Senate seats are up for election on Tuesday. Twenty-three are held by Republicans, a dozen by Democrats.

According to polls, just one Democratic senator, Louisiana's Mary Landrieu, appears to be in any jeopardy of losing.

Among Republicans who seem to be in trouble is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. He was hurt by the $700 billion federal bailout of private investors.

Also in jeopardy is Republican Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, who was found guilty last week of political corruption.

"There's no question that we are facing a fairly strong political head wind," Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, chairman of the Senate Republican campaign committee.

Appearing with Schumer on "Face the Nation," Ensign said, "Democrats are poised to pick up some seats. The exact number we don't know" because so many races are razor close.

Ensign warned: "This is the most liberal, left-wing, radical group of candidates that Democrats have ever put up. And if they get in, if they get the kind of numbers that Chuck Schumer is talking about, they are going to take this country way left."

"They're going to increase taxes. They're going to increase spending," Ensign warned.

Schumer rejected such talk,

"The (Democratic) Senate candidates are thoughtful. They're moderate," Schumer said. "Unlike the Republican incumbents they're running against, they do want change. They don't believe in Bush's policies."

Hmmm... Is Schumer counting Sanders and Lieberman? They are independent but caucus with the Democrats, and in this article are counted in the 51 number. If the Democrats could pick up 9 seats they would technically be at 58, but in reality have 60.

I can't wait for Tuesday. I'm getting jittery.