horse race crap
There is an election coming up on Tuesday, with various local issues tossed in your face that you have to deal with wherever you are. I do not know if you can aggregate anything into national significance — the best we can think is to witness the elections in Virginia to see if it can gallop a bit further into the “blue” column, and I guess the Kentucky governor’s race flushes out who might be taking on Mitch McConnell in the next Senate election campaign. So, beyond my station here in Portland, Oregon — and aside from that curious race in Northern New Jersey I can’t say I know what is worth observing. I’m sure something will pop up when the elections all flush out.
Anyways…
I happened upon this list somehow or other.  The Republican honchos at Human Events compile their list of the “10” most vulnerable Republican Senate seats for 2008. Which I would think is a relatively easy task — Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Oregon, surely. Alaska. Maine… a bit skeptically, but we’re working to ten here.
Kentucky is an interesting one, and in horse race terms, which is what all the bloggers seem to like to observe, the Republican Leader’s numbers have fallen below that magical 50 mark. The Republican Party is sort of self-destructing there beneath McConnell, as the Weekly Standard noted recently — and as the Nation noted recently from a different direction. Hence, it becomes that “hmmmm…”
Number 10, I don’t know. Nebraska? Sure, why not? Still. Even though dearest Bob Kerrey, thank god, walked away from the challenge. Do I think the Democrat has much of a chance? No. But we are talking ten seats here, and it’s a juggling act between this and all the others. If you want to dash Maine out of the equation — the Democrats hope it is the image of Rhode Island who offed the popular Chafee for a Democrat, but the problem comes in the urgency isn’t there with a sure Democratic Senate (as opposed to possible if you off the Senator) and a likely Democratic president — you’d have to fish one out of North Carolina or the “netroots” dream of Texas or…
Which brings me to the basic problem with this Human Events list.
Idaho? The Democratic candidate is pretty well set — Larry LaRocco who received 39.36 percent of the vote in a statewide race for Lieutenant Governor in 2006.  There’s a strong chance the Republican candidate will be Jim Risch — who received 58.29% in that exact same contest. And at any rate, it’s not going to be Senator Bathroom Stall, who — I will give you this — would surely lose the race to LaRocco. They saw the Senator Bathroom Stall, they didn’t quite notice that he would sooner or later disappear, leaving a state that is Idaho with a voting pattern that is Idaho.
Wyoming? Now this one is just lazy. Really? A quick google search shows me that the man who nearly won the at large House seat was recruited for this Senate seat, and has wisely decided to try again for that House seat. The wiseacres at Human Events split the difference, saw this as a quasi-open seat — Barrasso having been appointed — and decided that makes it competitive. I don’t think there’s anything special about Barrasso, which makes him, but — Wyoming?
That list thus becomes stupid.