Observing our electoral politics as that standard Spectator Sport… and pondering the much anticipated and expected Democratic Butt-whupping that is always more or less inevitable for the “In” party at midterm.  That 50/50 chance of a Speaker of the House John Boehner has tilted in Boehner’s direction — and we will see.  The remote chance of a Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is now an outside chance.

Say.  Did you see that Jan Brewer debate debacle in the Arizona Gubernatorial debate?  It doesn’t matter.  She will ride this immigration issue to victory, her “beheadings on the border” retaining “truthiness” to her constituency.  Oh, make no mistake, it will be a horribly unsuccessful term in office, with everyone wishing they hadn’t voted for her, but Arizona will suck it all up for now.
See also, in different dimensions, Texas’s governor.

I have previously remarked that the bulk of those right wing Republican “Tea Party” candidates will, indeed, win.  In random point tossings, if you get 5 points for being a Republican this electoral season, you then get a mere 2 subtracted off for being a Tea Partier.  That’s still 3 ahead.  We are, of course, rooting for the ones that definitely matter as opposed to possibly or not at all matter — Delaware and New Hampshire.  The Delaware candidate imploded a bit, which is unfortunate.  We do see a bit of alignment idea working here: the Democrats in those New England states will either withstand the radicalized Republican Party wave that held sway elsewhere, or be pushed aside by less radical Republicans.  In short order, the Republican Tide of 2010 abides, recedes from whatever it does in the Northeast, and remains in place in …. the South and the Mountain West.  Or there’s a couple Senators chafing in the split that’s obscured by Republican victory.

The Democratic Salvage Operation should kick in effect shortly.  Labor Day is that traditional start of the Election Campaign Season, and the rule of thumb for those non presidential actors is that if they’re down by 8, they are screwed.  So it is that proxy test in Ohio of whether an electorate may still cast some fury at Bush Administrations appears lost for the Democrats.  The query of things now goes, as we await November, “So.  Independants.  What do you want in reconciling your conflicting opinions?  Democrats.  Is this what you want from a smattering of lukewarm?”  History let Roosevelt off the hook in 1934 because he put a solid marker between Hoover and himself.  Obama, as history now records, largely took over that meeting McCain demanded and became President in September when he pushed forward on the “Bailout”.  This averted the Depression — on rather obnoxious terms, but also blurred that transition between Bush and he.  Then again, I guess it’s hard to see Obama in better stead with the Economy just that much worst — I guess we’d have had to suffer from Bush through four more years for Obama to more successfully avert Midterm history.

I always thought, and posted it at the time, that the Republican Party screwed up their “Salvage Operation” in 2006.  On the Senate level, they needed to put all their eggs in Virginia, Tennessee, and Montana.  But they chased after Maryland — Senator Michael Steele! — and New Jersey, and thus lost the Senate.  I had nothing for them in 2008 — it was kind of telling that McCain did the “Avoid the Obama — Reid — Pelosi Spenders” while in the same spot Bob Dole was in in 1996, when it was the Senate Republicans ran with the same “Don’t give Clinton a Blank check” theme.  For the Democrats in 2010, on this Senate level — hm.  Obama campaigns in Illinois — and I say should be enough.  Check into those shady states of California and Washington.  I would dump resources in Alaska and see if that cold shoulder of Murkowski equals a split of some proportion.  After that, we’re in a bit of flux — we will see.  A central problem is that litany of “D”s in striking position are on sort of unfavorable ground — Kentucky and North Carolina — as opposed to the sliding away Ohio.

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