2008 SENATE RACES, PART IV: SAFEBUTS

We've done the uncompetitive seats and the open/toss-up races. All that remain are the safebuts – seats for which assertions of safety are immediately followed by "but…." This small group of races are not what we could call competitive. Nor are they uncompetitive. Think of them as the sasquatches of American politics, the missing link between man and ape. I'll let you determine which primate represents which party.

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  • NE Open (Hagel retirement): Nebraska's conservative. Scott Kleeb is a good Democratic candidate for a plains state. I like him. But Mike Johanns, the former Governor, seems like he will be too much for a rookie to handle. A weaker Republican might be in trouble, but if the queen had a dick I suppose she might be the king. In a year that favors Democrats this is potentially a little competitive, but a whole lot would have to go right for Kleeb (and a lot wrong for Johanns) to make it close. Call it for Johanns with a 1% chance of Kleeb prevailing and a 15-20% chance that he causes the GOP a few sleepless nights.

  • Mitch McConnell (KY): McConnell is another guy who should be safe by a mile, but…well, people just don't seem to like him very much. I suppose that is the harvest of being a mean, partisan bastard all of one's political life. He has under 50% approval in his state and can't crack 50% in polling against war vet Steve Lunsford (although McConnell is consistently ahead in said polls). McConnell has the upper hand but this is going to be a lot closer than anyone expects of one of the highest-profile Senators. The guy in charge of making sure other Republican Senate candidates win better watch out for his own ass.
  • Elizabeth Dole (NC): Governor Mike Easley proved that Democrats can win statewide races in NC, although he politiely declined to give up the statehouse to battle Dole. Challenger Kay Hagan is the clear #2 in this race, but there has been enough variance in polling and signs of hope from the DNC to suggest that a massive investment of resources could put this in play. Worth it? Probably not. It's important to note, though, that North Carolina is changing more rapidly than any state east of the Mississippi – especially the high-tech area and PhD factory known as "The Triangle." As the blue menace creeps down the coast and claims Virginia, North Carolina could become competitive within 10 years. But right now Dole is likely to be OK.

  • Susan Collins (ME): George W. Bush's bestest friend in the Senate might seem to be in trouble in a state Kerry won by 9%. The reality of New England's strange political schizophrenia argues otherwise. Rep. Tom Allen is as strong a statewide Democratic challenger as Maine can produce in this era, so if he fails to seriously test Collins then both she and Olympia Snowe (who beat a token challenger by 35% in 2006) can safely be considered incumbents-for-life.
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    Essentially, these are the "Oh, Shit" races for the GOP. If November rolls around and they are legitimately worried about any of these, they're in big trouble. These are races that only become competitive when everything has gone wrong for one party and everything went right for the other.

    If that sounds familiar, well, that was 2006 – an election night that saw Republicans sweating out a Senate race in Virginia, losing 3 House seats in Indiana, and seriously contemplating the possibility of losing a House race in Wyoming. The GOP is clearly in a transitional period and, unfortunately, sometimes a 1994-style thrashing is necessary before the ship can get pointed in the right direction again.

  • LE SYSTEM D

    There is a phrase used among chefs which, like so much of culinary culture, has its origins in France during the Escoffier era: le system 'd'. The phrase loses some of its meaning in English, as the "D" refers to a word, débrouillard, with no direct translation. It can be either an adjective or a noun, roughly meaning adept at handling unexpected situations in stride, often by improvising a solution. The closest English equivalent would involve invoking MacGyver. That man is débrouillard.

    Turning to System D means jury-rigging a solution. To a chef this means reacting quickly when bad things happen at the worst (busiest) time without breaking the flow of the kitchen.
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    Out of spinach? Use arugula. Deep fryer crapped out? Throw a pot on a burner and get to work.
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    Twice as many guests at the banquet as anticipated? Fluff out the portions with filler, just don't make it too obvious.
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    Chefs take pride in this sort of thing, seamlessly circumventing roadblocks with customers none the wiser.

    Maybe it's a male thing, but I believe most of us take pride in putting System D into action – opening a locked car door with a coat hanger, plugging a leak with gum, fixing something with duct tape, and so on. I had a System D moment with my dissertation this evening – a very complex problem with a laughably low-brow solution. I dare not put it in writing, lest it come back to haunt me in the future, but I can say with great pride that I am quite débrouillard when it comes to spatial analysis of political behavior. No one else cares, of course, but the whole point of System D is the pride in knowing that you are more clever than the obstacles in your path.

    And to impress MacGyver. Assuming he reads this, regale him (and me) with your finest System D stories in the comments.

    WHAT WE'VE LEARNED

    It is a rite of passage for major world leaders to tour Auschwitz and other Holocaust-related sites during visits to continental Europe; George W. Bush did in 2003. His father, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and other American presidents have made similar pilgrimages of contrition during or after their terms in office. George W., in fact, enjoyed it so much he went back a second time. These visits are as regular as they are pre-scripted, involving the usual combination of somber photo-ops, Formal Apologies, and earnest resolutions that these tragedies will happen Never Again.

    The actual lessons leaders, nations, and people choose to take from their visits to Holocaust sites, in stark contrast to their solemn rhetoric, are shockingly superficial. If the lesson to be learned from the Holocaust is that nations should not elect leaders with toothbrush mustaches and swastika armbands, then we have learned it quite well. This terrible thing happened, and it serves as a reminder that we shouldn't elect Nazis.
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    What neither George W. Bush nor most other Americans acknowledge is the actual lesson – that the Holocaust is an extreme example of what happens when societies, governments, and people decide to scapegoat, legislate against, and ostracize people based on political, religious, ethnic, or lifestyle differences.

    No, instead we remind ourselves: Hitler bad, Nazis bad, "freedom" prevents Hitler and Nazis.

    As cheapened, exploited, and distorted as the Holocaust has become, I can only imagine what the 10th, 20th, or 50th anniversaries of 9-11 are going to look like. Right now it has been seven years since that day, and what have we learned?

    For most Americans, it seems that the lesson was Muslims are Violent and They Are Trying to Kill Us. The lesson is that They must be stopped. The lesson is that there is no lesson, just an evil, fanatical enemy to be destroyed before They destroy us.

    The real lesson is that times like these test the resolve of nations (and their people) and if we respond by becoming what our enemies have always accused us of being, we have lost a lot more than two iconic buildings and 2,752 human lives.
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    While the superficial lessons abound today and have done so for seven years, we patiently wait for our political leaders, media, and neighbors to indicate that they have learned anything at all from this event that so dominates their worldview. I am not holding my breath.

    BREAK GLASS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

    I have turned over too many plausible tie scenarios in the Electoral College (play around here) to neglect looking beyond Election Day to our eminently logical contingency procedures.

    Short answer, if you want to skip the next few paragraphs: in case of a tie, Obama wins.
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    The long answer is that elections not decided in the Electoral College are decided in the House. But members do not vote – states do. This is called the Unit Rule. Each state's delegation to the House meets and casts a single vote.
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    We expect that this takes place along party lines within the states, i.e. Indiana has 5 Democrats and 4 Republicans, and hence Indiana's 1 vote presumably goes to Obama.
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    The incumbent Congress, not the folks who get elected in November, make the call (see comments for correction: incoming Congress decides). Right now, here is how our state delegations break down:

    Republican (21): AL, AK, DE, FL, GA, ID, KY, LA, MI, MO, MT, NE, NV, NM, OH, OK, SC, TX, UT, VA, WY

    Democrat (27): AR, CA, CO, CT, HI, IL, IN, IA, ME, MD, MA, MN, MS (!!!), NH, NJ, NY, NC, ND, OR, PA, RI, SD, TN, VT, WA, WV, WI

    Split (2): AZ, KS

    The scenario, even assuming AZ and KS throw their support to McCain, clearly favors Obama. The GOP, in response, will suddenly develop a very principled stance (unrelated to the fact that standard unit voting leads to their defeat) in favor of state Congressional delegations voting in accordance with the popular vote in their states. This, coincidentally, would almost certainly lead to a McCain win, as the GOP excels at winning lots of states in which no one lives.

    Of course the Democrats in the House wouldn't go along with that at gunpoint, but that's not the goal. The goal will simply be to flood the talk radio airwaves with torrents of "fairness" and "disenfranchising" and "the will of the people" talk.

    I wouldn't call a tie likely, but it could happen. Among swing states, let's say IA, MN, CO, and NM go to Obama. Give McCain VA, OH, and NH and you've got yourself a tie. That, in my opinon, is entirely plausible. Accordingly I have a hard time seeing how McCain wins without sweeping the big trio of OH-PA-VA. Single-state polling isn't great, but Obama has sizeable leads in IA, NM, MN, and other supposedly competitive states that McCain would have to win if he doesn't sweep the Big Three.

    (Polling caveat: I rip on it a lot, but even if results fall within margins of error I subscribe to the belief that consistency counts. For example, Obama's lead in various Michigan polls is always within the margin of error but he is the consistent winner in poll after poll (see also: McCain in Missouri). While I wouldn't put any stock in a single poll showing one guy with a 2-point lead, twelve polls over 4 months are a different story.)

    WHAT MOTIVATES YOU

    Jeffrey Toobin, in what rapidly proved to be an understatement, called McCain's speech on Thursday "shockingly bad." Having finally forced myself to watch portions of it (in addition to the usual transcript-hunting) I lack the energy to talk about the specifics of his random fusillade of rhetorical anti-matter.

    My reaction was simple and focused: if you get inspired by watching John McCain speak – truly, deeply inspired as a person – there is something wrong with you. You are the kind of person who, when really letting your hair down, has a couple of sugar-free Nilla Wafers and fat-free Cool Whip. You enjoy slices of white bread dipped in room temperature tap water. You have to water down your caffiene-free Diet Rite because it is too strong. You find Jay Leno's comedy funny but a little too edgy. You turned down Cher tickets because you don't like hard rock. Your collection of ties ranges from red to magenta. You read Family Circus.

    And, apparently, you respond well to Crazy Teethtm.

    ON LANGUAGE

    Hypothetically – and this is purely hypothetical because of course I would never mock a topic widely considered to be a social taboo – let's say I photoshopped a picture of Cindy McCain holding Sarah Palin's youngest child with a caption such as "OMG!
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    I HAS A TARD!" That would pretty much make me the worst person on Earth, right? It would be so mean that it might actually cause me problems beyond the internet – for example, my students, employer, and potential employers could find it deeply offensive and use it as (justified) grounds for filing formal complaints against me, refusing to renew my contract, or not hiring me in the first place, respectively. And God forbid I ever ran for public office; my insensitivity to the developmentally disabled would be a disaster of campaign-ending proportions (unless I ran as a Republican, in which case IOKIYAR takes over). In short, I would be a bad person and widely recognized as such.

    Let's say, on the other hand, that I was the Vice Presidential nominee of a major political party rather than a guy who makes less than your bus driver but has internet access. Say that instead of making a jpeg image disrespecting Downs Syndrome I used a child with DS as a prop during a nationally-televised address, passing him or her from person to person so that everyone present could hold him (facing outward) and smile into the camera for a moment or two. Let's say that, rather than calling said child a tard, I cynically exploited him or her to not-so-subtly communicate with a core constituency. And then I followed it by asserting, with all the phony indignation I could muster, that of course I wasn't using a tard as a prop, I was merely expressing my love for my child (and allowing the wife of the nominee, who I'd known for about 4 days, do the same).

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    One of the two scenarios I have described here would get me fired. The other would, in part, qualify me for the highest office in the land. Lesson learned; it's OK to cynically exploit the handicapped for political gain, but not to use insulting (and hilarious) language when describing them.

    Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, learned this lesson well.

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    His political career ended when he described his staff thusly during a speech: "I have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple. And we have talent." That ended his political career.

    It didn't end his career that, as Secretary, he quintupled the acres of Federal land leased to the coal mining industry. That he attempted to eliminate the Land Water Conservation Fund. That he said about his attitude toward conservation "I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns, whatever it is we have to manage with a skill to leave the resources needed for future generations." That he described his mission as "We will mine more, drill more, cut more timber." That he took the most aggressive measures to limit Federal regulatory power over environmental issues than anyone before or since. That he leased, by his own estimation, "a billion acres" of coastal land for oil development. That he suggested that if problems with environmentalists "cannot be solved in the jury box or at the ballot box, perhaps the cartridge box should be used."

    It's OK to be the worst person on the planet, to be a Cabinet officer in the White House while suggesting that a large group of Americans should be murdered for disagreeing with you. It's OK to occupy one of the highest offices in the land despite being almost cartoonishly unqualified and ignorant.

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    Using foul language, though, is a bridge too far.

    2008 SENATE RACES, PART III: SEATS IN PLAY

    Nothing says these have to go in order from safest to least safe, so let's cut in line and do the fun races. There won't be many. As with Rick Santorum in 2006, once again we have an incumbent who is expected to suffer a double-digit loss. Open seats, usually a source of intense competition, offer little excitement this year. Three Republican open seats have essentially been conceded, leaving only a small number of action-packed races.

    Screwed Incumbents

  • John Sununu (NH): Historically Republican New England is becoming a dangerous place to be friends with George W. Bush. After Sheldon Whitehouse downed Lincoln Chaffee in 2006 (RI) it was immediately clear that the uninspiring Sununu was in big trouble. NH is a different animal, but if Chaffee's widespread personal popularity could not save him it's hard to imagine Sununu surviving. Factor in his opponent, popular former Governor Jeanne Shaheen, and if there's anything Sununu wants to accomplish in the Senate he might want to do it soon.
  • NM Open (Domenici retirement): When Heather Wilson declined to represent the GOP (just like in 2006) this quickly became a laugher. Domenici's pending ethics censure from the US Attorney scandal sealed his fate, although let's be polite because he's also dying. Democratic Rep. Mark Udall looks unbeatable and the GOP is throwing in the towel. To quote NRSC Chair John Ensign, "You don’t waste money on races that don’t need it or you can’t win.” Congressman Steve Pearce is on his own.
  • CO Open (Allard retirement): This was a potentially epic contest until the GOP couldn't scrape up a challenger. An eminently contestable seat, I'm amazed that Bob Schaffer (last seen losing the 2002 race for this same seat in the primary) is the best they could do. Mark Udall – cousin of NM candidate Tom – looks like he will cakewalk, although the large conservative base south of Denver could make this competitive. A major failure in candidate recruitment and development for the GOP; begging friggin' John Elway to run doesn't count.
  • VA Open (Warner retirement): John Warner retired and is likely to be replaced by Mark Warner (no relation) with opposition from weak challenger Jim Gilmore. The story of the GOP's decline will have to be entitled What's the Matter with Virginia? The speed with which they went from the only game in town to an afterthought in this state is stunning.

    Toss-ups

  • Ted Stevens (AK): I was really tempted to call this one blue but AK remains a very Republican state. Needless to say, however, the septuple-indicted octogenarian is in serious trouble. The RNC is furious that he has refused to withdraw and Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, who would have tested Stevens even sans indictments, now must be considered the favorite. Insert "series of tubes" joke here.
  • Norm Coleman (MN): The gut says Coleman will hold on, but I'm not sure how. Minnesota is so overwhelmingly liberal that Coleman's tenure in the Senate is a minor miracle to begin with. This is a remarkably tight race, literally a coin flip. Franken has money but has not run a good campaign, including some embarrassing revelations about his personal finances. This is the race most likely to go down to the wire. Expect "celebrity" Democrats to come out in force for this one – the Clintons, Biden, Obama, Feingold, Pelosi, and others will become very familiar with the Minneapolis airport. Will the GOP make a similar committment or will its manpower be too tied up in McCain? Does the GOP even have any big guns who Minnesotans wouldn't hate?
  • Gordon Smith (OR): Here's another Senator holding on in a very liberal state. With Obama likely to win Oregon by 20 points, the anonymous and none-too-popular Smith is definitely in trouble. His opponent is middling – State House Speaker Jeff Merkley – but he is running a good campaign based on Smith's record of support for Bush. If the coast (Portland, Eugene) turns out big, Smith's gone.
  • Mary Landrieu (LA): Everyone calls this a toss-up out of guilt for not including one Democrat on the list, so I'll join them. Yes, Landrieu is going to be tested. But the myth of black voters fleeing the state (hence screwing the Democrats) is widespread even though few New Orleans residents actually fled the state permanently. New Orleans, yes. Louisiana, no. Challenger John Kennedy is hard to take seriously; the Democrat switched parties on August 27 and announced his challenge to Landrieu on November 29. Polling provides little value in close races, but most existing polls show Landrieu up 10-15. The state is very red, but right now I see the 12-year veteran hanging on. Her support for offshore drilling (a politically popular stance at home) may have shifted things in her favor.

    So once again I feel compelled to apologize for the seemingly partisan tilt to this analysis, but in this case reality has a distinct liberal bias. Eleven of the mere twelve Democrats up in 2008 are as safe as can be and half of the 20+ GOP seats to defend are in hostile territory or lack quality challengers. When the NRSC essentially gives up on four GOP seats in June (NM, CO, NH, and VA) how in the hell am I supposed to come up with a scenario in which the party does well? The toss-up races are very important for the Republicans, as they represent the dividing line between a bad year and a beatdown of historic proportions. They're basically conceding 54 Democrats, which is very risky. With that as a baseline, they'll need to catch some breaks in the rest of the races or they'll be looking at 60. After the failure of the "firewall" in 2006 they can't actually be overconfident again, can they?

  • NPF: OLYMPIC-SIZED CONSPIRACIES

    I have a theory. Usain Bolt, who became a global celebrity by shattering the 100m sprint record without even really trying, sandbagged his Olympic sprint. He spent the last 20m celebrating rather than running hard, most likely so that his time would be just "slow" enough that he could easily break it in subsequent races. Subsequent races with huge paychecks offered by promoters who think that "Come out and see Usain Bolt break the world record – again!" is the most attention-grabbing marketing line in the sport.
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    From his perspective it makes sense. Why go balls-out if going at 90% is enough to win gold and break a record?
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    Save going 100% for the big payday.