Brittain33
brittain33
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Atlas Star
Posts: 21,955
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« on: November 04, 2009, 05:36:09 PM » |
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Which members of Congress have a new reason to hope that the unemployment rate drops by next fall? Who needs to polish off their resumes? Who leaned a little too heavily on college kids, very infrequent voters, and total revulsion at Bush to get into Congress?
It's early yet, but that's all part of the fun. No editing before next year! In no particular order:
1. Bobby Bright (total fluke) 2. Betsy Markey (too many colleges, had weak opponent, and D hit their high water mark in Colorado) 3. Travis Childers (past his sell-by date in this district) 4. Tom Perriello (all the stars aligned in '08. Look at '09.) 5. Frank Kratovil (lucky in '08) 6. Walt Minnick (duh) 7. Steve Driehaus (I've flipped my view on this one; I was too sanguine about the D base here) 8. Mary Jo Kilroy (weak incumbent, strong opponent, transient voters) 9. Larry Kissell (bad fundraiser in a volatile district) 10. Harry Teague (district too R against solid challenger) 11. Eric Massa (district too R in general, defeated a weirdo) 12. Carol Shea-Porter (no good challenger on the horizon, but NH is volatile and she's going to flame out spectacularly some day) 13. Harry Mitchell (good guy in a tough district, university based, not seeing the appeal for him in the new environment) 14. Ciro Rodriguez (if a good challenger materializes, he's low-hanging fruit in a district with a high R floor and an unreliable D base) 15. Suzanne Kosmas (district not good enough for her to survive a party-backed opponent) 16. one entrenched D from among TN-6, TN-8, AR-1, and AR-2, but no more than one; leaning toward Bart Gordon
So I'm predicting R+16 on incumbents, which is historically high, but that's in part because there are few open seats ready to go R. I make no predictions on open seats today, but PA-7 looks a lot dicier today than it did two days ago. My count seems too high for me, but the Rs are too far oversold from '06 and '08, so my mind overrules my heart and says to score high.
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