2010 Prelude

By Dave Anderson:

Today brought three pieces of news that I think are indicators of 2010's political climate. 

The first is that Rep. Parker Griffith  of Alabama is changing his caucusing status from Democratic to Republican.  This is not shocking as he had already indicated that if re-elected, he would not vote for Nancy Pelosi as Majority Leader nor had he voted for any major Democratic initiative this year.  He represents an R+12 district.

The second is that Rand Paul has a significant lead in the Kentucky Republican Senate Primary according to Public Policy Polling:

Rand Paul (R): 44
Trey Grayson (R): 25
Undecided: 32

(MoE: ±4.5%) [h/t Swing State Project]

Third, MyDD points out the money race is still tilted in the Democrats favor:

In the race for the House in 2010, which the Republicans are thought to have a relatively better shot at, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee holds a $13 million to $2 million cash-on-hand advantage. On the Senate side, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee leads the National Republican Senatorial Committee $10.2 million to $7.3 million in available money.

All told, the Democratic campaign committees have a net $31.5 million in the bank, as compared with the $18.05 million held by the GOP committees -- a 75% advantage for the Democrats.

 A few weeks ago, I made the argument that the national Democrats were making a threefold bet on 2010 to minimize net losses which would be concentrated on the Blue Dogs in R+a ton districts:

• Discredited Republican Party will make swing voters hold their noses before voting GOP or voting at all.
• Teabagger v. Establishment Republican civil war
• Democrats would maintain the money edge

Freshmen or sophomore Democrats in R+10 or more districts are natural targets for Republicans.  They don't have the institutional roots into the district, the massive grab-bag of favors from finding Grandma's long lost VA pension from her service as a nurse right after Korea to the fund-raiser for the officially non-partisan but truly partisan race to the massive piles of in-district goodies/pork.  So Parker Griffin is just an early casualty, but Democrats should have already been penciling in a zero next to AL-5 for the 2011 Congress on any important votes, including the vote for Speaker. 

Rand Paul is a Teabagger with no connection to Kentucky.  Trey Grayson is the National Republican Senate Committee (NRSC)'s first choice as he had won state-wide office twice, demonstrated name recognition, campaign skills, fund-raising and polled better against either Democratic challenger.  PPP may be an outlier, but if this is remotely true, NY-23 will look like a snow-ball fight.  If this trend plays out, that puts at least two gimme Republican seats at high risk as Florida is also seeing a Tea-Party v. GOP establishment fight in the primary.  I don't think the Tea Partiers are electable in most districts/states.

Finally, bad policy from a progressive end means the corporate money will continue to flow to the Democrats.  It is one of the reasons why drug re-importation is off the table this year.  It also allows the Democrats to continue to shake-down the drug industry each cycle that they hold the majority as there is a viable threat that a majority of the caucus would really like to use someone's monosopy power to get better prices on prescription drugs unless the donations keep flowing.