With a little luck, Harry Reid will be indicted soon, as will Menendez.

Looking at the 2008 races, I see 2 potential pickups for the GOP and 1 or 2 for the Dems, but if the President doesn't cave in the next 2 years (unfortunately, it looks like he will), the results could be better.

The GOP's top takeover prospects for 08 are pretty clearly Louisianna and Montana.

Landreau barely got elected, and was really hurt by Katrina. The key will be finding a top-flite challenger, Bobby Jindal springs to mind, assuming he doesn't run for Governor again.

In Montana, I suspect that Tester's election will severly hurt Max Baucus, as Montanans tend to favor devided government. If Dennis Rehberg or Marc Raccicot can be recruited to run, it should land squarely in "leans GOP" especially if Hillary's on top of the Dem ticket.

1 or 2 for the Dems?? These are the possibilities, off the top of my head...

VA, CO, OR, MN, NH, NM--and that doesn't include possibilities of gop retirements that are unforeseen at this point.

We don't know how things will go, but a moderate Dem at the top of the ticket could take the Dems to 55 or more after 2008.

Btw I'm assuming you all still think judicial filibusters should be abolished, right?

Looking through the list of potential pick ups I see the following.

Potential shots:
Landrieau of Lousiana
Johnson of South Dakota
Baucus of Montana
Pryor of Arkansas
Rockefeller of West Virginia

All five are running in states that the republicans can win at the state wide level. In LA, republicans won 5 of the 7 representative districts by an average R total of 76%. Dems took 2 of the 7 by a dem average of 72%. Add in hurricane Katrina and the state should be in lay.

Thune barely losed to Johnson in 2002. Perhaps Rounds can be persuaded to go national.

I don't think Burns is the right guy to go up against Baucus, but perhaps Rehberg.

Pryor won against the trend in 2002, so he will be tough. Boozman is the first name that comes to mind for this state. The problem is that while it goes R presidentially, it is otherwise pretty solidly D.

Ireland or Capito would make sense in West Virginia.

Long shots:
Romney takes on Kerry in Massachussetts (assuming he isn't other wise occupied)

Maybe we look at Butler or Bouchard to go against Levin in Michigan.

Kean against Lautenberg in New Jersey.

Castle in Delaware running for the open seat left by Biden resigning.

Looking at defense, I would be most concerned with:
Colorado (state is trending blue and Allard just squecked by in 2002).

Minnesota (Coleman looks to be either leading a new wave that may be petering out or bucking a trend)

New Hampshire (Sunnu got 51% and both representative districts flipped in 2006).

New Mexico (it is safe if Dommenici runs, but he will be 66 so he may retire).

Oregon (Smith had a good showing in 2002, but the state is pretty blue).

Tennessee (expect to see Ford run for Alexander's seat, whether Alexander is done with it or not).

Virginia (The other Warner may decide to run given he decided against a presidential run).

Maine (Collins, like Snowe, is likely to win if she runs and she says she will run).

So the summary is 5 reasonable shots plus one semi-reasonable in delaware for R pick ups balanced against 8 tough holds depending on retirements. Not a great year to take back the senate, but not unreasonable. Lets see what the recruiting season brings us.

When do retirements USUALLY get announced? Is it sometime between now and February, or more like a year from now?

Thanks.

I have been a rep since Pres Reagen asked us to
switch parties and at the time it was the right thing to do.
1. national securtiy
2. a good economy
3. IT IS ONE BIG TENT AND WHILE WE MAY NOT AGREE ON EVERY SOCIAL ISSUE WE WOULD BE HEARD. Today
unfortunately all I hear is religon being used as
the way to show we are conservitive which is bullshit.
The corruption that has taken place in the last 8yrs shows that even those who are religous ie. the great ex senator from pa got kicked out because of the corruption.

I should have added until we clean our party up we will lose more and more until we become the party of irrevelance

Don't worry, Reagan had Democratic majorities far wider than this during his Presidency, he still did well.

Plus, many of the Dem gains were due to Libertarians taking 2-3% of the GOP vote. These seats are shaky at best.

If anything, the Dems will now be locked in a battle to keep the extremists like Pelosi from making the whole party look bad.

ama055131-

I hear you, and don't give up yet. Some Republicans got fat and lazy and lost focus, while others did make a LOT of noise. While I wish we could have addressed this AND kept both houses, that's the price we have to pay for their errors.
We will re group and even bring back a few stray Libertarians to boot. If not, we can sit back and let Nancy P. and Ted K. take us to the grave.

Simply, the republicans lost because voters gave up on them. They aren't sure what the democrats can deliver, but they decided not to give GOP another shot.

If the newly elected congressmen in each house do a good job, frankly we all benefit. If voters have elected moderate, fair-thinking logical representatives, that should really be a plus factor for all of us. On the other hand, if they turn out to be left-wing liberals in disguise, the constituency that elected them on a false projection (not to mention the tight significant minority in most cases that lost) will turn them right out again. House is easier but senate will not be spared.

Frankly I am hopign that our newly elected congressmen do a good job! (And I am a loyal conservative republican, but a loyal American first).

There is also North Carolina where popular democratic Governer Mike Easley is term limited, he may run for Dole's seat in which case Republicans may take and unforseen loss

Dominici will be 76, not 66.

Gordon Smith is likely safe in Oregon, since the only Democrats who have a real shot at beating him are very unlikely to run (Kitzhaber, DeFazio, Hooley). He is pretty popular here and earned respect from many Democrats (like me).

Tom Udall will likely be the Dem nominee in NM and is better than 50-50 to beat Heather Wilson, who would have lost had not Madrid screwed up big time in the last debate.

And whoever thinks Reid will get indicted might want to reconsider if he thinks that would be good. If he goes, then Hilary likely becomes majority leader and might not run for president, leaving the nomination open to a more electable candidate.

I doubt it would happen that Harry Reid is forced to resign. But if he was forced out a Republican would probably be appointed by the Republican Governor. Therefore no Harry Reid eaquals no Democrat Senate majority leader for now.

It sounds like there is more than enough Kool-Aid to go around amongst the Republicans around here.

I seem to remember that, going into this election cycle, the fact that Democrats were defending three more seats than Republicans was seen as something to be overcome rather than to be depended upon. In 2008, Republicans will have nine more seats to defend. Definitely not a good thing if Bush is still in trouble then, or if the GOP nominates a bad presidential candidate.

Also, the most senior members of both houses of Congress tend to retire more often as members of the minority, since they would likely be powerful committee chairmen as members of the majority. And as we all know, it's a lot easier to take an open seat than to beat an incumbent (though Dems didn't seem to have much trouble doing that on Tuesday!)

Here's my list of vulnerable Republican seats in 2008:

Allard (CO) - if Colorado is really turning purple-to-blue, then Allard is in trouble--he was barely winning in Republican years

Cochran (MS) - only if he retires--Republicans were nervous about holding Trent Lott's seat if he hadn't stood this year

Coleman (MN) - squeaked through in Republican year of '02 because of the reaction to the Wellstone memorial, won't have those kinds of lucky breaks in '08, a good candidate beats him

Dole (NC) - did a horrible job as NRSC chair this year, N.C. recently has had close Senate elections (Edwards-Faircloth '98, Burr-Bowles '04)

Domenici (NM) - only if he retires--if Gov. Bill Richardson foregoes the quest for the Democratic presidential nomination that he won't win anyway, he could give the GOP fits here

Smith (OR) - though no Democratic names immediately jump out; Smith won't ever have it easy in such a blue state

Sununu (NH) - New Hampshire is in the middle of a political 180, as both of its House seats turned blue and Dems took control of the state legislature. A good enough Democratic opponent probably beats Sununu in '08

Warner (VA) - has already said he won't run in '08; this race ought to be fun, especially if Mark Warner decides to run, since he's not going for the White House

Kansas is another potential pick up for democrats if Roberts retires popular democratic governer Sebelius might run...and win

I'm from Kansas, even though I live in California now...I'm not sure Sebelius will want to cut her term as governor in half to run for Roberts' seat when she can serve out a full term (winning more political credits) and run for Sam Brownback's seat in 2010.

There are two things that can complicate this, though: first, Sebelius may be wooed to run as a vice presidential candidate in 2008. But the more interesting scenario involves Brownback thinking he can be the GOP presidential nominee, which has been widely speculated. As a Democrat, I hope the GOP is stupid enough to nominate him, but that's another thread for later. The reason it's so interesting is that if Brownback runs for president and resigns his seat, Sebelius would get to appoint his successor, so Kansas would likely have its first Democratic senator since the Depression. If 2010 comes around and Sebelius wants to be senator, does she run against an incumbent fellow Democrat that she herself appointed? I would love to see something like that happen, just to liven up Kansas politics, if nothing else.

I know we all think Texas is a safe place for us Republicans, but as a Texan, I've noticed a few trends that are bothering me.
First in the election of 2004, Democrats made gains in our house for the first time in ages.
And this past Tuesday, Democrats picked up 5 more seats. They are now within an earshot of controlling the Texas legislature. What that means is, by the time redistricting comes around again, they can reverse our gains that Tom Delay made by redistricting back some of the Republican held seats into Democratic territory.
Also, is a HUGE surprise, GW's home town, Dallas, had a massive tidle wave of Democratic success.
Dallas County elected EVERY SINGLE DEMOCRAT on the ballot, the county went for the blue column for the first time in 20 years. If the large metro areas in Texas continue to trend blue, the Texas GOP needs to worry by 2010!