“Welcome To WalMart – I’m Taryll!”

The latest Rothenberg Report should put a damper on the regional left’s most-treasured shibboleth.  Along with Erik Paulsen in the Third District, Michele Bachmann’s race has been promoted from “Republican Favored” to  not even competitive.

U.S. Reps. Michele Bachmann and Erik Paulsen have been dropped from the Rothenberg Political Report’s list of competitive House races. Previously the the two contests had been rated as “Republican favored.”

Rothernberg is bullish on the party as a whole…:

Stuart Rothenberg is predicting wide gains for the GOP in November. So far in this election cycle, he has moved 44 contests towards the Republicans, while just four races have become more favorable for Democrats.

“Substantial Republican gains are inevitable, with net Democratic losses now looking to be at least two dozen,” Rothenberg writes. “At this point, GOP gains of 25-30 seats seem likely, though considerably larger gains in excess of 40 seats certainly seem possible.”

That doesn’t mean Republicans, and Tea Partiers, should let off the pressure.  We really need to do two things; deliver the Dems a defeat even more crushing than Clinton took in 1994, something that’ll send a generational message; “don’t socialize the US” (and, preferably, also make the Dems a third party, sooner or later).

And above all, we all need to make sure a big victory doesn’t make the GOP complacent.  This vote, as it stands now, will be a referendum on Obama, not an approval of any coherent vision in the alternative from the GOP.  Other than a few obstreporous conservatives like Bachmann, there really is no competing vision from the GOP yet.

And as we found in 1994, and Obama found in 2008, referenda against a sitting or departing adminsitration have short legs.

5 thoughts on ““Welcome To WalMart – I’m Taryll!”

  1. In May Hawaii voters may very well replace the execrable million-term congresstroll Neil Abercrombie with Republican Chas. Djou. It’s a three way race between Djou and democrats Ed Case and Colleen Hanabusa. Abercrombie resigned his seat to run for Governor. This requires the state to spend millions of $ it does not have for a special election. This has not endeared Abercrombie with the voters.
    Ed Case is the brother of Steve Case, co-founder of AOL. He was appointed to fill out the term of congresswench “Red” Patsy Mink when she died in Sept. 2002. Voters elected her in November anyway — this is Hawaii — and Case won a special election to fill her seat. When he ran for the nomination for the seat in 2004 the local D establishment pulled out the knives & backed ex-lt. Governor Mazie Hirono for the nomination. It was a very, very bitter battle, and was won by the good ol’ boys and their pawn, Mazie Hirono. There is no love lost between Case, the D establishment, and their candidate for Abercrombie’s seat, Collen Hanabusa. Case will be very happy to act as spoiler and put Chas. Djou in office as the only GOP member of the Hawaii congressional delegation since statehood.
    Too bad I can’t vote for Djou. Different district.

  2. Shhhhhhh. We want the Democrats to spend as much as possible on the Bachmann race. For every $100,000 that they spend on anti-Bachmann ads, that is $100,000 less being spent on competitive races.

  3. Chuck,

    I know. But they read the polls too. I’d like to think they base their campaign decisions on what they read on SITD, but I bet they don’t.

    By August, it’ll be pretty clear that while the Dems’ll keep the rhetorical war in the Sixth going full steam, the only money coming in will be from the Dump Bachmann paypal account.

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