My 2006 election day prediction

I am basing this not on polls, because polls are just as often wrong as they are right.  I am basing this on things that matter, that are really happening.  The stock market has moved up strongly today.  Wall Street LOVES a useless split House.  When there’s no chance of significant legislation being produced for a couple of years, the members of Wall Street see stability and the ability to basically run amok.  Therefore, I predict the House goes Democrat and the Senate remains Republican.

The results of this, oddly enough, will assure

  • the supporters of stem cell research, namely the Michael J. Fox’s, will get no significant legislation for at least two years.
  • No pressure will make it through Congress to compel Bush to change any positions on Iraq until he chooses.
  • Health care reform, which has seen some progress the last four years, will stop immediately.
  • Homeland Security will be compromised by the inability of Congress to change it, which it desperately needs right now.
  • Bush most likely will turn to foreign policy to stake his destiny as presidency, and will lead to nothing tangible ( See Clinton ).
  • The tax incentives, which the Democrats never allowed to be made permanent, will die on the vine thereby stalling the economy, which Nancy Pelosi will then blame on Bush.
  • Expect a renewed attack on the Patriot Act, returning us to the confused and helpless days pre-9/11.
  • A sense of vindication by terrorists and probably a renewed vigor to try more attacks within the US.
  • The Mexican Wall, which was legislated but not funded, will remain so for at least two more years.
  • And, since the margin in the House will be so slim, no meaningful agenda by the Democrats will emerge either.  All they’ll be able to do is form and head committees with the knowledge that very little to anything will make it out of the Senate.  That just means Nancy Pelosi will form a mindless number of committees to persecute Bush while all of the above issues are totally ignored.

That’s what a useless split government offers us right now.  If someone can give me a little more optimistic opinion, I’m certainly game for it.  But, do be prepared to make a logical argument as rhetoric won’t survive here. Just saying something will happen won’t cut it.  I need to know HOW they will get it done in a completely dead-locked Congress.

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  • http://westanddivided.blogspot.com/ mw

    I am predicting +19 or 20 for Dems in the house, and a 50-50 Senate.

    Based primarily on the action in the trading contracts.

  • Moonage

    It can’t be 50-50 in the Senate no matter what happens today.

  • http://westanddivided.blogspot.com/ mw

    The indies caucus Dem for a 50-50.

  • http://westanddivided.blogspot.com/ mw

    That is not a “given” of course.

    Leiberman could possibly flip with a choice chair from the Republicans.

    He would have to break his promise to caucus Dem.

    I would not put it past him.

  • http://moonagewebdream.blogs.com/storms_counter_terrorism/ StormWarning

    I’m going to stay with my “prediction” of the House at Democrats 230+ seats and a 51-49 Republican majority in the Senate (this counts Jeffords as a “D” and does not count Ford, McCaskell or Webb winning). A dead even Senate with Cheney in control is not out of the question in my opinion.

  • http://westanddivided.blogspot.com/ mw

    I am watching Charlie Cook of National Journal on MSNBC – He says the first indicator of the national temperature is KY-03. Running 50-50 in a district that the Dems did not target and should be all red.

    Your back yard moon.

  • Moonage

    They didn’t need to. He spent $500,000 of his own money. Secondly, Northrup has never won big and has been considered vulnerable. Don’t take my word, take Wiki’s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Northrup

    The two races the DNC did target “in my back yard” they both lost. I really disagree with their summation that KY-03 is any indicator of anything. It’s fairly split and no one has won by any real margin for several years. The 2nd District is largely Democrat, but are electing a Republican incumbant. The 1st District is HUGE Democrat with a Republican incumbant, who is winning. The 4th District, a HUGE Democrat majority with a Republican incumbant, who apparently has won. The 5th District, mostly Democrat with a Republican incumbant who has won huge. Sixth District is a Democrat majority who has re-elected a Democrat incumbant. For my back yard, Louisville has proven to be the exception and not the norm. Democrats were hoping to pick up three seats here, with the DNC targeting two. They got one that quite frankly they blew 2 years ago. Not exactly what they were expecting I’m sure.

  • Moonage

    Assuming Lieberman AND Jefferds will caucus with Democrats on every single issue is purely that, an assumption that is meaningless. The reality is it would be most likely 50-48-2 under your assumption. That’s not an even split. The Republicans will control the committees regardless of how the independents choose to caucus.

  • http://westanddivided.blogspot.com/ mw

    Call it what you want. At 50-50 the Republicans still control the committees because Cheney is the tie-breaker. 50-50 or 50-48-2 is a functionally identical result (a result I am delighted with by the way as I outlined in this post). When it comes to votes on individul issues, there are more Independents in the Senate than Senators that have an (I) by their name – Snowe, McCain, Hagel come to mind. I like the makeup of this Senate a lot.

  • http://moonagewebdream.blogs.com/storms_counter_terrorism/ StormWarning

    Moon, given that I believe your comment was directed at my earlier prediction comment, you are totally correct. Independents like Lieberman and Jeffords do not count when it comes to determining Chairmanships. So if the final results of the Senate races end up with a 50-48-2 split, yes, the Republicans will control the Senate and make the committee chair appointments.

  • http://westanddivided.blogspot.com/ mw

    Moon,
    Just an fyi, I thought our conversation over the last few months merited a retrospective. It may be time for you to amend the old maxim from “All Politics is Local”, to: All Politics is Local, except when it is not.”

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  • Moonage

    See my latest post on why I think it still is. Will Claire McCaskill be more concerned with Nancy Pelosi or the people in Missouri? If she chooses the people of Missouri, why would that be?

  • http://moonagewebdream.blogs.com/storms_counter_terrorism/ StormWarning

    I agree that politics is local. All you have to do is examine the 180 degree opposite positions of my former Congressman and my current Congressman (one in NY and the other in Texas) on the issues of the “guest worker” program and the border wall, and you see how two conservatives can disagree on one issue all because of their geography.

  • Moonage

    That’s the point I can’t seem to get MW to understand at all. People do consider national issues, but it’s directly related to how it affects them locally. Although border security probably determined the fate of some candidates in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and possibly California, it was a total non-issue here. The problem as a whole for the Republicans in this election IMO was they allowed national issues to totally undermine their own campaigns by reacting to those issues almost exclusively and allowing their local media to focus on those issues excusively. In other words, they didn’t make their races local enough. If they had, they would have been discussing their local economies, the safety of their communities, and basically, anything BUT things like Iraq and border security outside of those states affected by that issue. So, my bottom line is although national issues do come into play, it’s how that indiviual voter determines how it affects them in their environment that matters exclusively. And, the reason I think the six year itch has a proven track record is a lot of times, individual voters just get plain bored with their representative and look for something different. That six year itch isn’t reserved to politics either.

  • http://westanddivided.blogspot.com/ mw

    Does Mrs. Moon read this blog?

  • Moonage

    Not usually :)

  • http://westanddivided.blogspot.com/ mw

    and how long have you been married?

  • Moonage

    Not quite six years :)

  • http://westanddivided.blogspot.com/ mw

    I strongly recommend you delete these last 5 comments (this one included). You will thank me later. BTW – you are one year early.

  • Moonage

    Elections don’t run on seven year cycles. If they did, the turnover would be that much worse.

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