The Sunshine Empire

My day started off wonderfully but I’m in a grumpy mood for various reasons. I have four days of absolutely nothing planned for the vacation weekend and I guess I want that to start now. I wish I was more driven to be argumentative but I feel the rest of the voting public has lost touch with reality. The political tea leaves have become muddled when it comes to forecasting the fall races as well.

By all account the projections from those that I trust the most show a 30-35 seat margin of gain for the Republicans when it comes to the House of Representatives, but the signs don’t follow the last three election cycles. That’s not to say the prognosticators are wrong as much as they seem to be guessing more and more with a volatile environment. In both 2006 and 2008 the generic congressional ballot was pretty clear in its lean to the Democratic party. The generic congressional ballot polling question is moronic to begin with, as voters in specific congressional districts are not voting for party like in some kind of European parliamentary system. Yet in the last two elections it’s been fairly consistent with the movement of the American electorate. This summer it has swung back and forth as we’ve moved closer to November.

In the United States Senate, the math has never been such that a Republican takeover is a realistic chance. Yet the gains for the Republicans will be in line with the wave election for Democrats in 2006. But several Democratic Senators who have looked like toast in the past are now barely leading. Harry Reid is finally polling in front of Sharon Angle and Rand Paul is not a shoe in for the open Senate seat in Kentucky. The Republicans will do fine this November but Angle and Rand Paul are examples of how the Republicans play with fire when the dance with the Tea Party. But all of this has left me unable to predict what will happen.

As we get to the beginning of college football season we should have a better idea of what we could be facing in the mid-term elections. Will we face a wave election the likes of 2006 and 2008, or will we see something close to the election of 2000 where Democrats came right to the door of taking control of a portion of Congress? Until then I am forcing myself to stay interested in the face of unbearable heat and apathy.