At 11:25pm on 10/21/08 Fox News has as their top news story a claim that House and Senate Republicans are in big trouble come Election Day. Fox news is predicting that the Republicans in the House of Representatives will lose 18 seats from the 199 that they currently hold. This would be devastating to the Republican agenda because they will not be able to stop anything that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is pushing even with the help of the Blue Dog Democrats because they will not have enough rank-and-file Republicans to defeat the liberal Democratic agenda.
Chris Shays of Connecticut is in big trouble. Shays is the only Republican from the New England states currently serving in Congress. He has battled through 10 election cycles and this will be his 11th. Don Young of Alaska is the 3rd most senior Republican member of the House of Representatives and he is also in trouble this year. He has served in Congress since 1973 and has been the chairman of some powerful committees. He is currently under an ethical cloud that has plagued him in recent months.
In the Senate the odds don't look any better. The Senate Minority Leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is facing his toughest re-election contest yet. Some analysts say that this is payback for the defeat of then Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle in 2004. McConnell was once thought to be safe but the economic turmoil has the Republicans scrambling. Other Republicans once thought to be safe are now at risk for losing their seats including: Susan Collins of Maine, John Sununu of New Hampshire, Gordon Smith of Oregon, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, and Saxby Chamliss in Georgia.
I think that President Bush is part of the problem for Congressional Republicans. His low approval ratings reflect across the entire ballet. Some Americans might not realize that Democrats are now in control of the Do-Nothing Congress. If they did they might be voting against the Democrats in this election because this economic crisis happened while they were in control of the Congress.
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