Democrats are dropping like flies – Republicans are dropping like Democrats (times three)

Erik Kain

Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.

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12 Responses

  1. greginak says:

    ummm….urrr…. blame the liberal media????????Report

  2. Bob Cheeks says:

    Could it be the reason why the Democrats are quitting? And, why is that E.D.?Report

  3. Jaybird says:

    Are the Republicans all “good” Republicans or are they “moderate” Republicans?

    Are they scalps from the Tea Party/Baggers? Or what?

    NPR was running with Crist being a Teascalp yesterday. If the Republicans who are quiting are quitting because they are also excellent Democrats who happen to have an (R) by their name, that could be relevant.Report

    • JosephFM in reply to Jaybird says:

      Well, Crist is an odd case. He’s leaving as Governor to run for Senate because of Martinez’s resignation, not because he thought McCollum (the current R candidate) or Rubio (his Senate primary opponent) would run against him in the gubernatorial primary. He was hardly forced out – on the contrary, if anything he’s too opportunistically ambitious.

      To the extent he ends up being a “Teascalp”, as you put it, it’s because he overestimated his support in the Senate race. I’m not at all sure that will end up being the case though.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to JosephFM says:

        Hey, I’m just repeating what NPR said.

        They framed it as the Teafolks running him out of office.

        If that ain’t what happened, that’s really interesting.Report

  4. Kyle says:

    Numerical parity there is not, but neither are Dems and Republicans in the same spot. Democrats are winning.

    Retirement when you’re not going to land a committee chairmanship anytime soon (or for that matter have an amendment pass) ala Senator Gregg, makes sense. Also, most of the Republican retirements have been known for quite sometime.

    Retirement when you’re a committee chair, your party is in the majority and by most accounts your party and prospects are as high as they’ve ever been, makes people wonder if those prospects aren’t so good. That’s why its news, also the spate of Democratic retirements so close together would suggest that conditions current or upcoming may be to blame.

    Is the media making mountains out of molehills, yes to be sure. Is it – in context – bizarre and inexplicable, not at all. If the Kenyans aren’t sending that many people to the Winter Olympics and they send fewer, it’s not news. When the Norwegians or Canadians back out, it makes you wonder and it makes the news.Report

  5. Bob Cheeks says:

    Methinks we have some whistling in a graveyard here!Report

    • North in reply to Bob Cheeks says:

      Maybe a little Bob but I don’t think the Dems have ever suggested that they weren’t going to suffer some reverses in 2010. I mean you can only go up so far before down’s the only direction left.Report

      • greginak in reply to North says:

        I could have easily predicted D’s will lose seats in 2010 the day after the election in 2008. The presidents party usually loses seats in midterms and the D majorities are huge by historical standards so there is only so big they can go. Predicting D losses is as about as challenging as saying the weather will change over time. No duh. The question is predicting how big those losses will be and why.Report

  6. Jaybird says:

    Can’t we just be glad that 40 of the SOBs are gone?Report

  7. Yeah, but..... says:

    I think all of the number counting is missing a crucial point: the Republican party wants to let go of congressmen who are already planning to retire this election.

    The shrewd political move is to let go of seats in swing states when 1) anti-incumbent sentiment is high and 2) the national intertia is behind you. This is the reason that Democrats have attempted to hold on to incumbents this election cycle–because they know that it’s a tough legislative environment.

    What’s different between the retiring Republicans and Democrats is that it is nowhere certain that any of the Republican retirements guarantee the election of a Democrat. The Democrat retirements, on the other hand, have all come from exceptionally damning poll results on both their job performance and health care that make it almost certain they will not win their respective elections.

    The fact that these Democratic incumbents have decided to throw in the towel shows that they are so far beyond being electable, whereas the Republicans see this a convenient and safe time to “fade in” seats according to the political environment.

    Furthermore, given the states in which this phenomenon is occurring, it serves as a useful proxy for what type of results could be expected if Republicans were to nationalize their campaigns, which they will.Report