A Wave of Cold Water

Much is being said around the blogosphere recently about this revitalizing nugget of Charlie Cook wisdom concerning wave elections:

The one sobering thought that veteran Republican consultants are already contemplating is that the larger the wave this year, the more difficult it will be to hold onto some of these seats in 2012 and 2014 in the House and 2016 in the Senate.

The bigger the wave, the weaker the class and the harder it will be to hold onto those seats. Democrats only have to look at their 2006 and 2008 classes for plenty of examples.

What this means is that we will likely have our third wave election in a row this year, and the bigger this one is, the more likely that there will be a countervailing wave in either 2012 or 2014.

I'll admit, when I first read the article, I was encouraged. On its face, it seems logical. If the Republicans make big gains this year, they will come in regions that are demographically trending blue, they look to be relying on depressed democratic turnout, and of course this crop of Republican candidates is particularly insane. It's somewhat cold comfort for those of us who had hoped for a continued legislative agenda that wasn't bogged down by fishing expeditions and threats of government shutdown, but this kind of analysis offers, dare I say it, hope. All we need to do is tough it out for two years, and we'll be okay again. The Republicans will stretch themselves too far, far beyond the actual geographic contours of their party, and a large correction will follow. At that point, assuming the economy doesn't crash groin-first into a cactus again, Obama keeps the presidency and gets back to work passing more desperately needed legislation.

Well, as much as I'd like to leave it there, that's not the way it crumbles, cookie-wise. As Matthew Yglesias points out, Republican gains this year are going to be coming out of a very large Democratic majority. The current breakdown is 255-177; just to reach parity, the Republicans need to pick up 40 or so seats. The Democrats are the ones that are already stretched way beyond their bounds, holding seats in all kinds of places they just never would have without George Bush's help. Many of these seats were picked up by the much-maligned Blue Dog democrats, most of which are now trapped in "who's the most conservative conservative" style battles with well-financed and typically crazy Tea Partiers. If there's ever a "natural" state to party control, these are "naturally" Republican areas, now matter how the demographics may slowly be trending. In other words, this election is the countervailing wave, and only if it's a wave of such a magnitude to tip into traditionally blue districts (a 70+ seat wave) could we reasonably expect another wave to come.*

Cook also has this to say:

Should the Senate end up with a 9-seat net gain for Republicans, or even eight, there will be immediate speculation about what Sens. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Joe Lieberman, I/D-Conn., do. Both are up for re-election in 2012 and neither is likely to be oblivious to the fact that Democrats have twice as many seats at risk in 2012 and 2014 as Republicans. Whether the GOP captures a Senate majority this year or not, the odds are pretty good that they will have one in either two or four years. That kind of exposure is enormously important, particularly given the rarefied circumstances in which Democrats won some of those seats in 2006 and 2008.

So even if there is a countervailing wave, and somehow the House returns to Democratic control, the GOP is still going to have two more decent shots to take the Senate, where the real action is. And it's the Senate which has caused progressives the most grief in the last two years, slowing up every confirmation or bill that so much as looked at them funny. Worse yet, Senate control may lie in the hands of Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman, two crabby old "moderates", in the worst possible sense of the word.**

So, cold water. Of course, it's possible that the Republican Party somehow deviates from its current strategy (though unlikely, considering both how much success they've had with obstructionism and how many Tea Partiers will soon be in Congress), or that legislative procedural reform is passed (also unlikely, as the Democrats will be happy to pick up those tools once used against them), and then Obama is once again capable of passing large, ambitious, and vital legislation. It's much more probable, though, that the next 4-6 years are a blur of frivolous congressional investigations, hyperbolic showdowns, and maybe even an impeachment or two.

* And keep in mind that the natural breakdown of voting constituencies has always resulted in a lopsided congressional map towards the Republicans. Democratic voters tend to cluster in higher concentrations (urban areas) than Republican voters do, so even if the congressional vote is 50-50, you'll have a Republican majority due to the way the districts are laid out.

** I wrote about this way back, but these guys get away with murder under the guise of being "independent". Remember the Cornhusker Kickback? Or, say, anything Joe Lieberman has ever done? They possess enormous power simply because they've positioned themselves at the ideological fulcrum of the Senate.