The Filibuster-Proof Senate Majority

You know that 60–seat, filibuster–proof majority the Democrats openly coveted in the Senate during the 2008 campaign? The one that, in the weeks just before his death, Ted Kennedy was so obsessed with preserving that he lobbied lawmakers in Massachusetts to change the rules so an interim senator could be appointed to take his place while others ran in the special election that will choose the person who will serve for the remainder of his unexpired term?

Well, more and more, it looks like actually holding those 60 seats (which includes two seats that are held by independent/third–party senators who caucus with the Democrats) in the 2010 midterm elections is going to be a tough sell.

If, as appears likely, the Democrats lose legislative ground next year, is that going to be a reflection on Barack Obama? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that Obama's extremist agenda has been hard for some centrist Democrats to get behind — and is, therefore, something of an albatross for Democrats who will be on the ballot next year.

And no, because Obama is not the first personally popular president to face this situation. Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan both were personally popular presidents whose agendas were not popular. Both saw their parties lose ground in Congress during the midterms, but each rebounded enough to win second terms.

Such a fate may await Obama. Only time will tell. For that matter, only time will tell whether Obama's Democrats lose ground in Congress on a scale that approaches what Reagan, who also saw unemployment go into double digits on his watch, or Clinton experienced.

But public opinion surveys certainly suggest the enormity of the task facing the Democrats in the Senate.

Not that the filibuster–proof majority has proven to be as valuable to Democrats as they thought it would be. Unless Democrats can actually gain ground next year, they will continue to need folks like Joe Lieberman — who hasn't been shy about threatening to use the filibuster (which kind of defeats the purpose of having a "filibuster–proof" majority) on sensitive matters like health care reform.

When you consider the problems Senate Democrats have had keeping people in line on the tough questions, it is doubtful whether the filibuster–proof majority has done them much good. So maybe losing it wouldn't be so tragic for them — certainly not as tragic as another year of unemployment will be for their constituents.

Most of the senators whose seats will be on the 2010 ballots were elected in 2004. In that election — which may have been influenced by things like the swiftboating charges against Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and a widely circulated message from Osama bin Laden the weekend before the election — Republicans picked up four seats.

If the 2010 Senate elections featured only the seats that would normally be on the ballot, Republicans would have to defend 19 seats and Democrats would have to defend 15. But Democrats also will have to defend the seats previously held by Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, which are currently held by caretakers. Thus, there will be 19 Republican seats and 17 Democratic seats technically in play in the midterms.

And many of those Democratic seats appear to be in jeopardy:

• One of the most apparent problem seats for the Democrats is the one held by Chris Dodd of Connecticut.
  
  Dodd is a "dead senator walking," writes Mark Hemingway in the Washington Examiner. And recent polls, which show his GOP challengers in front — Rob Simmons by double digits and Linda McMahon by smaller margins — seem to support that conclusion.
  
  So, too, for that matter, does Vice President Joe Biden, who attended a fundraiser for Dodd in Connecticut recently but nevertheless commented — a tad undiplomatically, albeit truthfully — that the five–term senator is "getting the living hell beat out of him."
  
  That must be an astonishing development for Democrats as well as Republicans, given the facts that (a) three–fifths of Connecticut voters supported Barack Obama for president last year and (b) Dodd received the backing of nearly two–thirds of the state's voters when he was re–elected in 2004.


• Dodd, though, is far from being the only endangered Democrat in the Senate.
  
  Sen. Arlen Specter, whose defection from the Republican Party in April enabled Democrats to cobble together their 60–seat majority (and, according to many political observers, permitted him to avoid a bruising battle for renomination), faces an uphill climb in Pennsylvania. Pat Toomey, the conservative former congressman who nearly denied Specter renomination in 2004, announced his intention to seek the Republican nomination a couple of weeks before Specter announced his party switch — and it was widely believed by many that Toomey would have a strong chance to win, given how many of the state's Republicans were disgruntled by Specter's support for the economic stimulus package.
  
  The assumption most of this year has been that Specter and Toomey will meet in the fall campaign, where the numbers seem to be more favorable for a Democratic candidate. Instead of appealing only to Republicans, as the two did in 2004, the audience this time would be more diverse — more than 50% of registered voters in Pennsylvania are Democrats compared to 37% who are Republicans.
  
  But the general election is not Specter's only concern. In spite of the fact that he has been in the Senate for nearly 30 years, the 80–year–old Specter can't necessarily count on being nominated by his new party. Joe Sestak, a two–term, moderate–to–liberal congressman (who, incidentally, is 58 years old today), does not pose a serious threat at this stage, but that may change when the campaign season is in full swing. At the very least, he may prove to be a persistent nuisance for Specter at a time when he would prefer to be setting aside his resources to fend off Toomey, who leads both potential Democratic rivals, according to recent polls.


• Harry Reid is the majority leader, but that isn't necessarily going to help him when he faces the voters in Nevada.
  
  Sherman Frederick writes, in the Las Vegas Review–Journal, that Reid's prospects are bleak. "Reid's getting the thumbs down from 49 percent of Nevada voters," he writes, adding that polls show both of his potential Republican challengers would win the election if it were held today.
  
  That's quite a decline for a man who was re–elected with 61% of the vote in 2004.


• Given their recent electoral successes, Democrats may have hoped to pick up the seat being vacated by Republican George Voinovich. But Republicans appear to be competitive in the battle for Voinovich's seat. The presumptive GOP nominee, Rob Portman, has been leading both of his Democratic rivals in recent polls.

Those are just four seats, but if Democrats lose even one (except for the Ohio seat, which is currently in Republican hands), their filibuster–proof majority will be gone (assuming Democrats fail to buck the historical trend and win a seat that is currently held by the Republicans).

And that doesn't take into account any seats that appear at least somewhat safe today but may not turn out to be as the 2010 election scenarios began to reveal themselves.

Assume nothing.