An Ominous Sign for Democrats

Yesterday, I wrote about some of the U.S. Senate seats that are currently held by Democrats but appear to be endangered in the 2010 midterm elections.

I never said that the Democrats absolutely will lose one or all of those seats. I simply pointed out that the incumbents are in trouble.

Nevertheless, this morning I have already seen a couple of pieces that speculate about whether the party is headed for another disaster like the one it endured in 1994. Need a refresher? Well, 1994 was the year the Republicans captured both houses of Congress for the first time in four decades. Democrats did not recapture Congress until they had wandered in the wilderness for 12 years.

Several of my Democrat friends assured me in recent years that the party had learned its lesson, that there was no way they would relinquish control of Congress on that scale again any time soon. But I have become less convinced of that with each passing day in 2009.

And I wonder if there isn't quite a bit of truth in some of these observations:

• Christina Bellantoni, for example, wonders at Talking Points Memo if 1994 could happen again.
  
  Bellantoni has all sorts of reasons why it won't happen again. The Republicans have no big ideas, like 1994's "Contract With America." Unlike 1994, she reports, "key Democrats believe their members will not be caught flat–footed," and they have been preparing for the midterms all year. There were more open seats in 1994 than there are today.
  
  All these things, she suggests, will work in Democrats' favor.
  
  But a comment at the end of her piece, from Ryan Rudominer of the DCCC, shows how naive Democrats are. They became accustomed to winning in 2006 and 2008, so much so that now many Democrats, like Rudominer, believe that anyone who places any credibility in the notion that Republicans (aka as "repukes" and "rethuglicans" in today's incendiary, name–calling environment) can recapture Congress is a resident of "la–la land."
  
  Bellantoni frets that "the biggest thing Democrats have to worry about" is that their base, "already worn out from a long 2008 political season," will stay home. Complacency will be a factor, to be sure, but it won't be the only one.
  
  And it isn't the biggest thing Democrats need to worry about.


• In The Weekly Standard, Jeffrey Anderson and Andy Wickersham zero in on what I think is the most obvious problem for Democrats in 2010 — their obsession with health care reform to the exclusion of everything else.
  
  Anderson and Wickersham offer a thoughtful comparison of "Hillarycare" and "Obamacare," and they rightfully conclude that Democratic lawmakers who follow this course, like the ones 16 years ago, are on an "electoral suicide mission."

Well, time will tell if 1994 and 2010 have much in common.

Maybe the Democrats will be able to pass health care reform and put a dent in unemployment.

And maybe pigs can fly.