Republicans Could Win Senate in 2014

What will November 2014 hold? From this far away, no one can really say. But things seem to favor the GOP.

Several states have competitive Senate races where long time Democratic seats may be lost; Montana and our own Michigan come to mind. With an effective 55-45 majority, as the two 'independents' caucus with the Democrats, the Republican opportunity to take the Senate will be an uphill battle. But it is a battle which can be won.

To begin with, Obamacare has been a disaster and Republican candidates will harp on that. They will make their races against the President as much as against their opponent. They will also attack Mr. Obama's obvious attempt to start class warfare as he fans the jealousies brought on by talk such as the income gap. Especially as the President heads into increasingly lame duck status, Republicans will see him as weak. Unless things change dramatically, Obama will be easy to run against.

Then, too, midterm elections historically tend towards the minority party; this is presumably because there is not national elections to offer a coattail effect, or a drag effect, for that matter, where a weak national candidate hurts those farther down the ballot. But it is also because the more serious voters turn out for them, and these gravitate towards the conservative. Right wingers of course tend towards Republicans themselves because of this.

It will be an interesting election year any way you slice it. As a precursor to 2016 when the Presidency is up for grabs, it will be very interesting indeed.

Obama Approval Ratings Slip

With even Democrats feeling that the economy is weak, is President Barack Obama's reelection in trouble?

Recent polling shows that Democrats think the economy is good is at the 31% mark, down 17 points from similar polls in February. Factor in that almost two-thirds of Americans believe that the President has poorly handled gas prices. More than half of Americans disapprove of his overall economic policies.

Of Course, talk is cheap, and polls and circumstances change. We are a long way from November and Mitt Romney isn't exactly the strongest candidate the GOP could have picked. There is too the old saw that the President can't affect gas prices very much. Perhaps not, in the short run. Yet if Clinton had allowed drilling in places such as the Arctic, or even, to be fair, if Bush and the Republican Congress after him had done the same, we would have access to that oil by now. Even things such as the Keystone Pipeline would have at the least gained Americans jobs, should the President have approved it. So it seems that a forward looking Chief Executive can make a difference on gas, if he wants to. Even something as mundane as a policy change might signal to gas and oil producers that the future looks bright, and thus spur development and exploitation of our resources.

The funny thing is that none of this is likely to make a difference. The Presidential Election this fall will likely hinge on much more shallow factors. A certain number of people will vote for Romney because he's Republican, a similar number for Obama because he's the Democrat other still in order to keep a balance of power in Washington (on the presumption that the GOP keep the House and retakes the Senate). Race may even be an issue, with some voting against and some for the President based upon it. Any way you slice it, things won't be determined by real policy questions, but by mere human whim.

Quite an unimpressive way to run a country, don't you think?