It’s definitely possible to win back the house, as many of the Democrats recent gains can be reversed. The Senate on the other hand is rather unlikely. Assuming Norm Coleman remains seated, we need to win 9 Senate seats, out of the 16 that are up. Certain senators like Patrick Leahy are unlikely to be beaten in any event simply due to the partisan nature of their constituents and their longevity, so winning that many is rather improbable. I’d say it’s possible to take seats in Arkansas, Wisconsin, Washington, Nevada (which would be a huge symbolic blow), Colorado, and Illinois (which would be a bigger symbolic blow). Connecticut could be in play as well if Chris Dodd’s role in the Obama “stimulus” plan blows up in his face and possibly Hawaii if Daniel Inouye retires. That’s at most 8 seats, and would wind up with a 50-50 tie which would be broken by Biden’s tiebreaker vote

Retaking the Senate will most likely take place in 2012, as seats in Montana, Nebraska, Missouri, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Minnesota and Wisconsin are easily within reach, and add to whatever we come out of 2010 with.

But in order for this to happen we need to unify as an opposition. We need another person like Newt to rally the county’s discontent with the Policies of the President and transform that into election results. Being a presidential election year as well, this would presumably be the GOP nominee, and alot therefore rides on who gets the nod next time.

‘It’s about the Economy stupid’.

I recollect a tale about Clinton running reelection for Gov. and failed. He immediately called his father and questioned, ‘Dad, but I promised roads and infrastructure…and I delivered’. While in office, he ended up taxing the public of AK so much so, that yes, although the pledge of a public servant was filled, the consituents were unhappy. Clinton’s father answered, ‘Son, the voters don’t care about your roads, your infrastructure. They just care about getting up every morning with food and going fishin”.

I sincerely believe this drove Clinton’s thinking. And it was encapsulated by, ‘It’s about the Economy, stupid’.

There’s truth to that, in as horrible and twisted as it may be.

Obama has a timeline to turn this over. Either Axelrod is supremely confident that this thing can be turned around in two years, that they play the martyr card now to set relative expectations low early and end up gleaming or they are going to miscalculate and will ultimately feel the wrath of the American voter, and their impatience. I tend towards the latter.

I, for one, am not rooting for our financial fallout for the next two years. But I must admit, with regards to this Adminsitration-elect, I’ll have Schadenfreude running up and down my leg if it happens.

And will not be for a long time. The only way the stupid party is going to get back in power is after a massive failure by the Democrats.

They will now control the patronage, they will control the media and message like never before, They will rewrite the election laws and gerrymander. You can write off all the states in the Southwest after the massive immigrant amnesty.

It will take a major economic crises to unseat them.

Then even if that happens you have to wonder if the new GOP elected officials won’t just morph into democrats the way the last bunch did.

McCain for all intents and purposes IS a Democrat and a whole boatload of us voted for him.

I agree this will require a major crisis – as it unfortunately always does to get Republicans in power. But we conservatives have ceded the party to Dem Lites and big surprise, real Dems are running the country.

And I no longer have faith that whatever party is governing, we won’t be in the same mess. The mediocre personalities in politics for the power far outweigh the true public servants as exemplified by Palin, Jindal, DeMint, Coburn, etc. Politics now attracts exactly the mental and moral mediocrities that we DON’T need running things.