Dems feeling special about elections

Democrats have won three special elections in the last couple of months, in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Illinois. All three had been held by Republicans who left, for various reasons. So all three were open seats, but in strongly Republican districts. The GOP should have held on to all three, but instead lost all three. And one of those seats was the seat formerly held by Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the House.

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo explains the impact of these three special elections:



One thing Josh doesn't mention (because it isn't his topic today) is that all these retirements and special elections have implications for the future. All of the retiring Republicans have at least some seniority. All of the new Democrats, both the three that won these elections, and however many win in the fall, will be brand new. That means that the Republicans lose a fair amount of expertise and power, while Democrats gain fresh blood. The Democrats, being in the majority, are also in a position to protect the new members. In midterm elections, the President's party generally loses seats, but this time around, in 2010, there's almost no chance that Democrats will lose the House, or the Senate, so expect more Republicans to resign. We're looking at a Democratic majority for a long time to come.

It's interesting to look back on 1994, when Republicans took back the House after 40 years of being in the majority. The reason they won can mostly be attributed to one man: Newt Gingrich. He plotted and schemed for years, and finally got enough people to believe in him that he accomplished a minor miracle, and the Republicans took back the House. One reason he was able to do it was that the Democrats never saw him as a serious threat. They had become complacent, since they had been in the majority for so long. But once they lost it, they started trying to get it back, and eventually did. It will be a long time before Democrats are complacent again.

Of course, Democrats also have to have their act together and get things done. I'm more confident about that now than I have been in a while. I think the Democratic party is attracting some very good people these days.