WASHINGTON – Demure Delaware was the first state to ratify the Constitution, but it hasn’t made many waves since then. However, in a year he may become part of the political wave, thanks to a direct descendant of Benjamin Franklin.
This great man’s great-great-great-grandson, 70-year-old Mike Castle, a nine-term congressman from Delaware, will next year be the Republican Party’s candidate for the Senate seat that Joe Biden held for 36 years. This and other successes in recruiting candidates allow Republicans to hope that in January 2011 there will be fewer than 60 Democrats in the Senate.
Biden’s seat is currently held by a former Biden staffer who, under the age-old notion that public office should be a family legacy, will disappear when Biden’s 40-year-old son, Beau, runs. He’s the state’s attorney general and just returned from serving in Iraq with a National Guard unit. Delaware hasn’t elected a Republican senator since 1994, but Castle, who has never lost a race, has run statewide 12 times: once for lieutenant governor, twice for governor and nine times for the state’s only congressional seat. In the last four elections, he won an average of 65 percent of the vote.
In 2010, each party will defend 19 seats in the Senate. The high number of 38 reflects the fact that six of the current 100 senators were appointed rather than elected – one each from Massachusetts (Ted Kennedy’s replacement), New York (Hillary Clinton’s replacement), Illinois (Barack Obama’s replacement), Colorado (the replacement Ken Salazar, who became Secretary of the Interior), Florida (replacing Mel Martinez, who left), and Delaware.
In Colorado, where Democrats have won the last two Senate races, Democratic appointee Michael Bennet faces a primary challenger, Andrew Romanoff, the former Speaker of the House. Irritated that the governor had not nominated him to replace Salazar, Romanoff rejected the future Nobel Peace Prize winner’s request not to challenge Bennet. The Republican candidate could be former statewide winner Jane Norton, who was lieutenant governor.
In Illinois, which has not elected a Republican senator since 1998, the favorite for the Republican nomination is Mark Kirk, a five-term congressman from the Chicago suburbs, where statewide elections are often decided. He irritated his party by voting for the Trade and Trade Restraints Act, but he made some apologies.
Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, seeking a sixth term, has 43% support and has attracted several grave challengers from the Republican Party. Any official whose approval rating is below 50 percent should be worried; Harry Reid from Nevada is under 40 years elderly.
Three Republican-held seats are currently at risk – Missouri (Kit Bond retiring), Ohio (George Voinovich retiring) and New Hampshire (Judd Gregg retiring). But Republicans have mighty candidates in every state: in Missouri, Republican Roy Blunt, a former GOP House whip; in Ohio, Rob Portman, former congressman, head of the Office of Management and Budget and trade representative; in New Hampshire, a potential candidate, former state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, is currently leading her likely Democratic opponent.
When it comes to House elections, significant Republican gains are possible. As analyst Charles Cook notes, 84 House Democrats represent districts that were carried by George W. Bush in 2004 or John McCain in 2008, and 48 of those districts were carried by both Bush and McCain . These and other anxious officials know that Congress approves 22 percent of the positions.
Much can change at national and local levels before November 2, 2010. But perhaps the most politically significant thing is unlikely to change: high unemployment. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the economy, which has lost 7.2 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007, needs to add 100,000 workers a month to keep up with population growth. Joseph Seneca, a Rutgers economist, estimates that even if job creation immediately resumed the pace of the 1990s, an average of 2.15 million private sector jobs would be created each year, twice the rate from 2001 to 2007. unemployment will not fall to 5 percent by 2017.
September’s unemployment rate of 9.8% was the worst since June 1983. But then mighty growth began, and just 17 months later Ronald Reagan carried Minnesota by 3,800 votes in all 50 states. Reagan, however, reduced the government’s burdens – taxes and regulations – on the economy. Obama increases them.
The possibility of Republican victories, especially in the Senate, helps explain why Obama is in such a rush to transform the nation and save the planet. His window of opportunity may be closing.