Officially cooked

We now know the precise number of safe Republican pols in these here United States, and that number comes in at less than double digits. It is, precisely, nine: four now sit in the House -- Ron Paul of Texas, Walter Jones of North Carolina, David McKinley of West Virginia and Denny Rehberg of Montana; and five are in the Senate -- Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and another Paul, this one Rand, of Kentucky.

This is not to say that all the above are guaranteed reelection or further elevation; only that these nine Republicans, and these nine alone, are unassailable when it comes to villagers protesting what is now not merely the Ryan plan, and not just the House Plan, but yea, verily, the Republican Plan to abolish Medicare.

Pundits are racing hither and yon to cover their forecasting butts: "Remember, folks," or so goes the new conventional wisdom, "that New York district means a 2012 Republican pounding not." Which would be true, if that New York district weren't redder than a New Orleans whorehouse. 

No, Republicans are unquestionably the poundees; the only question remaining is the skill with which the Democratic pounders perform said pounding. Just as unquestionable is that 2012 has already contoured as a national election -- even more so than 1994 or 2010 -- yet there's the perilously atomistic mind of Democratic incumbents and challengers: they -- or so they so often believe -- can do better on their own, with their localized message, even though rescuing the nation's federal safety net is as national a message as a presidential election year could ever hear.

Some hearts quiver and quake when Congress convenes; my heart does the same only when Democrats campaign for it.

Meanwhile, we've always the GOP presidential guessing game to amuse ourselves. No, not the one about the eventual nominee -- which will be Romney, Pawlenty or Huntsman, all essentially indistinguishable -- but the one about where, from day to day, the current crop of contenders stands on the official Republican plan to abolish Medicare.

Comments

[Robert Lipscomd]

All the while, Dick Armey has declared war on Romney (and Newt). I genuinely think Bachman and Palin have a real chance to be nominated.

i wrote some time back that I thought the Club For Growth crowd was willing to nuke this election cycle as means of taking full control of the GOP from the Religious Right and cultural Republicans, and (once they have served its purpose) the Tea Party.

Obama did the same thing in the 2010 elections in a more passive aggressive way. As PM notes, the congressional Dems demended to run away from Obama. Obama graciously let them. Hey, no one was voting on his job renewal. The congressional Dems got their asses handed to them. Ever since election night, Obama has made one decive move after another to take full control of the party and to assert himself as the political force in DC.

In 2012, congressional Dem candidate running on their own will not be an option. That electional will be a referendum on Obama and Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security. Dem candidate running for office will be told to either get all the way on or all the way off.

Obama is holding his fire because it is not yet 2012, which is when he wants to fight out these issues. The economy will have recovered significantly more, and he will have a $1 billion war chest. Plus I think we might see a lot of rich progressive run their negative ad campaigns in this cycle. That is a whole lot of "free speech" to be spent at the right time.

Obama will not let the Dems screw this up.

BTW, major kudos to Harry Reid for his performance this year - and the previous two years.

[Anne Johnson]

While I remain cautiously optimisitic about the democrats' chances next year, I do have concern that maybe they are putting all of their eggs in one basket known as medicare. What about jobs? No one ever seems to talk about jobs anymore. While the politicians are out fighting over the votes of people who are retired, they seem to have forgotten the rest of us who are not ready to retire but are long term unemployed. They all seem to forget that whoever wins, somebody, better be bringing some damn jobs with them or be prepared to serve only one term themselves.

[Robert Lipscomb]

@Anne

You make a valid point, but both parties and we Americans have talked ourselves into a corner. There is simply no political to do any one particular thing for jobs. This explains why Democrats gladly went along with the GOP when they changed the topic of discussion from jobs to the deficits immediately after election night.

Jobs are very importantand will be somewhat in September 2012, but neither candidate will have anything like a real agenda to do anything. That ship passed early in 2009.

[Anne Johnson]

Robert: I am sorry to hear that. Just what will it take for our elected leaders to realize that the longer people are out of work with no income, the worse it is for the overall economy? I would think that something has to give at some point.

[Bobfr]

P M Carpenter, I know you know her name - it's the name of the local and National Democratic messenger for 2012 - it's Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

And, by all indications, she is going to make "the official Republican plan is to destroy Medicare" 8 words every American hears 1000s of times between now and Nov 2012.

However, I also think she and every other Democratic candidate (at all levels) are going to harp on these facts.

The Republicans promised jobs in 2010:

- instead they insisted on tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations

- instead they attacked collective bargaining

- instead they attacked education

- instead they attacked unemployment insurance

- instead they attacked women and girls

- instead they brought the Nation to the brink (or maybe went all in) of default on its debt

- instead they tried to KILL DADT

- instead they voted for GLOBAL WAR

Republican jobs created - ZERO

Republican pursuit of the destruction of America - ZERO - because Democrats stopped them.