Liberals, It’s Not as Bad as You Think (2010 Election Assessment)

The first polls are closing right now in the 2010 congressional elections, and I want to send a big, bold-faced message to liberals:

It’s Not as Bad as You Think it is

What could I be talking about? After all, Democrats are set to lose possibly dozens of races tonight. Isn’t that a bad thing?

For partisan Democrats, yes.
For liberals, no.

If you watch Fox News all the time, you could be forgiven for thinking that all Democrats are liberals. But they’re not. A large number of Democrats are either conservative Blue Dogs or their slightly more centrist colleagues: on our -100 (perfectly conservative) to +100 (perfectly liberal) scale for the House of Representatives, only 48 out of the 435 members of the House rank at +50 or higher. The House is majority Democrat, not majority liberal. On the same -100 to +100 scale for the Senate, only 25 out of the 100 members of the Senate rank at +50 or higher. The Senate is majority Democrat, not majority liberal.

The following is a list of those races that the New York Times calls a “tossup” on Election Day — either side could win. These are the close races. I’ve noted Republican incumbents and open contests — otherwise assume the names are of Democratic incumbents:

AL 2 (Bobby Bright, score -41)
AZ 5 (Harry Mitchell, score 19)
AZ 7 (Raul Grijalva, score 74)
AZ 8 (Gabrielle Giffords, score 33)
CA 11 (Jerry McNerney, score 32)
CO 3 (John Salazar, score 16)
FL 22 (Ron Klein, score 30)
FL 25 (open seat, David Rivera (R) vs Joe Garcia (D))
GA 2 (Sanford Bishop, score 4)
GA 8 (Jim Marshall, score -20)
HI 1 (REPUBLICAN Charles Djou, score -1)
ID 1 (Walt Minnick, score 34)
IL 14 (Bill Foster, score 22)
IL 17 (Phil Hare, score 55)
IN 2 (Joe Donnelly, score -5)
IN 9 (Baron Hill, score 2)
KY 6 (Ben Chandler, score 5)
MA 10 (Bill Delahunt, score 39)
MI 7 (Mark Schauer, score 19)
MS 4 (Gene Taylor, score -16)
NC 8 (Larry Kissell, score 12)
ND 1 (Earl Pomeroy, score 2)
NH 2 (open seat, Ann Kuster (D) vs. Charlie Bass (R))
NJ 3 (John Adler, score 26)
NV 3 (Dina Titus, score 30)
NY 19 (John Hall, score 42)
NY 20 (Scott Murphy, score 4)
NY 24 (Michael Arcuri, score 14)
NY 23 (Bill Owens, score 5)
OH 6 (Charles Wilson, score 9)
OH 16 (John Boccieri, score 19)
OH 18 (Zack Space, score 2)
OR 5 (Kurt Schrader, score 26)
PA 8 (Patrick Murphy, score 33)
PA 10 (Chris Carney, score 2)
SC 5 (John Spratt, score 5)
SD 1 (Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, score 16)
TN 4 (Lincoln Davis, score -4)
TX 23 (Ciro Rodriguez, score 23)
VA 11 (Gerald Connolly, score 44)
WI 7 (David Obey, score 16)
WV 1 (David McKinley vs. Michael Oliverio)

Senate:
CA (Barbara Boxer, score 55)
CO (Michael Bennet, score 47)
PA (Joe Sestak, score 36)
WA (Patty Murray, score 44)
WI (Russ Feingold, score 74)

It’s a bad sign for Democrats that only ONE Republican incumbent is on the “tossup” list. A lot of Democrats are going to lose tonight.

But how many solid liberals are on this “tossup” list? Only four: Senator Barbara Boxer, Senator Russ Feingold, Representative Raul Grijalva and Representative Phil Hare.

The loss of Senators Boxer and Feingold would be deeply felt in the upper chamber. But I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that while it’s going to be a dismal night for partisan Democrat, it’s not going to be so bad a night for liberals.

Voters are turning out in droves to reject conservative Democratic Blue Dogs. They are not turning out in droves to reject liberals.