Strategery [sic] and the shifting political winds

Steve Benen
Washington Monthly

As most observers have no doubt noticed, political winds can turn pretty quickly. I was doing some research the other day and found a piece noting that the National Republican Senatorial Committee, as recently as May, thought it was likely that Democrats would expand their Senate majority in 2010.

As recently as late July, House Dems were believed to be "sitting pretty" for the midterms.

...CQ reports that the 2010 outlook for Democrats actually looks pretty good and "the only three contests in which CQ Politics rates an advantage to the challenging party are all for seats now held by the Republicans and targeted by the Democrats." [...]

Meanwhile, the geography of the 2010 Senate races is also highly favorable to the Democrats. And given the contrast between ironclad discipline on the GOP side and the "anything goes" attitude on the Democratic side, it looks like for a while yet we may be in a California-style dynamic where Republicans can't win elections but Democrats can't actually pass a governing agenda.

Now, I'm not trying to pick on Matt for this post; that's really what the landscape looked like at the time and it's what CQ actually reported. My point is there's an ebb and flow to political fortunes, not that predictions can look mistaken six months later.

(More here.)