After The Fall

“I’m for the Republicans. But we were looking at eight to nine seats in the Senate. We are now looking at seven to eight in my opinion.”

Karl Rove – Fox News, After Christine O’Donnell Defeated Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del) for the Delaware Republican Nomination for the US Senate.(http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42205.html#ixzz10LeNYmLn)

Even if the Republicans don’t win a majority of the seats, will the Democrats really retain control?

Doubtful.

Let’s look at the best case scenario for the Democrats.

The Tea Party will have a Senator from Utah (Mike Lee), likely a Senator from Kentucky (Rand Paul), and a Senator from Alaska (Joe Miller). Add Scott Brown from Massachusetts, and you have four Senators (10% of the Republican delegation) who are Tea Party Senators. Now include Jim DeMint from South Carolina, who has funded many of these Tea Party candidates, you now have five Senators who have a strong Tea Party connection.

Worse yet for the Democrats, these five Senators owe nothing to the Republican Party establishment. Only Scott Brown of Massachusetts has shown any inclination to play along with leadership. But with the backing of four other votes, he is more likely to break away and work with this five person Tea Party Caucus.

These five Senators would all have their seats because they ran against both the Democratic and the Republican establishments. These five have no reason to listen to Mitch McConnell. Anything their leadership would want to do would have to go through them.

In the small clubby world of the Senate, power attracts power. Oklahoma Republican Senators James Inhofe and Tom Coburn are extreme - even by Republican establishment standards. They now have a strong group of allies in the Tea Party caucus, who can provide votes and political cover.

Now there are seven Tea Party votes, which potentially will not be under Mitch McConnell's control.

These seven Republicans who have no allegiance to the either the agenda, agreements or philosophy that have guided the Senate since 1980. This group will wrench the Republicans even further to the right into an even more uncompromising stance.

It gets more interesting.

Nate Silver at Fivethiryteight (http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/) projects roughly an 85% chance that the Democrats will retain 50 Senate seats. He rates seven seats as having a greater than 50% chance of flipping from Democrat to Republican. Of those seven (North Dakota, Arkansas, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Illinois and Nevada), three of those likely takeovers would be with Tea Party candidates – Pennsylvania (Pat Toomey), Colorado (Ken Buck), and Nevada (Sharron Angle).

They bring the number of avowed Tea Party Senators to 6, add Inhofe and Coburn and you have 8. Include Jim DeMint who helped finance them, in some cases over McConnell's opposition, and you have 9 Tea Party Senators. This represents nearly 25% of the Republican delegation who owe allegiance only to their ideological purity and Jim DeMint, and not to the Republican Party leadership.

Up for election are six ideological sympathetic establishment Republicans who are not Tea Party candidates: Roy Blunt (R-Mo); Richard Burr (R-NC); John McCain (R-AZ); David Vitter (R-LA); Johnny Isakson (R-GA); Chuck Grassley (R-IA). After the election they will throw their lot in with the Tea Party Senators. This brings the number of Tea Party Senators to fifteen – an even more formidable voting block.

Add to the Tea Party Caucus, those Republican Senators up in 2012 who will cave to the Tea Party caucus to improve their re-election chances, and even if Mitch McConnell retains his leadership post, he won’t be calling the shots anymore.

Now think about what happens if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) looses.

Reid is in the fight of his political life, and stands a good chance to lose his Senate seat. Aside from the fact that a Sharron Angle victory would really embolden the far right Tea Party crowd, there is the impact on Senate leadership.

If Reid is out, it is likely Charles Schumer (D-NY) would take his place. Reid has been an effective Majority Leader. His ability to steer big legislation by Republican roadblocks testifies to that.

But one advantage the Republicans have had for years is Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has one of the safest seats in the Senate. He does not have to look over his shoulder with every move worrying about his election like Reid has had to. McConnell can be as partisan as he wants without fear of being thrown out. Schumer would be in the same position.

He has also helped a number of his colleagues get elected or retain their seats. So they owe him. The Senate would be run by two hyper partisans from safe seats not known for compromise. Everyone would posture for 2012 and for two years nothing will get done. The public’s anger will build. 2012 could make 2010 look like a walk in the park.

So regardless of whether or not the Democrats retain the control of the Senate it is hard to see how they can retain control of the Senate’s agenda.

No matter what happens they have lost the Senate.