05/21/2002 Archived Entry: "Roll Call & OR/PA Gov races & 2004 convention dates"

What's the gist of skimming through (and reading some of the House scripts in detail) Roll Call's state-by-state overview of the 2002 election races? Looks like: In the Senate, there are two toss-ups that will determine the outcome, in NH and SD. In the House, the Dems would have to win all of the toss-ups to takeover the majority. But according to this analysis --which has a bit of a Republican lean that's in line with CW thinking-- I'm not even sure if that would do it for them. I shuffled around some of my rankings, but didn't change anything overall, based on their info (which contained numerous errors). It wouldn't be that difficult to figure out their exact call as it stands right now.

On the 2004 convention shuffle:

The 2004 Olympics are in Athens, dates to avoid are:
Opening Ceremony: 13 August 2004
Closing Ceremony: 29 August 2004
Mercury Retrograde is August 11, 2004 - September 3, 2004

--Democrats have plans to begin their convention on the July 19-24th

--THe CW was that the GOP was going to have theirs then on Aug 9th, ending on the 12th, just before the opening ceremony.

--The GOP now says they are considering Aug. 23, Aug. 30, or Sept. 6 as their opening dates.

--Democrats say they are now ''seriously considering'' a convention starting Aug. 30

As far as the dates. Money seems to be the driving force here, but if the Dems win, it's not going to be because they are able to match the GOP in funds. They can't, they won't. So what. I personally like the July date, I think it will probably be needed to be early, because there's a good chance of the convention being brokered. The way the early primaries are stacked up. The winnowing process isn't going to occur if you have 4 different candidates win the first 5 primaries, before the two big national and southern dates. How? Gore or Gephardt wins Iowa, Dean or Kerry wins NH, Edwards wins in SC... then AZ is a toss-up and so is MI... everyone is still left, splitting the national and southern primary vote totals, viola brokerage.

Everything I've read says what a grand coup it would be for the Republicans to have their convention later, in Sept-- the money, 9/11 in NYC, the momentum... but, imagine this: The Dems come out with a bounce of a 10-15% lead over Bush and it sticks like that for a couple of weeks. The GOP's convention isn't until Sept 6th. That lead could go on for six weeks, meaning it's possible that the lead hardens and becomes fixed. Bush is a known quantity, not much change there. The risk of the GOP's gig in Sept, is that they assume that Bush will be leading. If they go behind strong in late July to the Dems, they then secede the whole of August to a Dem lead, unless they go negative-- which could really backfire on them.

The Dems would be best to stick with the July 21, 2004 week, it works and looks great. Let the Republicans do whatever they want. The later the GOP has their convention, then the more likely that with a single slip, they can't recover.

A brokered convention would be great for the Democrats, the press coverage would go on all summer, and the GOP would be having to attack multiple candidates, attempt to choose their opposition, or sit on the sidelines. A big convention then with a lot of coverage, and wide interest. I hope it happens.

OK, so basically I'm being totally contrarian here in this entry, regarding 2002 and 2004-- that's good, I've a better shot at being right. But now I'll jump on the poll-speak bandwagon:

I have predicted Rendell by about 10% in the PA Dem Gov primary. If that's what happens, it's going to be tough rowing for Fisher to play the NRA card late in the race against Rendell, as for Casey, it didn't work. If the race is close, under 5%, then it did work, and the general is going to be close. We will get some early results out of OR, but probably not have a final result in for a another day (or more if it's close), as the last ballots are counted. Voting % is down in OR and negative ads are up, which probably helps the social conservative Mannix, but maybe not enough to take the lead from Saxton. Sounds like Kulongoski is going to win the Dems nomination, 40% is the marker to judge him by. A Mannix-Kulongoski contest would be over before it starts. A Saxton-Kulongoski race, depending on 3rd party developments, would be very close.