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Democrats, You Should Worry About the Senate Susan Estrich If you're a Democrat, I have advice: Worry about the Senate. If this were a national election, Democrats couldn't lose. October is ending as the deadliest month for U.S. forces in Iraq in two years. Two-thirds of the country have lost faith in the president's leadership of the war effort, and an overwhelming majority is convinced that the country is headed down the wrong track. Even the economy, supposedly the president's strong suit, is showing signs of weakness. A rising tide may lift all yachts, but economic growth slowed dramatically last month, and the drop in housing prices affects more Americans than the increase in the Dow, because their home is their major asset. If George W. Bush were on the ballot, there is no question he would lose. To the extent that this election is a national referendum on Bush, the president can't win. But that's not exactly how people vote in Senate races. The last minute ads and issues in the hard fought races that will determine control of the Senate aren't about George Bush or the war in Iraq. They are far more pedestrian and particular than that. All politics is local, the late House Speaker Tip O'Neill used to say. That's the problem. Story Continues Below
To take control of the Senate, Democrats need to win two out of three of the following Senate races: Tennessee, Missouri and Virginia. And therein lie the problems. In Tennessee, where the public polls show Harold Ford Jr. and his Republican opponent Bob Corker running neck and neck, the issue in the closing days has become an ad that isn't even on the air anymore, but might as well be, given how often it has been shown on the news. Was it racist to show a Playmate cooing about Harold in an ad? Or just tasteless? Harold himself can't call it racist without looking like he himself is playing the race card, but in a contest that's dead even, you only need a small percentage of voters to be unconsciously offended by the very idea of a black man and a white woman socializing together to decide the election. If that weren't enough, there's also the question of whether the race really is dead even, or whether that's just what the voters are telling pollsters because it's politically correct. In past races involving black candidates - Tom Bradley in California, Doug Wilder in Virginia, Harvey Gantt in North Carolina - the discrepancy between pre-election polls and actual results ranged as high as 10-15 points. Racism? You tell me. Then there's Virginia, where after calling an Indian-American "macaca," responding to a reporter's question about his Jewish heritage by accusing her of "casting aspersions" on him and later saying he still ate ham sandwiches, and repeated reports that he used the "N" word in college to refer to blacks, George Allen is running slightly ahead of his Democratic opponent. Indeed, it's Jim Webb who is on the defensive for his until-now celebrated Vietnam fiction, in which the sex scenes are way too graphic when taken out of context and displayed on the nightly news. So that election seems to be turning not on the Iraq War, but on what Jim Webb saw in the Vietnam War and whether voters can distinguish fact from fiction. Don't count on it. Finally, there's Missouri, which is probably the Democrats' best shot of the three, but not enough standing alone. Michael J. Fox may have gotten the best of Rush Limbaugh in round one, but it's not over yet. Conservatives have seized on Fox's admission that he never read the Missouri initiative that they say he attacks Senator Talent for not supporting, and they aren't about to let go. I'm not at all sure that Rush's initial comments amounted to saying out loud what most people were thinking, as Matt Lauer has suggested, but if there is even a grain of truth to that view, it could be enough to sway the election. Certainly, there is resentment out there toward "celebrity victims," whether or not we want to admit it. When Ann Coulter went after the 9/11 widows, Bill O'Reilly, who himself thought she went too far, was surprised to find that an overwhelming majority of those who came to his website in fact supported Ann's view. Ouch. In a close race, it doesn't take many. I'm betting on McCaskill in Missouri, but I'm worried. So keep working. It beats worrying.
COPYRIGHT 2006 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC. Editor's note: Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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