Author Topic: WSJ: GOP Making Bold, Massive Bid to Take Senate  (Read 523 times)

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WSJ: GOP Making Bold, Massive Bid to Take Senate
« on: January 21, 2014, 02:34:53 pm »
http://www.newsmax.com/PrintTemplate.aspx?nodeid=548051


Newsmax
WSJ: GOP Making Bold, Massive Bid to Take Senate
Tuesday, January 21, 2014 07:46 AM

By: Melissa Clyne

In its bid to gain the Senate majority in the midterm elections later this year, the GOP is crafting its strategy straight from the 2012 Democratic playbook, according to The Washington Post.

Republicans are casting a wide net to pick up the six seats needed to secure a majority, putting up viable candidates in a plethora of states where they hope to capitalize on President Obama’s dismal job performance ratings as well as the national furor over Obamacare.

“The key to the Republican strategy is making the next tier of seats (and recruits) as large as possible since a few candidates will flame out, some incumbents will prove tougher to beat than they appear, and the national political environment could shift several times between now and November,” the Post notes.

Republicans need to win six new seats to flip the current Democratic majority of 55-to-45. In the current political climate, they are expected to gain between four and seven seats, according to the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report.

States where the GOP can prevail include Alaska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, West Virginia, South Dakota and Virginia and possibly Minnesota. Five of the vulnerabilities stem from retirement announcements by Democratic senators Max Baucus of Montana, Carl Levin of Michigan, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and South Dakota’s Tim Johnson.

Midterm elections are historically unkind to the sitting president’s party. Add to that the hysteria over a botched healthcare law rollout and millions of Americans receiving notices of canceled insurance plans and it’s a recipe for an ouster.

According to the Wall Street Journal, five states Obama won in 2012 -- Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Virginia and New Hampshire -- are now considered vulnerabilities.

In Virginia, former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie should be “a very credible contender who can raise considerable money,” according to the Rothenberg Report, and former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown trails New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen by just three points and he hasn’t even announced whether he intends to run.

"I'd be more worried if I were a Democrat than if I was a Republican," Rothenberg Report editor Stuart Rothenberg told the Journal. "The Republicans' prospects in the existing targets are improving because of the president's approval ratings, and they are continuing to put other races on the board."

By offering voters strong GOP alternatives in a plethora of states, even those historically blue, Republicans hope that hijacking the Dems 2012 strategy proves to be a winner.

“One thing’s for sure,” political columnist Chris Cillizza writes in the Post. “If they make it over the top this November, Senate Republicans should send their Democratic counterparts a nice thank you gift for showing them the way.”
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