If you're Republican House minority leader John Boehner, or for that matter National Republican Campaign Committee Chairman Tom Cole, the main reason you're so nervous about this November -- maybe resigned is the more fitting term -- is because so an eye-popping total of 30 GOP House members have thrown in the towel. That's more than one in every seven members of the GOP caucus.
(I would be remiss if I didn't note that just six of these 30 are in the 11 former Confederate states, or just 20 percent -- despite the fact that more than 40 percent of the caucus is southern; that means a disproportionate share of the Democrats' opportunities are outside the South, again.)
For some time now, sites like Swing State Project have been tracking the retirements and related Republican failures to recruit decent candidates for the newly-open seats or to challenge incumbent Democrats. But now, with both presidential primary contests done, the Beltway chattering classes are finally starting to take note. This Associated Press story quotes NRCC communications director admitting: ""This is a challenging environment. Any Republican running for office has to run basically on an independent platform, localize the race and not take anything for granted. There are no safe Republican seats in this election."
The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes too, is concerned "This is a serious problem for Republicans in the 2008 election," writes Barnes, recognizing the slim-to-none chances of a near-term Republican recapture of the House. "The retirees have created an unusually large number of open Republican seats, exciting Democrats."
Add to this the headline-grabbing comment by former NRCC chair Tom Davis of Virginia, who said compared the Republican brand to a dog food that would have to be removed from shelves. He's predicted a tidal wave of GOP losses in November, too.
--Tom Schaller
