What Makes For A Midterm Earthquake

Larry Sabato says one or more of these factors do:

Exceptional presidential poll ratings (either unusually low or high)

Foreign war (popular or unpopular)

Sour economy

Major scandal

Intense hot-button social, domestic issues

Of all these factors, he points to presidential popularity as the most significant. He concludes with:

With five months to go before November, can every piece of this analysis be transformed? It's certainly possible, but it's also not very likely. The problems bedeviling Bush and the GOP may get a bit better or a little worse, b ut they appear to be intrinsic to this election year. Therefore, the only real question is how many seats the Democrats will gain in the Congress and the statehouses, not if they will gain.

The Republicans are toast.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

-- Bob Dylan

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