Pushing 60: democrats could acquire a filibuster-proof majority.(2008 III)

AFTER the election of 2004, Republicans controlled 55 seats in the Senate. It is anyone's guess whether after this election they will have even 41 seats--the minimum number to prevent cloture, which requires 60 votes. If they cannot filibuster, conservatives face a grim future. Come January, it could include a President Obama with no checks whatsoever on his ability to enact new legislation and tilt the Supreme Court significantly to the left.

Potential losses abound for Senate Republicans this year, with even a single pickup unlikely. Early on, the GOP simply failed to mount a credible challenge to the ailing Tim Johnson of South Dakota, whom they had nearly defeated in 2002. Their best pickup opportunity is against Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, but her challenger, Louisiana treasurer John Kennedy, lags far behind in the polls.

The real action is on the defensive side, where Republicans' future is even cloudier. The categories for races there include "Hopeless," "Pretty Bad," and "Still Pretty Bad." There is also the one-member category of "Maybe, If He Is Acquitted"; believe it or not, that may be one of the GOP's more promising races.

The open Republican seats in Virginia and New Mexico fall into the "Hopeless" category. Neither of the Republican candidates--former governor Jim Gilmore in Virginia, and Rep. Steve Pearce in New Mexico--has managed to cut into his opponent's double-digit lead. Both of these races were left for dead early on by the national Republican party.

The category of "Pretty Bad" includes several races in states that were once believed to be at least competitive for Republicans. Democrats enjoy clear leads in Minnesota (over incumbent Norm Coleman), New Hampshire (over incumbent John Sununu), and Colorado (where a seat is open).

Sununu, who made no serious mistakes during his freshman term in the Senate, has managed through dogged persistence to narrow a double-digit deficit against Jeanne Shaheen, a former governor, to the single digits, but he trails all the same. Shaheen's most effective tactic has been to pin President Bush to the incumbent's tail with her advertising, even using the song "Where You Lead, I Will Follow" to describe their relationship. She has vigorously attacked Sununu's vote in favor of the financial bailout, to great effect. It is a dramatic reversal of 2002, when Bush's popularity helped Sununu narrowly defeat Shaheen.

In Colorado, Republican Bob Schaffer, a conservative who left the House in 2003 in accordance with a pledge to serve no more than three terms, trails Rep. Mark Udall, the Democrats' Senate candidate. Schaffer's efforts to highlight Udall's left-wing record have had little success in diminishing the Democrat's edge. This race may be as close as it has been in part because of Schaffer's popularity and in part because of ineffective Democratic tactics--they spent the spring demonizing Schaffer as a tool of Big Oil because of his stance in favor of more oil drilling, right before gasoline hit $4 a gallon and even Udall had to endorse offshore drilling. But Schaffer remains a clear underdog in a state where the Obama campaign has invested heavily.