Future looks bright

Kos has a good preview of the 2008 Senate elections which are even more favorable to Democrats than 2006. This was not supposed to be a good year for Democrats. The party had to defend 18 seats compared to just 15 for the Republicans. And yet Democrats held everyone of their seats while winning nearly half of the available Republican seats. Quite remarkable.
In 2008, the odds get even better for the Blue team. Democrats will be defending just 12 seats that year compared to 21 for the Republicans. If the Democrats win the White House that year, they are likely to sweep a number of Senators and Repesentatives into office with them. So we are in a great position for that to happen.

On the presidential side, I’m very confident that the Democrats will retake the White House, especially if Republicans continue to drag their feet on getting us out of Iraq. It is too early for the polls to be of much use, but so far the potential Repubican contenders all have serious flaws that would make it difficult for them to win.
First, there is John “Unindicted Co-conspirator” McCain, of Keating Five fame, who seems to be the GOP front-runner at this point. It will be interesting to see how McCain’s past problems with ethics will play after Republicans gleefully skewered John Murtha for his involvement in a 20-year-old scandal.
Then there is Rudolph Guiliani, who dropped out of his first race against Hillary Clinton because of a sex scandal. What makes him think people will forget all of that? And then there is the fact that he is a liberal on most social issues - pro choice, gay marriage, etc. Are the Republicans just going to pitch the religious fundamentalists overboard?

The Democrats, meanwhile, have Hillary Clinton currently occupying the top spot on the leader board. Whether she will actually run or not is not yet clear, but I think she could very likely win if she does. The Republicans have done their best to villify her and make her out to be some kind of extreme left-wing moonbat, when her moderate voting record in the Senate clearly demonstrates otherwise. In fact, I think Hillary has already been thoroughly vetted to the point that she is inoculated from most attacks that the right-wing smear machine could dream up at this point.
If Hillary runs, I think she will tap someone like Evan Bayh as her running mate. Barak Obama needs more seasoning and should serve a couple of terms in the Senate before making his move.