Is 60 really possible?
Posted: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 3:19 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Congress, Democrats
From NBC's Abby Livingston
When a reporter asks the leader of the Senate Democrats’ election efforts if a Texas seat is in play and no one laughs, one has to wonder not if, but how big of a wave is coming.
Sen. Charles Schumer, (D-NY) head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, spoke to reporters this morning about his party’s prospects for increasing their numbers this cycle. He seemed ready to count his chickens before they’ve hatched when he said, “The wind is more strongly at our backs than ever before.”
For the record, Schumer said Texas might be difficult. He declared it “expensive. That’s the problem.”
Despite that, Schumer and the Democrats have added other previous-cycle crimson states to their target list: Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s seat in Kentucky. He went so far as to call Georgia and Kentucky “even-steven races.” The DSCC put up their first ad in Kentucky today.
Adding to those states, he sees Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon and Virginia as likely pick ups.
He said that Democrats are also closing in on Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.
Although he refused to guess how many seats the Democrats will pick up, his stats and shrugs indicated that the prospect of the Democrats becoming a filibuster proof 60-vote majority is not outside the realm of possibility. He called the chances of such a scenario "better than they were two weeks ago."
Schumer is no novice to the Senate electoral chess game. He was also DSCC chair in 2006 and was a main architect to the inside straight that Democrats pulled off to take control of the Senate.
Schumer took also took the opportunity of an audience of reporters to add commentary to the presidential race. He was unimpressed with McCain’s debate performance last night, calling him “not empathetic” and “not likable.”
Schumer ended the press conference saying, "Politics always changes. You gotta be nimble.”
