The Charlotte Observer is running a piece this morning about the GOP Lincoln-Reagan Day dinner where Senator Richard Burr spoke about the GOP's chances in November. He doesn't think there's a chance for Democrats to take control of the House.
With most congressional districts favoring one party or the other, he said, only 32 House seats are actually competitive. Democrats need a net gain of 15 seats to take control.
"I find it hard to believe Democrats are going to take over the House," said Burr, of Winston-Salem.
If you haven't figured out why local and state politics are important, just pay attention to what happened in South Dakota this past week. Newsweek is covering what has been dubbed the "forced pregnancy bill" and the "rapist's rights bill" by many who are angry and fearful of what might happen if we go back to the days before abortions were safe and legal.
If you think that couldn't happen in North Carolina, think again. North Carolina Republicans are just as anti-women, anti-gay, anti-civil liberties as the next state.
County commissioner Jim Puckett criticized what he called the liberal
agenda of Democrats who control the board of commissioners and predicted county
benefits for same-sex partners would be part of that agenda."It's incumbent on us to take back the county commission," he told the audience, "to make sure morality and decency remain the standard in Mecklenburg County."
It's more important than ever that we pay as much attention to local and state races as we do to those for national office. If we are too concerned about taking back the House in Washington, we could lose it all here at home.
Candidate filings close in a couple of days. I am happy to see many Democrats filing in what are believed to be "safe" Republican districts. I will spend time over the coming weeks highlighting as many of the candidates in my area as I can and getting contact information published. It's going to be an important election year. Let's push, pull, fight and claw our Dems to victories on the local, state and national levels.
Update: The Washington Post has an article in today's paper that touches on the importance of the state races.
Comments
Without Taking Anything Away
from your point about the importance of state and local politics, my thinking about the US House is not unlike Burr's. It's early still, but the numbers just aren't there for taking control short of a landslide.
That said, we'll be pretty close to returning to a two-party system in Washington if Dems end up in a position where pulling two or three Republicans across the isle on a bill is enough to make it or break it. The famous discipline of Republican house members is falling apart.
Thanks to the link to the WaPo story -- a nice way to start the day!
I really kinda made a couple of points....
and I didn't do it very well. That's what happens when you are up in the wee hours with nothing better to do than try to make sense out of politics.
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Vote Democratic! The ass you save may be your own.