No, it's not Sunday.  And this isn't the Senate 2008 Guru's Week in the Senate Races.  It's been over nine months since Election Day 2006; and it's less than fifteen months until Election Day 2008.  In other words, the 2008 election cycle is more than one-third over already.  With all of the discussion about vulnerable Republican-held Senate seats taking place, I thought it might be useful to take a look at how the races are shaping up for the twelve Democratic-held Senate seats in 2008.  Soak it in:

State	Incumbent	GOP's Ostensible 1st Choice	1st Choice Running?	Current GOP Opponent(s)	Possible GOP Opponent(s)	Announced Not Running or Expressed No Interest
AR	Mark Pryor	Former Gov. Mike Huckabe	No	None	?	Huckabee
DE	Joe Biden	Rep. Mike Castle	No	None	?	Castle
IL	Richard Durbin	Your guess is as good as mine.	No	Steve Sauerberg	Who knows? A return from Alan Keyes?	Steve Greenberg
IA	Tom Harkin	Rep. Tom Latham	Not Yet (Rumored Possibility)	Steve Rathje, Troy Cook, Bob McDowell	Latham, Rep. Steve King	-
LA	Mary Landrieu	Rep. Bobby Jindal	No	None*	Sec. of State Jay Dardenne, Treasurer John N. Kennedy, '02 Sen. candidate Suzanne Haik Terrell '96 Sen. candidate Woody Jenkins	Rep. Richard Baker, Rep. Jim McCrery, Rep. Charles Boustany; Jindal running for Governor
MA	John Kerry	Your guess is as good as mine.	No	Jeffrey Beattie	State Senator Scott Brown	Former Govs. Mitt Romney, Bill Weld, and Paul Cellucci, Former Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, Former Bush Chief of Staff Andy Card, Businessman Charles Baker, Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling
MI	Carl Levin	Rep. Candice Miller	No	None	Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, 2002 Candidate Rocky Raczkowski	Miller, Rep. Mike Rogers
MT	Max Baucus	Rep. Denny Rehberg	No	State Rep. Mike Lange	?	Rehberg
NJ	Frank Lautenberg	Former Gov. Christie Whitman, U.S. Attorney Chris Christie	No, No	Businesswoman Anne Evans Estabrook	State Assemblyman Joe Pennacchio, State Assemblyman Jon Bramnick	Whitman, Christie, Tom Kean Sr. & Jr., Assemblyman Mike Doherty
RI	Jack Reed	Former Sen. Lincoln Chafee	No	None	Jon Scott	Chafee, '06 Sen. candidate Steve Laffey, Gov. Don Carcieri
SD	Tim Johnson*	Gov. Mike Rounds	No	State Rep. Joel Dykstra, Businessman Sam Kephart	?	Rounds
WV	Jay Rockefeller	Rep. Shelley Moore Capito	No	None	Secretary of State Betty Ireland, Businessman John Raese	Capito

So what do we see here?

First and foremost, we see that (unless Tom Latham challenges Tom Harkin or Bobby Jindal unexpectedly loses the LA-Gov race and opts for a Senate bid) Republicans don't have a single top choice challenging a Democratic incumbent.  Keep in mind, this is not a comparison to Democrats, who have had ups and downs with recruiting (though, with 22 Republican-held seats up compared with only 12 Democratic seats up, that is to be expected).  Simply put, I don't know how much time NRSC Chair John Ensign spends recruiting, but if it's more than zero, it may be wasted time.  Certainly, there is still plenty of time for candidates to enter a Senate race, as Senators Claire McCaskill, Sherrod Brown, and Jim Webb will tell you (all officially entered their races after August 2005), but, after this point in the 2006, only one single Republican entered a Senate race: Michigan loser Mike Bouchard.  If 2006 is at all indicative, the NRSC should be just about done recruiting by now, not just starting.

You'll also note two asterisks, in Louisiana and South Dakota.  In Louisiana, statewide elections occur later this year.  While several Republican Congressmen have announced that they will be opting against a 2008 Senate challenge to Mary Landrieu, it is not unreasonable that other potential candidates would wait until after the 2007 state election before making any decisions, particularly in the case of statewide officeholders Secretary of State Jay Dardenne and currently-Democratic Treasurer John N. Kennedy.  In South Dakota, Senator Tim Johnson is, of course, still recuperating from illness.  If he feels able to run for re-election, it is reasonable to assume that he will, and that Gov. Mike Rounds is unlikely to challenge him.  However, if Johnson opts against a re-election bid, that changes the entire dynamic, which could lead to a top-tier battle between Gov. Rounds and possibly Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth.

We also see a lot of previously unheard-of names.  Jeffrey Beattie in Massachusetts and Jon Scott in Rhode Island are both Congressional race losers, I suppose looking for a promotion to losing Senate races.  The announced challengers in Illinois and Iowa are all unknown political entities, charitably considered third-tier opponents.  As it currently stands, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota feature a smattering of second- and third-tier opposition.  Assuming both that Joe Biden drops his Presidential bid and runs for re-election and that Iowa's Republican Congressional delegation all opt to take a pass on a 2008 Senate bid, it is not unreasonable to expect (barring out-of-the blue surprises) that incumbent Democratic Senators will face no more than token opposition in Arkansas, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Michigan, Rhode Island, and West Virginia.  (At the same time, it wouldn't be wildly shocking if: Tom Latham did enter the race in Iowa; Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land did enter the race in Michigan; Joe Biden did retire from the Senate; and the AR-GOP did find somebody to offer Mark Pryor at least minimal opposition.)

Further, assuming that Senator Tim Johnson is up for a re-election campaign, it is not unreasonable to expect that incumbent Democratic Senators will face no more than second-tier opposition (and thus be strong favorites) in Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota.  Now, I recognize that I'm suggesting that, given a few reasonable caveats, eleven of twelve Democratic Senate seats are fairly to very safe (though it is also, in part, due to the hurting Democrats took in the Senate in 2002, losing close races in Colorado, Georgia, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, which in turn thinned out Democratic vulnerabilities and created pick-up opportunities for 2008).  That is pretty close to a "best case scenario."  But it is also a fairly reasonable scenario.  The catch is that Republicans, wanting to avoid a repeat of 2006 when they failed to turn a single Democratic-held Senate seat (or House seat or Governor's office) Republican, may pour relatively large sums of money into Louisiana once they have a candidate.  With the DSCC trouncing the NRSC in fundraising, Democrats can counteract that, but it could be very expensive.

What do you think?

For daily news and updates on the U.S. Senate races around the country in 2008, check out Senate 2008 Guru: Following the Races.

It may be hard to remember or even imagine now, but Illinois used to be a more politically balanced state. For instance George H.W. Bush won in the Land of Lincoln back in 1988, which he didn't do in the now much more conservative West Virginia, and it's been only about a decade since a Republican was able to win a Senate election in the state (in that case, Peter Fitzgerald). Illinois might not have been a "swing state," per se, but it certainly was competetive.

Now, though, not so much. In last year's gubernatorial race, to take one example, Republican state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka was supposed to give incumbent Democrat Rod Blagojevich, who had come under serious ethics heat, a real run for his money but ended up garnering just 40 percent of the vote. 2004 GOP Senate nominee Alan Keyes performed even more poorly -- much more so, in fact -- pulling in a mere 27 percent of the vote. Perhaps those were just anomolies, you say? Perhaps not. Take a look at the latest Glengariff Group poll of Illinois adults taken back in the middle of May that shows the man who could potentially be the strongest Republican candidate in the state, former Governor Jim Edgar, trailing -- and trailing badly -- against Democratic Senator Dick Durbin.

The poll also posed a hypothetical U.S. Senate race between Durbin and former Gov. Jim Edgar, yielding a Durbin advantage of 53-32 percent. Edgar is not expected to run for that or any other office.

More numbers from the poll:

The poll of 600 people taken May 15-18 by Chicago-based Glengariff Group found U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's job-approval rating at 73.2 percent while U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin enjoyed a 62.2 overall job approval.

The Republican Party does not need Illinois in order to win the White House. We've seen as much in the last two presidential elections. But if the GOP has any hope of retaking the Senate this cycle, they're going to have to find some Democratic seats to challenge. And that of the Senate Majority Whip, a position that requires a high level of partisanship that does not always play well back home (even in states that trend towards the party of the Senator), should be a natural target for Republicans.

This poll indicates that such a challenge -- if not a competitive one, then at least one that would force Durbin to work for his reelection, limiting his ability to campaign and raise money elsewhere -- just isn't going to happen. If one of the best possible choices for the GOP, a relatively popular former Governor, can't do better than trail Durbin by 20 points, it's hard to imagine a less popular, less well known and potentially less well funded candidate doing so.

And while these numbers might not indicate the end of the Illinois GOP -- after all, they do still hold nine of the state's 19 congressional seats -- at the same time they don't do much to instill confidence in the viability of the party in the state, either.

[Cross-posted at my blog Senate 2008 Guru: Following the Races.]

A little over two months ago, I took a look at the state of NRSC recruiting in the one open seat (Colorado) and the twelve states with Democratic incumbents, concluding, up to that point in time, that the NRSC was 0-for-13 in recruiting so far.  Keep in mind that we're approaching the dog days of summer, not a heavy recruitment period.  (Note that during June-August of 2005, only five Senate candidates announced, all five of whom were Republican losers.)  So where does the state of NRSC recruitment stand, and what has changed in the last two months?

(Much more below the fold.)

At the end of the 2004 presidential primary season and how, after Howard Dean's loss, I found great hope in Barack Obama when I briefly moved to Chicago during the Illinois Senate primary. Reading the latest piece in the media whirlwind surrounding Obama, I found this nugget that reminded me why I liked the guy so much, and why I volunteered for his campaign in a crowded field: I remember that Obama. I miss that Barack Obama--but he does still show up from time to time. I hope we will see more of him in the future. That is the man I worked for in the 2004 Illinois Senate primary, and who built up easily the largest netroots following of any statewide candidate in 2004. What I don't understand is where this new Obama came from: Did anyone with any power every say that? Did any leading Democrats ever say that? Did any progressive or liberal of any public stature ever say that? If they did, I'd love to see the quote. Why is it necessary for Obama to preface his opposition to the war by saying that he isn't like some crazy, left-wing stereotype that he never names or quotes? More: Who ever said that any mention of God is automatically threatening a theocracy? Did the woman who asked the question say that? If not, then why did he respond that way? Even if she did say that, why is what one woman in a crowd at Eastern Illinois University the equivalent spokesperson for the left as, I don't know, Sam Brownback is for the right? Where is the equivalence in making everyone on the left accountable for every statement of every random person who shows up to any event or a protest and, say, the right being only accountable for what Dick Cheney says?

I find these left wing strawmen disturbing on a very personal level. Whenever a right-wing pundit or politician uses those exact same strawmen, I feel as though I am personally being attacked. This isn't paranoia--right-wing politicians probably are referring to me when they make statements like that, since their intention is often to slander any American who would refer to herself or himself as a progressive or a liberal. The problem is that when Democrats who seek to capture the "middle ground" use the exact same strawmen, I have a hard time believing they are not referring to me. What's worse, is that when it comes to someone like Barack Obama, for who I worked and tried to get elected, I am not really sure what I did to deserve being talked to that way. And yes, it actually hurts to be made a scapegoat by someone you wanted to see in office, and that you helped--even if only slightly--to achieve that office. A single phrase keeps going around in my head whenever I hear Obama use one of his strawmen: I helped you, man. Why are you treating me like this? Is this a sign you don't want me to help you anymore? Do you honestly believe that attacking me is more valuable than I help I can provide?

Unlike, say, Ann Coutler, I don't actually believe that Obama thinks he is referring to the entire left when he makes statements like this. However, since he never actually says who he is referring to, I simply have to assume that, like Ann Coulter, he is referring to the entire left, and therefore also to me. And yes--call me naïve, or call me thin-skinned--but that hurts me. He could clear this up by stopping any use of these left-wing strawmen altogether. There is no need for Obama to use these strawmen in order to make himself look more like a "uniter." (Of course, I don't even see how insulting your fellow Americans makes you a "uniter" in the first place). In the end, all his use of these strawmen does is obscure the great Obama that I quoted at the top of this post. I like that Obama. Everyone in the netroots likes that Obama, as his favorables from the BlogPac netroots survey shows. Like I did in Illinois, I imagine virtually everyone in the netroots would be willing to work, bleed, and walk through the fire for that Obama. There is no need, before revealing the first Obama, for him to indicate that he isn't one those shrill lefties who you heard about from Ann Coulter. There is no need to throw your friends under the bus while saying what you believe.

This man has potential for all-time, worldwide greatness for the first half of the 21st century. However, if he insists on continuing to use left-wing strawmen to describe himself and what he believes then, to use his own words, he will just become another "DLC-type commentator" more worried about being "tagged as a liberal" then about doing what "people need." I mean, is there a reason you differentiate yourself from left-wing strawmen before stating your opposition to the war unless you are worried about being tagged as a liberal? I can't possibly imagine one. This can't all be the media putting words in Obama's mouth and trying to form this triangulating narrative around him. Part of this problem starts with Obama himself.

I will probably have more on this tomorrow. There is so much here that I need to get off my chest, both personally and politically, when it comes to the rise of Obama. I can't say it all in one post. This man just potentially means so much to so many people in America and around that world, that we need to encourage him. He should be neither dismissed outright nor embraced uncritically.