Congressman Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, says the November 2010 midterm elections will be difficult, but anyone who believes Republicans will wrest majority control of the House of Representatives is living in “la la land.”
The midterm elections will be viewed by many as a referendum on the policies of Democratic President Barack Obama.
“It is going to be a very volatile, political environment,” Van Hollen said at the Reuters Washington Summit.
He pointed out that since the days of President Abraham Lincoln, only twice has a new president’s party picked up seats in the first midterm election — in 1934 (when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president) and 2002 (when George W. Bush was president).
“So other than those two times, the president’s party has lost seats and the average losses are fairly dramatic,” averaging about 35 seats, Van Hollen said.
Right now there are 256 Democrats and 177 Republicans, and two vacancies in the 435-member U.S. House of Representatives.
“So we told our members to be prepared, no one’s going to be surprised,” Van Hollen said.
“I would say that anyone who thinks this is going to be a 1994 redux is in la la land. The Democrats are not going to lose control of the House,” he said.
In the midterm elections in 1994, when Democratic President Bill Clinton was in the White House, Republicans gained seats and won control of both the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years.
Van Hollen engaged in a little name-calling, saying the Republican Party these days was “the party of pessimism” and “the party of no” that did not want to be part of the solution to America’s problems.
For more Reuters Washington Summit news click here
Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Congressman Chris Van Hollen at Reuters Washington Summit)
50 comments so far
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Truly amazing listening to you guys say these things and actually believe yourselves.
Why weren’t we socialist when a Republican president was bailing out corporate America?
Stop pretending as if it has anything to do with principle people, those of us free thinkers (how few of us there are left in this country) can see right through it. It’s completely 100% entirely dependent on if the party you don’t like is doing it.
As I said before no Republican wants to take any responsibility for what their party did between 2000 and 2006 when they had complete control of everything. You people used to tell me how big of a liberal Bill Clinton was, George Bush made him look like the most conservative person to ever walk the earth after his 8 years were up. Clinton’s government spending, size of the federal gov’t, size of the welfare budget never even approached the heights of what Bush and his fellow Republicans got us too.
Stop caring what the mainstream media (Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, etc) tells you these parties stand for and start paying attention to reality. Speeches and rhetoric don’t matter, look at voting records, budgets, trends.
- Posted by Michael Hammitchell, i came from a socialist country and there was a saying there ,that” if America caught a cold, Europe got the flue”.Most of the socialist countries prosperity depended on America being capitalist to have funds to buy their services.In spite of what the liberal America hates say, if they built a bridge to Europe you could not get on for the people coming this way.When we get past this Obama entitlement socialist nonsense, we will again get back to being the world engine room and helping with world prosperity like what we have always done.
- Posted by brian leeI have to agree.
- Posted by MitchellMost young people really don’t think of socialism as “evil”. Especially when you know people who live in socialist countries.
When you hear about how awesome some of those Scandinavian countries are to live in. (Despite abysmal climates.)
When the children of technology (those born after 1980) are in charge, it’s going to be so different and complex.
With Obama’s betrayal of his promises, from Gitmo, to Iraq, from health care to rule of law, I’m voting for no Democrats at all. I’m also not voting for any Republicans either, so it’s independents when I can and if I can’t, then no incumbents at all. If that means I vote Republican then I will. Democrats betrayed us in 2000, in 2002, again in 2004 again in 2006 and once more in 2008. We might as well just give up on both parties. NO MORE INCUMBENTS! Health care is a perfect example. The people want Medicare for all, but Congress doesn’t care, they want the money and power that comes from being bribed by corporations. They have proven Nader was right. It’s all one corrupt party, just with two faces.
- Posted by Robert1234confederateDegenerate,the democrats blame Bush for everything,perhaps rainman2,s spell check is at fault?
- Posted by brian leeRainman2, at least TRY to correct the errors in your comment please, it’s embarrassing for people to see the elementary school mistakes appear on a political blog. The Republicans won’t have a majority, the majority of the voters AREN’T going against the White House. Please get your facts checked next time you post, it doesn’t help your case when all the arguments you used are not based on facts.
- Posted by ConfederateDegenerateAnd why did I think it was so good? Because it gets at the heart of the problem.
G.W. Bush was the biggest traitor to fundamental Republican values there ever was.
Perhaps we cannot levy the same kind of criticism against Obama, but there are plenty of Democrats out there who are traitors to fundamental Democratic values.
You people need to start thinking for yourself, and stop letting your chosen party do the thinking for you.
- Posted by C. MoonMicheal Ham’s comment was the most pertinent in this entire mess of comments.
It’s worth quoting!
“Republican voters watch Republican bureaucrats skyrocket welfare, increase the power of the federal gov’t and open our borders completely ocean to ocean.
So what’s their response? Vote Republican again
Democratic voters watch Democratic bureaucrats warmonger in the middle east, grow deficits, spit in the face of gays.
So what’s their response? Vote Democrat again
It’s just sad watching you people, you just simply don’t get it. You’ll keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect something different. Be an independent, be a liberatarian, be a constitutionalist, I don’t care anything besides these 2 garbage mainstream parties. For the the good of your country!!!!!!!!!!”
- Posted by C. MoonThose other years didn’t have teabaggers and America has more people paying attension to Obama and the government way of doing buisness and are tired of all the bull.
- Posted by rainman2The way its going now I think they are in for a big surrprize. The whitehouse will not listen to the voters. We have been trying to tell them what we feel and want them to do but it all falls on deaf ears. Its like we don’t matter and since they are the government they know whats best for us. So our opinon dosent mean squat. Its time to clean house. This time we won’t have bush to screw it all up within his own party. But it will be a Republican majority.
- Posted by Rainman2