We're still looking at two years of political trench warfare after the election in two weeks, just in time for some WWI centennials. Republicans might well be in a better position going into the next Congress, but they still have to deal with President Obama if they want to get anything passed.
The polls are looking promising for Republicans at present. Real Clear Politics' senate take has things at 46-45 Republican with nine toss-ups. Of the toss-ups, it looks like AK,CO,KS, KY and LA are breaking for the Republicans, New Hampshire and North Carolina seem to be leaning towards the Democrats and Georgia and Iowa look like recount-bait, although the two blue-hued ones could be squeakers as well and Colorado is an odd duck of a state.
If the GOP gets a 6-3 split out of those 9, that gives Republicans 52 seats. If they run the table, it's 55-45.
However, the path of least resistance for getting laws passed is to get a center-left coalition with just enough Republican support to get a bare majority. It will be easier for the president to pry loose a handful of moderate Republicans than for Republicans to bring a bucketfull of Democrats on board to override an Obama veto.
Even if we take the best-case scenario above, one of the senators surviving the bubble would be Scott Brown, no Tea Party guy there (fellow bubblites would include Pat Roberts and Mitch McConnell, who aren't all that centrist but are establishment-friendly guys). That would mean they'd need four more "RINOs" to cross over. Murkowski, Collins, Kirk and one more senator fearful of a slew of attack ads on the issue at hand would get them to 50 where we'd have VP Biden cast a Big [Freaking] Deal tie-breaker.
The bigger the majority, the more moderates need to be dragged over the aisle in order to get a majority. However, even a pipe-dream even where a few seemingly safe Democratic seats get zapped (Michigan could play that role) doesn't change the denizen of 1600 Penn.
Thus, get used to the idea of either center-left coalitions or a both-ends-against-the-middle establishment nose-holder deals (like the debt ceiling-sequester hot mess) being the norm for 2015 and 2016.
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