You heard it here first: Hillary and Joe switch jobs in 2012

FT column by Clive Crook.

You remember my Esquire column of 7/31/09?  It ended thusly:

End Game: A Swap with Biden?

Say Clinton puts in her four years dutifully, achieving a reasonable fraction of her ambitions. So what's her reward? Four more years of President Obama, quite possibly. But will Hillary be happy enough with four more for herself at State? Or could a bigger compensation package be in the works?

Let me lay out for you a scenario I consider most worthy for all sides to consider: Remember Don Regan and James Baker switching jobs between Ronald Reagan's two terms, with Regan going to White House chief of staff and Baker assuming the Treasury's top spot?

Well, try this one on for size: Biden has no legit hopes for the top slot in 2016, but Clinton can't be ruled out. Why not have them switch jobs in concert with the 2012 campaign run? Biden can run out his string in the job he's always wanted (four years at No. 2 is enough time served for anybody with his ego, yes?), and Hillary can make history as the first elected female vice president. Obama is thus doubly credited for shattering one glass ceiling and generously setting Hillary up to crack the ultimate one.

You heard it here first.

Well, Crook makes the argument for Hillary as a better running mate for Obama in 2012 without going the extra step of job-swapping, which I think would make the deal work for Biden (recalling Baker-for-Regan in Reagan II).

Crook's larger argument:  if you want a more successful Obama II, this would be a great way to shift course and move more to the center.  Crook actually explores doing this prior to the full-up election (as in, why would Clinton automatically rule out running in 2012?), but I don't consider that to be anything but fantastic.

I think the swap-out could work for everybody--at virtually no risk to anybody.

Chart of the day: GOP closing fast?

From the Economist, in a piece that predicts the GOP will win 42 House seats while losing 3 for a net gain of 39—just enough to get control at 218 to 217, with John Boehner taking the gavel from Nancy Pelosi.

Charlie Cook thinks it will be a bit worse.

What has gone wrong for the Dems?  “Almost everything,” says the newspaper.

All polls say Republicans and Independents are far more fired up to vote in the mid-terms than Dems.

What has gone right for the Dems?  The Tea Party’s beyond-the-pale histrionics.  But with share of voters labeling the Dems “too liberal” rising from 39% to 49%, the Tea Party’s excesses might simply be more reflective of the larger mood than subtractive for the GOP.

Latinos leaning more Democratic

WSJ story saying that Hispanics who registered to vote since the last midterm are significantly less likely to vote GOP than those who registered 4 years earlier.

The fastest-growing bloc of voters in the country is trending Dem.

GOP affiliation fell from a bit from 23% to 19%, while the Dem share rose from 50% to 58%.  Fewer independents.

The driver is no mystery: anti-immigrant fervor is more identified with the GOP.

The good news for Dems is somewhat balanced by the new non-Latino voters, who favor the Dems over the GOP by a lesser margin (41% to 34%).

How big the shift with this election?

Trio of WSJ pieces

Joe Sestak ends Spector's long career that goes all the way back to the Warren Commission (and please people, stop calling it the "magic bullet" theory, because the latest computer modeling shows that it wasn't magical in the least!), exploiting the current anti-incumbent mood.

I knew Sestak as an admiral and I've testifed in from of him.  He is as slick as they come, and I mean that in a good way. Outsider? Definitely fresher than Spector, let's say.

He's definitely a liberal, holding a 100% rating from NARAL on being pro-choice.  We also share a bond:  both our first-born girls survived cancer in childhood.

Sestak is also incredibly smart, in my opinion, so he'd be one to watch in the Senate, just like he was in the House.

So with all this talk of voter shifts, what does this latest batch of primaries say?  We should see a lot of new faces in Congress next January, and this is good.  Place is too easy for incumbents as a rule, and we should take pride in moving new brains into the mix.

But you have to remember, midterm primaries are the stuff of the party loyalists.

It's the changing mix of loyalists that bodes well for the GOP.

MSNBC/WSJ poll on party affiliation changes since start of Obama administration:

• Dems stay at 43%
• GOP goes from 30 to 37%
• That comes out of Independents (20-->16%) and others (7-->3%).

So you have to believe that the Tea Party movement is strengthening the GOP and hardly represents the rise of a viable third party.

Will the post mid-term paralysis be far worse?

Yes, says Fred Barnes in the WSJ, thus the Democrats' urgency in shoving through legislation, insinuating that Obama will be forced to concentrate on foreign affairs after 2010, because that's what you do when you can't get any domestic agenda moving.  The wild card?  Shoving a value-added tax or VAT through a post-election lame-duck Congress.

Meanwhile, The Economist laments the "perverse impact" the looming elections are having on immigration.  Wild card there?  Harry Reid pushing an amnesty bill through the Senate so he can tap the 15% Hispanic voting pool in his state.  This may backfire.