Democratic Dropouts

Aaron Blake of the Hill reports that for the fifth time in recent weeks a Democratic recruit has pulled out of a race in a Republican held Congressional district.

Four out of the five were running in districts that went for John McCain last year and I can't say I blame them. I would not be surprised if Democrats don't win a single seat next year in a McCain district that they don't currently hold, and if they do win any it's not likely to be more than one or two.

With the possible exception of Jean Schmidt's district I don't think any of those candidates would have gotten more than about 45% in this political climate. The Michele Bachmann poll we did last week provided some evidence of that- even someone who just barely survived last year with 46% of the vote was up in the mid-5os now with the way things have trended in a Republican direction,

With the number of competitive seats Democrats already hold that they're going to have to fight to keep next year it's hard to imagine there's going to be much in the way of committee resources for relatively long shot bids. They're going to have to be very selective about where they play offense, and it seems logical the places where they would do so are Obama friendly districts where perhaps they didn't have the right candidate to capitalize on the good conditions for the party in 2006 or 2008.