I'm starting to think that that perhaps the perspective outcomes of the 2010 midterms in relation to Obama's bid for reelection in 2012, maybe reversed.
I.e what I mean by the outcomes, I currently see two outcomes and two meanings behind them.
1, Republican landslide of 1994 proportions or bigger
. The Republicans make massive gains in the Senate(including the defeat of Harry Reid, and the picking up of seats in solidly blue state like CA and IL) and large scale gains in the House of at least 30 seats upwards. There meriting the strong chance that they take back both Houses of Congress. Republicans also seize and hold number of statehouses/ state legislatures from Maine to New Mexico. Overall a number of prominent Democrats go down in defeat, including Senate Majority Leader Reid, Senator Barbra Boxer, Deval Patrick, Blanche Lincoln, and quite a few in the House.
. However, I don't see this outcome as entirely bad for the Democrats nor entirely good for the Republicans. First off it will allow the Obama Administration in the same situation that Clinton was after 1994 in which credit can be claimed for many of the adjustments or cuts that the Republicans currently want to push through. Also it would force the Republicans to work with the Administration unless they want to be seen as the type of obstructionists that their political predecessors were immediately after taking Congress in 1994. All of this would enable the Obama Administration to move closer to the center in terms of policy and boost himself, much how Clinton did after the Democrats took massive losses in 1994.
This would be horrible for the Democratic party. Obama is as much of a Democrat as Eisenhower was a Republicans. And yet the Democratic party would be reduced to almost nothing nationally besides having Obama in the White House.