'06 House: Will there be party switches?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If they haven't defected yet and have remained Democrats even though their party is in the minority (and do remember that Cramer has been in the House throughout the House Democrats wilderness years) why on earth would they wait until their party was back in the majority again?

The time to defect is when the party you are defecting to is in the ascendency, not when it's trying to cling onto power.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Wouldn't they be enticed by an offer of a chairmanship and increased power in a Republican House?

They would be perfectly well-aware that any such perks would be temporary; either the Democrats would take the House back at the next election and they'd lose their perks that way, or the Republicans would make enough gains at the next election to kick them out of their chairmanships and etc.

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The key word here is "old" isn't it? None of the five potential defectors you've mentioned are especially old.