In the Gadflyer, Sean Aday points to the alleged Republican “problems” of unified control of the federal government and an increased House majority. By this logic, the GOP would be screwed if there were no Democrats in Congress. Think of all the seats they’d have to defend! There’d be no one else to blame for their mistakes!

Not only did Bush only barely achieve a majority, performing at virtually exactly the level expected of an incumbent seeking re-election, but at 49 percent he holds the distinction of having the highest percentage of votes cast against a sitting President in history. We may no longer be precisely a 49 percent nation, but there is still 49 percent who didn’t support Bush.

…Which leads to another silver lining: The Midterms. Republicans are going to have to defend a lot of House seats in 2006, and although Bush defied history by not losing seats in the 2002 midterms (in part because he had not had any coattails to speak of in 2000 and thus there weren’t the usual batch of weak first-termers running), can he really pull that off again? Democrats’ complicity in setting up safe districts for incumbents during the reapportionment that followed the 2000 census will help the GOP stem their losses, but chances are good for Democrats picking up many seats, possibly even regaining control of the House.

…The problem for Republicans is that they now have sole possession of these problems, to say nothing of whatever other policy disasters they have up their sleeves in the coming months and years.