As far as the Democrats taking back the United States Congress it is way too soon to tell. The largest problem is the current tone of the Republican candidates towards each other. If they are not careful what they will succeed in doing is to create an atmosphere where a Democratic landslide could take place.
Many errors have been made on both sides of the fence, and both sides have had failed policies.
Nationwide the Republican Party has had so many failures as to be laughable, and fortunately most of those people are not running for the Presidency this time around.
The Democrats have also had their failures as well, but the biggest failures we could engineer would be repeats of past errors on either side.
Those who tout one groups thinking over the other as if it was a mantra guaranteed to work have not carefully studied the history of the past.
Republicans these days need to drop the line "tax and spend" from their vocabularies.
When Ronald Reagan took over the office of Governor in California he chanted the mantra of "no new taxes" and then proceeded to enact the largest tax increases in the history of that State. In spite of the verbal promises his record in the White House was not exactly stellar either when it came to taxation. He had many good accomplishments and many failures which marked his presidency. The same can be said of Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush and the worst of the bunch which was George W. Bush. In a mild defense of George W. Bush, the man was a monumental scape goat for special interests and "big business" on nearly every level. The problems with that presidency will not come completely into the light for another 4 or 5 decades.
The History of this country is very interesting when it comes to the war between the two top parties.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt ran for office there was a similar outcry from those who were racist and anti-semetic. Where the claims in the most recent years by extremists have been to cast doubt on the actual birthplace of our current sitting president the same kinds of charges were leveled at Roosevelt. Those out to "get" Roosevelt had a history created with his actual last name being "Rosenfeld" and his history as being a person of Eastern European Jewish ancestry. There were horrible and vile things said and published against F.D.R. While extremists the equivalent of what we have today painted one picture, history has actually shown his administration as being one of the most effective in the history of this country. At the same time his Vice President was Harry S. Truman, and after the death of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman with World War still in progress showed himself in bad times to be an equally competent leader.
The other day I heard a joke regarding the United States Congress.
"How many Congressmen does it take to change a lightbulb?"
The answer:
"Nobody knows, it's never been done!"
Right now, until all of us get behind campaign finance reform we have and will continue to have "the best government money can buy".
These same forces that have purchased your elected representatives are now controlling who is nominated and who actually runs. The extremists seen on both sides are "manufactured" to direct your vote to "their" person. If they think that multi-millionaire Mitt Romney will best serve their interests over yours, they will find ways to direct billions of dollars quietly into all the places necessary to get him elected. The rest of his views are not important. They don't care about gay rights, abortion, and the only fiscal responsibility they care about is their own continued ability to get YOUR money. If they think that their interests would best be served by Newt that is where they will throw their money.
Did you ever wonder why campaigns of become so reprehensible? The reason is that the money bearers know that the average American will never read the congressional record to in fact know what their Congressman or elected representatives have been doing. They have learned that the average blue collar working guy and the average "soccer Mom" will listen to and buy the Tabloid mentality and the personal attacks never bothering to verify the validity of the statements. This has been proven again and again. If you doubt my logic and research here look at the horse race between Mitt and Newt. Newt gets accused of wanting "open relationships" and his poll numbers crumble. Mitt opens his mouth and sticks his foot into it with statements regarding the poor already having a great "safety net", and there is an outcry and a slip in the poll numbers for him.
What is quite likely is that there will probably be changes but that neither side will have a clear and decisive majority. A clear and decisive majority could very quickly and easily turn on the money under the table. As long as you have a monumental group of indecisive individuals more interested in fighting each other than getting anything done, they win and we lose.
Unless there is something earth shaking, which is possible, Obama will get his second term and the balance between Democrats and Republicans in Congress may shift, but it will not be enough to give anyone a clear majority and end the fighting. That is my prediction with the information I see right now. . . . . Only time will tell in truth. . . .