Democrats aim for 60 seats, Republicans target 2.
According to a report by truthout, the Democrats believe they have a shot to give a Democratic President a 60 vote, filibuster proof, Senate. This will be the first time since Carter that such a Senate would exist. This would mean that the Democrats would have to get 10 new Democratic Senators. Someone in the article stated that 60 would be the target and that only 9 seats will be needed. However, on issues pertaining to the war, I believe Joe Lieberman would aid the filibuster of legislation he disagrees with. So if we want a truly filibuster proof Senate, we need 10 new Democrats. Here is a map of the seats that are up for grabs, the darkest red states have two Senate races.
Now lets look at the Obama electoral map and the Clinton electoral map.
Obama has the lead in WA/NM/CO/WI/VA/ME/NH and is very close in TX.
Clinton has the lead in NM/WI/ME.
Assuming that the Democrats can hold on to their red state senators, a Hillary campaign may help the Democrats gain 3 seats. However, an Obama campaign may be able to gain 7 (or possibly even 8) seats. This, of course, doesn’t take into consideration the strength of the Democratic candidate in those races. It only takes into consideration the coattails that someone may be able to ride if a particular candidate is the Democratic nominee.
The bottom line is that most likely, the Democrats will probably not be able to get a 60 vote majority in the Senate. However, I do applaud people in the party for aiming high. Getting 54-57 seats would be nothing to sneeze at. However, in aiming high, we need to make sure we do not lose any seats. The Republican goal of gaining 2 seats is much more modest than our goal of getting 60. I would hate to see us shoot for the stars and in doing so cause the Senate to turn Republican for our next Democratic President.