In the summer of 1982, I was managing a Domino’s Pizza store that served a small college campus. I had taken over the store right after the college had dismissed for the summer, so business was a bit slow. One of the first things I did was to chart the weekly sales.
One Monday in July the supervisor arrives with a bit of burn going on. He pulled me aside and asked me if I knew that the week just ended had had the lowest sales of any week so far that year. I just smiled and asked him to follow me to the office where I directed his attention to my sales chart. The week just ended had had the lowest sales of the year every year the store had been open. My sales were higher than the year before (as they had been every week), but not higher than the week before. I had no idea why that particular week was historically bad, but it was.
That one moment made charting the sales worth it.
In the off year, the political party in power loses congressional seats. There may have been an exception or two, but that’s it. The day the democrats achieved sixty votes in the Senate, anyone who knew anything knew that they would no longer control sixty seats after the 2010 elections. All of the media talking heads know this. But why mess with a good story?
There is a bit of drama in Massachusetts in the battle for Kennedy’s senate seat, but other than that the only “newsworthy” items concerning political power in the senate reflect the difficulty the republicans face:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/mass-retirements-not-so-fast-dems-say.php
But in the end, the Democrats will lose seats. It is the way it is.