2010 won’t be as good of a year as 2008 for Democrats.  It is really hard to repeat that kind of success.  However, here in California, we have a chance to do better than we did in 2008.  In 2008, we picked up a few of assembly seats (10, 15, 78, and 80) and lost one (30). In the senate: nothing. Hannah-Beth Jackson lost to Tony Strickland by a razor’s edge, but that’s as close as we got.

The dynamic will certainly be different in 2010. Barack Obama is not on the ballot, instead we will have a senate and a governor’s race to lead the ticket. Perhaps some Carlyfornia Dreamin’? With all that taken into consideration, the Target Book has officially come out with their “races to watch.” As Dave pointed out last week, the Target Book is pretty much the chronicler of the conventional wisdom for these races. Not necessarily the best wisdom, but the CW in Sacramento, for better or worse.

In a couple of seats, this will make a huge difference.  To take one example, Alyson Huber is in a very, very difficult position. She will not have the same kind of grassroots enthusiasm behind her, both for Obama-less reasons, and for reasons of her own relationship with the grassroots. Considering that she won by just a few votes, she’ll need everything that can go right to go right.  She voted for the budget, which will piss off some right-leaning DTS voters, and she’s also skated close enough to the center to also piss off some left-leaning Dems and DTS voters.

Now, obviously some of the seats are a lot more likely to be competitive than others. It’s going to be quite tough to get a Dem in DeVore’s 70th AD or to take out Garrick. Yet, there are some interesting races, some of which were not really on the radar in 2008. It will be interesting to see if the Assembly pays a little more attention to races like AD-36 a little sooner this time around.

And over in the Senate, yup, it’s just the one. SD-12 will be the sole race that is really in play, unless something crazy happens with the LG appointment.