Kerry Senate Seat II

A Weekly Standard piece today on the prospects of a Democratic Senate manages to not answer my earlier question about what Kerry will do with his Senate seat.

"Democrats need to net two seats if President Bush is re-elected or only one if John Kerry wins the White House. Either way, that would flip the current 51-49 Republican advantage to 51-49 for Democrats."

Well, technically, a net of one seat and a Kerry victory would lead to a 50-50 split, with Kerry's Mystery Veep casting the tiebreaking vote. [Amusing aside: suppose the silly suggestion that McCain would accept a VP slot with Kerry actually came to be, and the Senate did split 50-50. Which way would McCain cast the tiebreaking vote?]

But the entire article never assumes that Kerry's seat is in play: "To pull it off--and assuming a two-seat gain is required--Democrats must achieve three goals. First, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle must be re-elected in South Dakota. Second, Democrats have to limit their loss of Senate seats in the South to two. Third, they need to capture all four of the vulnerable Republican seats."

We have discussion of SD, the South, and the vulnerable Republican seats, but not a word about MA. Suppose the Dems do manage to meet the requirements above, and Kerry wins. He must resign his Senate seat, which takes the chamber to 50-50 instead of 51-49 (as Governor Romney would appoint a Republican). This still leaves Democratic control (barely), but means that the Dems need to net two seats regardless of who wins the presidency if they want to control the Senate.

Update: Liberal blog PoliticalWire seems to indicate that this was indeed an error in the WS article.