If you feel ready to renounce your citizenship rather than put up with another endless campaign season (they don't have these problems in North Korea, y'know), you can skip to the next piece on your reading list.

Yesterday, Missouri Repub Sen. Christopher (Kit) Bond announced that he won't seek a fifth term in the U.S. Senate. Not an earth-shattering development outside of Missouri, but it contributes to a new gathering storm for the GOP caucus. The storm doesn't have a name, and it may blow out to sea, but it does have a tentative date for landfall: 2010.

In 2010, the Republicans will once again need to defend more Senate seats then the Dems. As things stand now, they will have more retiring members (meaning more open seats which are harder to hold), more incumbents in states that are trending toward the other party, more incumbents in swing states with approval ratings suggesting they might be vulnerable.

In short, most of the normal indicators indicate that the Senate Repubs could lose ground to the Dems for the third consecutive election cycle. And this time there will probably (assuming that Al Franken and Roland Burris become the 58th and 59th Democrats in the Senate sometime in 2010) be no margin at all between the GOPs current position (41 seats) and a filibuster-proof majority for the Dems.

There is one pretty big counter-indicator. Historically, the party that controls the White House almost always loses seat in a mid-term election. The last exception to this rule was quite recent. In 2002, George W. Bush was rode a high approval rating from the post 9/11 national unity into the fall, campaigned hard for Republicans, and the GOP picked up seats and actually took back control of the Senate.

There is, at present, a strong wind at the backs of most Democrats in close races, deriving mostly from the major blot that Bush eventually became on the Republican brand. A highly popular new Democratic president is preparing to take office. There is an atmosphere of national crisis, most deriving from the economic meltdown. If President Obama is still very popular in the fall of 2010, the Dems might be able to beat the midterm jinx. But if so, it will also because the Republicans have, at this point, been dealt a very lousy hand.

The overall numbers favor the Dems
All Class III Senate seats are up in 2010. There are 33 such seats. Republicans have to defend 18 of them – this is the third straight election in which they have had more seats on the line.

The Dems currently occupy 15 Class III seats. That includes the former Obama seat from Illinois (assuming a special election has not been held in 2009 and won by a Republican) and the Colorado seat that will be vacated if Sen. Ken Salazar is confirmed as Interior secretary.) In addition, Delaware and New York will have special elections in 2010 (Delaware for the Joe Biden vacancy, with Biden's son Beau heavily favored, and New York, assuming that Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes secretary of state). Still, Delaware and New York are not prime pickup opportunities for the Repubs.

The Repubs will almost certainly have more vacancies
Florida Repub Sen. Mel Martinez has already announced he won't seek a second term. Former Florida Gov. (and first brother) Jeb Bush might have been the Repubs best hope for the seat but recently announced he won't do it. Florida is a purple state. Its other senator is Democrat Bill Nelson. Obama carried Florida. There's a young Dem. congressman with money in the bank who's eying the race. Depending on who decides to run for both sides (and that phrase should apply to most of the situation discussed in this piece), the open Florida seat could start the cycle as a toss-up.

Kansas Repub Sam Brownback is running for governor instead of another Senate term. Kansas is about as red as a state gets. Hasn't elected a Dem sen since the 1930s!

It does have a popular Dem. Gov, Kathleen Sibelius, who is prevented by term limits from seeking reelection. If she shoots for the Senate seat (the idea of which, some believe, is why she has asked Obama not to consider her for Commerce secretary), it will be a race.

Now there's Missouri, with Bond's announcement yesterday. The onetime wonder boy of Missouri politics, he became the state's young governor ever in 1972 at age 33. He cracked yesterday that he didn't want to end up as the state's oldest senator ever (if he won a fifth term, he would be 77 at the end of it). He hasn't always been that popular (his biggest win was four years ago, 56 percent of the vote).

The N.Y. Times online coverage of his announcement yesterday said, "In announcing his retirement, Mr. Bond, 69, puts in play another Republican-held Senate seat in 2010." But before Bond demurred there was talk that Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, a daughter of Missouri's biggest political family (her father was governor, her mother was senator, her brother is a congressman), would give him a tough race in 2010. Missouri is a purple state that has tilted red. Obama fought McCain to a virtual tie there. (I think they're done counting, aren't they?) There's plenty of Republican mentionables for the Bond seat, but the betting line today would favor Carnahan.

The Dems so far have no retiring incumbents (unless you count the placeholder in Delaware, who is expected to step aside for Beau Biden). True, Hawaii Dem incumbent Daniel Inouye of Hawaii will be 86 on Election Day, but I haven't heard he's planning retirement, and Hawaii is a pretty blue state (in every sense of the word "pretty").

The Repubs may also have to worry about Pennsylvania, where incumbent Arlen Specter will be 80 on Election Day and has battled a recurring cancer. "Hardball" host Chris Matthews is publicly exploring challenging him as a Democrat. The moderate Specter would be hard to beat, but if he retires, Pennsylvania is a purple state with a strong blue lean.

Republican political weak links
First term Repub Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio hasn't scored above a 51 percent approval rating in any non-partisan poll I can find since before 2006. Ohio is another purple state that's been trending strongly blue of late, with a popular Democratic governor.

Jim Bunning of Kentucky will be 79 and is not that popular. He's won twice, but never with more than 51 percent. Some Republican strategists kinda think they'd be better off if he stepped down. So far, he seems to be planning to seek a third term.

Richard Burr of North Carolina (do you find yourself wondering whether you've ever heard of him?) has slipped through his first term almost unnoticed, even in North Carolina, where one poll in 2007 had him at 30 percent approval, 34 percent disapproval, with another third not knowing enough about him to have an opinion. North Carolina shocked a lot of people last year by giving its electoral votes to Obama and dumping its Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

Repubs in Blue states, Dems in red states
Judd Gregg of New Hampshire is a well-liked, very conservative Republican who is expected to seek a fourth term, but New Hampshire has been swinging blue. Obama carried it by nine points last year and Dem Jeanne Shaheen ousted the other Republican senator, John Sununu.

The safest Republican incumbent in a blue state is Charles Grassley of Iowa, although Iowa has swung way blue in the last couple of years. Bush carried it in a 2004 squeaker (by 0.4 percent). Obama took it by nine percentage points. Still, as far as I can tell, Grassley has his seat until he's tired of it.

The Dems have several incumbents who are up in 2010 in states that John McCain carried (Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Byron Dorgan of North Dakota) or that McCain barely lost (Evan Bayh of Indiana). But at the moment, none of these seem to be in much trouble.

From this great distance of time, I actually can't spot any of the Dems who are up for reelection in 2010 who seem to be in grave danger. But don't take my word for it. On his blog, The Fix, the estimable Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post regularly handicaps races like these years in advance. He regularly publishes and updates what he calls "The Line," wherein he rates, in order of likelihood the seats most likely to change parties. His most recent top 10  (actually a top 11, since he found a tie for 10th place) featured eight seats now held by Repubs, three by Dems, but the top six were all Repubs.

Here's how Cillizza rated them:
1. Bunning of Kentucky. (I was surprised Cillizza thought this was the likeliest Dem pickup.)

2. David Vitter of Louisiana. (I didn't even have him on my list, but he confess to employing prostitutes during his first term.)

3. The formerly Martinez, open seat from Florida.

4. The Specter seat in Pennsylvania (with a reminder that the pro-choice Specter almost lost a primary in his last election and might be challenged again by a pro-life Republican).

5. The Bond seat in Missouri (published before Bond announced his retirement).

6. Judd Gregg in New Hampshire. (I would have rated him a bit safer; Cillizza says the Dems are very excited about Gregg's likely challenger.)

7. The Colorado seat to be vacated by Salazar. (Cillizza says that in a large portion of cases, those appointed to Senate seats do not retain them, which, if true, could create several problems for the Dems.)

8. The Kansas seat being vacated Brownback.

9. The Illinois seat. (Quite the mess, eh? Thank you Gov. Blagojevich.) We'll see if the Blago stink lasts two years.

10. Tied: Voinovich of Ohio and Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, of Nevada. (I'm skeptical here. Reid has had some close scrapes, but won easily last time. Cillizza's counting on the idea that Repubs will do what it takes to make sure Reid sweats.)

OK, enough already. This is getting embarrassing. Repeating what I said above, the Dems have had a strong anti-Bush wind at their backs. If that changes, we'll take a fresh look at Dem sens in red states and all the other factors above. If Obama's first 100 days are a disaster, all bets are off. But based on what we can see from here, you haven't heard the last of a Dem supermajority.