Four Weeks To Go

You hear the word on talk shows, read it in newspapers, news magazines mention it, analysts suggest the possibility of it...landslide. I heard one expert analyst talk about a possible 50-seat swing, as others nodded in agreement. These are heady times for Democrats. We’d like to think this major shift was caused by the National Intelligence Estimate, which shows what a horrible disaster our Iraq adventure and policies have been. Or maybe the Woodward book, showing the utter corruption and complete duplicity of every member of the Bush Regime, even including St. Condi herself. Those have helped, but we know this was caused by the Foley scandal – you can debate what’s right or wrong about Iraq, but you can’t debate about lewd messages to underage pages and a House leadership that did nothing about a predator in their midst. Maybe they thought he was most qualified to chair the subcommittee on protecting children – sort of like a corporation hiring a hacker to run their IT security. This has rightly sickened the American people and not even Fox News can save them – trying to blame the Democrats for not publicizing it sooner may be the most desperate thing ever tried. This has reached all the way to the top, as Bush’s poll numbers are dropping fast – record lows of 33 and 34 in the Newsweek and NY Times polls, with nothing above 40 anywhere.
Unfortunately, the election isn’t next week. This gives Rove and his flying monkeys four weeks to fight back and rest assured, they will. You can look forward to the dirtiest, filthiest, most nauseating campaign ever. They will stop at nothing – they have gotten everything they wanted form this pathetic Republican congress, including the rape of the Geneva Conventions and the destruction of habeas corpus. Still, the fear of their extremist judges being held up by the Senate (although Leiberman will help if he can) and potential investigations of their failures from 9/11 through the Iraq disaster will get them to fight to the end. If you watch programs with political ads in them, I suggest having a barf bag handy – it’s going to be a bumpy flight.

The House – Two weeks ago I wondered where the seats the Democrats needed were. Today I see the answer – everywhere. There are three in Indiana alone, one in Arizona, two in Florida, one in Illinois, one in Kansas (!), one in North Carolina, two in NY (including Tom Reynolds, head of the GOP congressional campaign committee), one in Ohio, one in PA, and one in Virginia. There are also a bunch of others, like PA-06 and PA-07 which are GOP seats that had very tight polling before the Foley scandal.
There are four weeks left, which is traditionally an eternity in politics, but that may not apply here. Once people change their minds, once they decide it’s time for a change, it is much harder to change them back.

The Senate –

RI- There hasn’t been a poll with Chaffee actually ahead since June and there are two this month, Gallup (11) and Rasmussen (9) with Whitehouse well ahead. This is starting to look like it’s over to me.

NJ- Menendez seems to be inching ahead here. The two most recent polls (ending 10/2) have him up by 10 (Zogby), and 7 (Fairleigh Dickinson). The two polls on 10/1 have him up by 3 (Gallup) and down by 5 (Strategic Vision). I’m guessing SV is off here and that Kean won’t be able to buck the anti-Republican trend developing.

VA- There is very little question here that the Web campaign has stalled and that Allen appears to have solidified his lead. The one hope that Webb has is that we haven’t seen a poll since 10/2 and that the last week has been so horrid for the GOP that he might get back into things. I’m not that hopeful – if Allen’s own racism hasn’t done the job, why would a House sex scandal finish him off?

TN- Ford seems to have a slight lead, but to say this one is “leaning democratic” might be a bit strong. This is another race where I want to see a major poll after the scandals broke.

MO- If there is a Senate race that could really be changed by the GOP overall collapse, this is it. The margin between these two is nonexistent, and clearly any change in the overall mood of the voters could be enough. You’d better believe that Tallent’s forces are holding their breath waiting for the latest news.

OH- Like Chaffee in RI, it’s been a long time since there’s been a poll with DeWine ahead. You have to go back to a Rasmussen poll on 6/20, and that is out of line with all the other Rasmussen results. DeWine can take hope from a Zogby Poll that had it tied, as well as a Mason-Dixon Poll with a 2 point margin. Brown can take hope from everything else and looks like the favorite here.

MT- No news here either – Burns hasn’t led in a poll since April – the folks out there may have decided it’s time for a change.

This all looks pretty good, huh? So what can possibly go wrong? Well, North Korea just set off a nuclear device and Bush now gets a chance to look Presidential. You think that’s not scary?