Again, I am voting for the Democrats tomorrow, so I hope you will take the following as sincere analysis rather than as the fruit of partisanship:
I think the Democrats want victory so bad that the possibility of it has been somewhat overstated and argued with a certain degree of wishful thinking. While I think significant gains have been made in recent months to make this less unlikely, the widespread beleif that it’s a “lock” is both an overstatement and something of a contraindicator. Such a belief is likely to energize the opposition and create complacency among the Democrats. Remember, it is not one individual election for control but rather many elections, quite a few of which are still closely fought. The Democrats need to win most of these closely fought races, or toss-ups to make the needed gains.
The coin needs to come up heads several times in a row.
It may happen, but I’m sticking at 1 out 4 as the possibility.
As a conservative, my wish is that the Democrats win now, and I get to vote for Giuliani in '08 with a clear conscience.
If the Republicans hold onto control, and the Democrats throw out a charismatic sophomore like Obama, or an unelectable like Hillary then I don’t know what I’ll do.
The prognostications are coming from more than just overly hopeful Democrats. The independent pollsters are pretty much in agreement that the odds are heavily in favor of the Dems winning the House, and disagree mainly on the size of the victory. I even saw Bill Kristol predicting a 30 seat gain by the Dems today.
This is plausible, but entirely theoretical IMO. I could also say, with as much conviction, “such a belief is likely to demoralize the opposition and generate low turnout.”
Indeed. CNN has been running some idiotic national polls…
…which is meaningless national data in a series of races that is only relevant state by state. For that, I turn to Electoral Vote, which is predicting a new house of 239 Democratic to 196 Republican–a pickup of 38 seats. The Dems need 17 for a simple majority. I’m inclined to believe that there’s such significant disparity between what they need and what is predicted they’ll get that it would be as safe a bet as one can make on an election night.
Assuming you believe that set of numbers.
The Senate is another story, and looks to me like a complete tossup. I’d be a fool to put money on one party or another there, and I wouldn’t want to get my hopes up, so I’m bracing for a tenuous Republican hold on that house.
Anyway we don’t have long to wait. Election day is my favorite time of year.
I have to applaud your dedication to that principle. Even if I thought Democrats were fucking things up royally, I’m not sure I could intentionally vote for people I disagree with just to alter the makeup of Congress. Then again, who knows what can happen in the fullness of time.
I am not sure the Democrats could ever agree on enough to create this degree of botch up. “I don’t belong to an organized party…” and all that. That organization has been the strength of the Republicans, and is also why this period of no checks and balances is so bad for the disastrous, the country, and for the party.
As a Democrat, I believe that we need the balance of some of the ideas of the Republicans. I like the idea of being suspicious of new programs. I think we should always be wary of big government. The government should be as little involved in the day to day running of our lives as possible. These are all Republican ideals, but to stay in power, they have put in place some the most fiscally irresponsible mess ever to come down the pikeway. They listen in on our phonecalls and want to be involved in the choices of who we sleep with and marry. By removing the checks and balances, they have lost their way. This country needs them back.
Scylla I haven’t admired you more since I first came to this board to read more of your stuff.
This… this can’t all be real. It’s all just too absurd to really be happening. It’s too over-the-top, like a Family Guy joke taking things way further into exaggeration than is logically comprehensible.
I understand why people don’t turn out to vote. We’re not choosing the best candidate anymore, we’re picking the candidate who’s slightly less evil.
We’re not as bad in Canada yet, but I’m sure it’s coming.
I don’t find that misleading. It clearly says that those are Ehrlich-Steele Democrats, as in Democrats who support Ehrlich or Streele, and despite what DailyKos says, both Jackson and Curry HAVE endorsed those two Republican candidates this election-I have heard them on the radio doing just that the last week or so. I do not know about Mfume, although considering the way he was treated by the Democratic powers that be here in Md. during the primaries, I wouldn’t be surprised. So…what’s misleading about the flier?(leaving out Mfume because I just don’t know, if he hasn’t endorsed Ehrlich or Steele, obviously he shouldn’t be on there)
It had better not. I hold the firm belief that if anything like that happened here, the candidates spouses would divorce them, the electorate would eschew them, and the courts would convict them. That any of these could not happen truly boggles the mind.
As he is a Democrat, it was a bit surprising that Weirddave jumped so quickly to the defense of a dirty republican trick using such thorough misinformation of his own. But again, one out of three ain’t bad.