Congress-Watching Guide plus My Predictions
I made up a 2-page guide (word doc) for watching the congressional races. Starting with the few somewhat vulnerable Dem seats and a place to check "held" or "lost" then 63 interesting seats held by Republicans, organized by poll closing time (times are Eastern). In the candidate name space I put the incumbent, so we'll be hoping to hear that those GOP incumbents have lost. We need a gain of 15 seats to take the House and 6 to take the Senate.

I'm predicting we win 22 seats in the House. That's may be conservative, but I think the race has tightened.

In the Senate I have many hopes and many fears. The fearful scenario goes like this: the Chafee machine holds onto the RI seat, incumbents Burns and Talent squeak by and worst of all Steele continues his charge to grab a pickup for the Repubs in MD. Then, we're looking at gaining only 1 or 2 seats depending on VA.

But I'm feeling hopeful. So the official predictions go like this: Dems pickup OH and PA of course, plus trounce Allen in VA (we will never have to hear from him again). Amendment 2 works in McCaskill's favor as she gets by Talent this time and Tester's early vote makes a Burns comeback impossible. That's 5 pickups. Rhode Island and Maryland go down to the wire, but against us. And I don't think Ford can quite get over the hump, but it will be close in TN. Net Dem gain: +4. If we catch a couple breaks in MD and RI, the Senate turns blue. And no way would Lieberman blow that. Asshole or not.

Bellweather Early Races
(Don't forget, the predictions thread is below--get your picks in now!)

Sometime today I'll post a helpful checklist you can use to follow the House and Senate races, but before I get to that, there are a couple of races in the Northeast that should tell us early on what kind of night it will be.

NH-02 In New Hampshire, incumbent Republican Charlie Bass won by 20 pts. in 2004 but is in a neck-and-neck race with Paul Hodes. Bass' poll numbers are consistently under 50%. This is a race generally considered in the second tier of Democratic pickup opportunities, the kind we will count on to win back the House. If the challenger Hodes pulls off the win (he seems to have a slight lead in polls), it is a sign that almost certainly the House is going Democratic. If he doesn't, it may mean that pollsters have overestimated the Democrats' wave.

RI-Sen--The Rhode Island Senate race really frightens me. This and the Maryland race really could ruin the Democratic push to takeover the Senate, a task that will take many things going right. Whitehouse (D) has had a significant lead until the last week, when incumbent Chafee came on strong. I remember in the Republican primary there was hope that Chafee would be picked off by a more conservative foe. That guy, Steve Laffey, was claiming on election day that all his precinct numbers came through adn went just according to plan--he thought he was going to win. But Chafee beat him solidly. Apparently the Chafee machine can get out the vote when it needs to. He won't have to beat the polls by much to win this race and keep the Democrats from winning back the Senate. A Chafee loss doesn't assure Dems will win the Senate - far from it - but a Chafee win would stomp Democratic Senate hopes early in the night.

When I have a chance I'll post about important races to watch in the middle of the country, and then in the West.

Amendments to Watch
(note: predictions thread is below. Go put your 2 cents in. Fabulous prizes await. No, not really)

There are lots of election-type posts I'd like to make if I have time, so check back in often over the next 24 hours. One thing I'll be watching tomorrow night is a handful of state ballot initiatives of interest you may or may not have heard about.

Missouri--Amendment 2 is a stem cell research initiative that has dominated the state's debate and the Senate race. Generally, the public is for stem cell research, but in a close midterm election that will hinge on turnout, this has galvanized the pro-life, christian conservative forces as much or more than Bush in 2004 did. Pits Michael J. Fox vs. a handful of St. Louis sports heroes who have come out against.

South Dakota--To me this is fascinating. The SD legislature and Governor combined to pass shocking anti-abortion legislation, and women were having none of it. A grassroots effort to rescind the bill has resulted in this ballot initiative (#6) that actually - in a conservative place like SD - has a chance to pass. You can go too far, apparently, in limiting women's rights. Maybe someone else can explain to me how this bill is even allowed, given Roe v. Wade, but will be interesting to see if the people reject it in either case. On top of that, SD will vote on a gay marriage amendment that would prohibit gay couples from ever receiving rights or benefits substantially similar to married couples. That goes so far that a recent poll actually had SD voters rejecting it. Would be nice.

Colorado--Referendum 1 would extend civil rights to same-sex couples. It's expected to pass. No, really.

We'll see how these go. Check back often tomorrow night during results and I'll try to keep up with the numbers.

Progress
I went to hear Obama speak with Harold Ford yesterday - a great event and he's a great speaker--very thoughtful, tells a longer story then he probably needs to but he and Ford both represent something important, if difficult to define, about the future of American politics. In a roundabout way, I think what I'm sensing there, and excited about, is that 2006 elections will mark the beginning of the end of the religious right as a powerful cohesive force. I really believe that. But, I digress.

Obama quoted one of my favorite sayings of Dr. King, that the arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice (yeah yeah i had to edit this to come at least close to the actual quote). And there is one element of this election that has been under-estimated in importance as the Democrats are poised to re-take the House of Representatives--a historic additional victory that finally brings many of the struggles of the past to fruition. African-Americans will not just have a voice in the 06-07 Congress. They will have a gavel to go with it. When the Democrats take over, much has been made of Nancy Pelosi becoming the first woman Speaker of the House, but here's something else. John Conyers will lead the House Judiciary Committee. Charles Wrangel will head the Ways and Means Committee. Bennie Thompson should head the Homeland Security Committee. Many believe Alcee Hastings will chair the Intelligence Committee. Juanita Millender-McDonald is first in line to chair the House Administration Committee. Shelia Jackson-Lee will chair the Border Security subcommittee in the House Judiciary committee. Eddie Bernice Johnson will chair the Water and Environiment subcommittee of the Transportation Committee. Major Owens will chair the Workforce Protections subcommittee of the Education and the Workforce Committee. Bobby Scott will chair the Crime, terrorism and Homeland Security subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee.

That's 5 major committees that will likely be led by black Americans, Democrats who have paid their dues, waded through the years and years of experience it takes to gain the seniority needed. Do you know what the Republican chairmen of the current Congress look like? 21 white men out of 21. The next House will have a woman speaker and a woman (Louise Slaughter) will head the important Rules Committee. A gay (proudly, not closeted-hypocritical) man will chair the Finance Services Committee. A Hispanic woman (Nydia Valasquez) will chair the Small Business Committee. And those 5 African-American Committee chairpersons, 2 more than have ever served in that capacity for a session in the history of the country combined.

Whatever else happens - assuming the House changes hands - Democrats will surely be looking to the future for a new generation of leadership, but at the same time, what will also be realized is this further victory of the Civil Rights movement, many years in the making. Minority voices won't just be compelling our country's leadership, but will become our leadership in Congress.

Prediction Time
It's time for your predictions. I'll put mine out later today. Use this thread for yours. How many seats will Dems pick up in the House? Predict the major Senate races. Biggest upset? Any other predictions? Will some races be close enough to warrant re-counts or late-night TV watching? I'm getting so used to that happening now I expect it.

Polls and Dirty Tricks
I'm forgoing Media Monday this week, with the election 1 day away. Here's what's on my mind falling asleep on Sunday night: new USAToday polling shows Ford within 3, Menendez and Tester up big, Allen back in front and Whitehouse barely holding off a Chafee charge in RI whiel McCaskill opens up a little lead in MO. The last Rasmussen poll will also apparently show Ford inside the margin of error. Shockingly there are still about 6-10% in each Senate race that claim to be undecided. Watch Ford's closing campaign ad here. I haven't seen it on TV yet but hoping it plays all over tomorrow.

But also I read that the national Republicans are up to shameful dirty tricks
in close House races--robocalling independent/swing voters dozens of times purporting to be the Democratic candidate, hoping to turn people off so much they'll choose the GOP candidate instead. Sadly, it works. How they look themselves in the mirror I'll never know. We could hope it gets enough press tomorrow to have a backlash effect on Tuesday. But when do we ever get that lucky?

What's on your mind?

Nov. 7 plans
I admit, I'm superstitious and even cautious optimism in the past has ended up deepening my agony on past election nights, so I am not "measuring the drapes" in anticipation of this Tuesday's results. (BTW, you don't measure drapes, you measure the window - the GOP doesn't even have a plan for window dressing.)

However, I'm curious what plans you all have for election day - poll watching, volunteering some way - and election night - watching returns on TV alone, watching political blogs, gathering with others to share in the thrill of victory / agony of defeat?

Seems like we should plan to gather here virtually at some point in the proceedings - anybody wanna?

Article 19er Needs Help
Jenifer writes in to say that she is entering a contest at DC's fabulous Hawk 'n Dove. Pick the winners! The races that are involved in the contest are as follows - she's looking for input from us, even though - best as I can tell - we've never been right about any of this stuff before.

Here's the twist - list your picks in order of confidence (most to least). The races and pollster links are included:
Governor:
Iowa--Culver (D) v. Nussle (R)
Maryland--O'Malley (D) v. Ehrlich (R)
Rhode Island--Fogarty (D) v. Carcieri (R)

Senate:
Maryland--Cardin (D) v. Steele (R)
Missouri--McCaskill (D) v. Talent (R)
Montana--Tester (D) v. Burns (R)
New Jersey--Menendez (D) v. Kean, Jr. (R)
Ohio--Brown (D) v. Dewine (R)
Pennsylvania--Casey (D) v. Santorum (R)
Rhode Island--Whitehouse (D) v. Chafee (R)
Tennessee--Ford (D) v. Corker (R)
Virginia--Webb (D) v. Allen (R)

House:
Connecticut 02--Courtney (D) v. Simmons (R)
Connecticut--Farrell (D) v. Shays (R)
Florida--Klein (D) v. Shaw (R)
Indiana--Donnelly (D) v. Chocola (R)
Indiana--Ellsworth (D) v. Hostetter (R)
Indiana--Hill (D) v. Sodrel (R)
Kentucky--Lucas (D) v. Davis (R)
North Carolina--Shuler (D) v. Taylor (R)
Ohio--Kilroy (D) v. Pryce (R)
Pennsylvania--Murphy (D) v. Gerlach (R)
Pennsylvania--Sestak (D) v. Weldon (R)
Pennsylvania--Murphy (D) v. Fitzpatrick (R)

Put your picks in order of confidence in the comments and maybe Jenifer and SteveP will get a free meal at the Hawk!

What's the world coming to - UPDATE
Ted Haggard now admits he bought meth but didn't use it, and received massages from a gay escort. No clarification yet if those were massages or "massages," stay tuned to see whether there's a happy ending here.

Weird Holidays: An Article 19 Poll
As you may or may not know, today is National Sandwich Day. As I was just gearing up for a sandwich question to ask, I learn that it's also National Cliche Day.

So in the comments I'd like to ask you for your best sandwich memories--alltime favorite, or most interesting, whatever. But please, express as much of your comment in cliche as possible. We want to be respectful of all holidays here.

More Ford
It's hard to know what to believe anymore in the Ford race. I didn't think the Zogby 10-pt. Corker lead sounded right at all. But the new poll Ford and the DSCC are pushing - taken over the last 2 days showing a Ford lead of 46-40 - that doesn't exactly pass the smell test either, starting with the fact that there's no way 14% are still undecided. And a conversation last night relayed 3rd, or maybe 4th-hand account from campaign HQ that precinct-by-precinct early vote turnout has them pessimistic.

Still these are crazy times and crazier headlines and so who knows. If you had told me this week would bring the resignation of the head of the National Association of Evangelicals for taking drugs and paying for 3-years worth of sex with a male prostitute, I probably would have given Ford a better chance than that. Next, they will tell us we're running out of fish. Yeah, right.

Know Your Republican Scoundrels
My personal favorite is Rep. Don Sherwood, whose campaign slogan seems to be "I did not abuse my mistress." That's not really what you want up front in your bio is it? How are you supposed to keep track of all the other Republicans convicted, charged, indicted, under investigation? Here's a list. The Washington Post has a more detailed run-down. And here's a great ad, in which someone offers $100 to anyone who can read the list of Republican offenders in one breath.

Ask and You Shall Receive
In the comments to the polls thread below, Wilson asks about the turnout in Williamson County, TN. Williamson is a heavily GOP county just south of Nashville. How GOP is it? In 2004, Bush won there 72-28. And it's no small place. In that election, only 5 counties (out of 95) cast more votes than Williamson. So one of the things we would hope is that the turnout in Williamson County is down this year. Luckily, the TN Election Commission releases this information every day in a handy-dandy chart. The news is good and bad.

We're hearing how high early turnout is compared to the last time we had a mid-term election (2002), the year we elected a Democratic Governor.

In 2002, Williamson accounted for 3.1% of the early and absentee vote in all of TN. In 2004 that number was upped to 4.1%. So far this year (with only 1 day left in early voting) Williamson accounts for 3.1% of the early vote. So, yes its totals are up, but they are up across the state. Williamson hasn't increased its share of early vote influence over what it had in 2002 and is down a good bit from its 2004 influence. And in general the model is fairly stable and consistent with 2002 on a county-by-county basis (that doesn't tell us which precincts are turning out most but it's something) with a couple exceptions: Ford's Shelby County is up (16.5% of the state so far this year; 13.1% in 2002; 14.3% in '04) and Corker's Hamilton County is up (3.8% in '02; 4% in '04; and 4.5% so far in '06). Republican Knox County is also down. (7.8% now; 9.1 in '02; 9.7 in '04).

So, how does the big picture look?
Here's one way of comparing turnout: In 2004 the 8 counties that gave Bush the largest vote margins *in the early and absentee vote* amounted to 27.25% of the total early/absentee vote state-wide. Remarkably, the 8 counties that gave Kerry his largest margin also added up to 27.25% of the state-wide early/absentee vote. So far in 2006, those 8 Bush counties only count for 23.82% of the early/absentee vote; and Kerry's 8 counties add up to 28.12% of the state-wide turnout. On that evidence alone, it looks like turnout slightly favors Democratic-leaning counties over Republican. But, to be fair, that comparison looked better 3 days ago than it does today, so the day-by-day trend is not positive.

Another comparison: in 2002 the 8 counties that gave Democratic governor Bredesen his largest vote margins (he only won by 2 points state-wide so his is the model we have to more closely hope for here) amounted to 28.49% of the early/absentee vote and Republican Van Hillary's strongest 8 counties made up 21.43% of the state-wide total. So far in the 2006 early vote/absentee count, those 8 Bredesen counties amount to 32.1% of the early vote, while the same 8 Van Hillary counties count for only 20.3%, a slight decline. So strong Bredesent counties are having an even stronger influence. Strong Van Hillary counties a slightly weaker one.

This still doesn't tell us a ton. But it does say that in turnout we're at least not out of it. If Shelby weren't getting out, and Knox and Williamson were surging there'd be no chance at all. The worst news is that the last few days have seen Knox and Williamson gaining. This comparison looked better early in the week.

What's the World Coming To?
It's getting to where - if you're the evangelical leader of tens of thousands of rabidly anti-gay, conservative, Republican-loving church-goers - you can't even take drugs with your gay hooker lover anymore without being labeled some kind of miscreant. What gives? What's the fun in being a mega-church pastor and national religious leader with direct access to the President if you can't be a raging hypocrite on the side? With an environment like this, how is an anti-gay, anti-drug religious zealot supposed to get high and have gay sex these days? What's with all the tattling and, you know, reporting?

AmericaBlog has more.

Polls. Sigh.[UPDATED]
The newest Reuters poll has Ford down 10. I don't really understand it. There's also a Rasmussen poll that shows him down only 2. It's just hard to believe a Democratic/anti-Republican wave could rush over America and skip right over Tennessee. He's run a great campaign, a dynamic personality. It doesn't make much sense.

I think the race is surely closer than 10, but if he's really up 4 or 5, Corker can't be beaten by some small turnout swings here and there. Looking more and more like we have to scratch TN off the list, but we'll see.

The good news is that the rest of the Reuters polls look good for Dems, who hold leads in enough states to take back the Senate. The bad news is that some of those are quite close, including Montana which we've been counting on and is now down to a 1-point lead. Missouri s also quite close but McCaskill has the lead. And Webb holds the slightest of leads in VA. All of those have to come through for Dems to retake the Senate, assuming Ford just can't get over the hump here. A 3-seat gain in the Senate seems assured. 3 are teetering but we lead. Then there's Ford who seems to be backsliding. 6 wins are needed to take the Senate. (KennyB thinks we need 7 due to the turncoat-Lieberman factor)

[UPDATE: We may be able to add Arizona into the possible list. Democrats seem to think so. I think the reasoning sounds a little shaky, but whatever.]

America Speaks: We're Not Falling For Your Crap
Here's hoping that the people who answer polls like this last pre-election NYTimes/CBS survey are also planning to go to the polls on Tuesday. Here are some of my favorite numbers:
--29: the % of Americans who approve of the way Bush is handling the war in Iraq.
--70: the % who believe Bush does not have a plan to end the war.
--80: % who believe Bush's latest shift in rhetoric was just a bunch of wordplay signifying nothing.
--52: the % of "likely voters" who say the will vote for Democrats
--34: the % who say they will vote for Republicans (yep that's the biggest Democratic advantage in that question since they started asking it in this poll.)
--34: the % who want the new Congress to deal with the Iraq War first. The next highest vote-getter, immigration, is at 8%.
--56: unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party (36 fav.)
--40: unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party (49 fav.)
--67: the % who believe our efforts to achieve stability in Iraq are going somewhat or very badly. (that's an all-time high)

All in all - Americans are the ones staying the course this election season: it's time for a change. 5 days from an election, that's about as much as we can hope for. Some numbers, bad as they are, are trending back toward Bush and Republicans. But so slightly, and from such an abysmal depth that it should give them little optimism.

Not wanting to look too far ahead, but should Democrats win the House and the Senate (still a longshot I think), they should be warned: there is pressure to perform. The poll asks what respondents "expect" should Democrats take over Congress. What they/we expect is for troop levels to decrease in Iraq, for the minimum wage to be increased, for health care/prescription drug costs to at least stabilize if not decrease.

Ok. Now We're Done With That Nonsense.
On to the election and the real issues. And as Doug points out, you want to talk disrespecting the troops? How about this story,as framed by Andrew Sullivan?

In a showdown for control of Baghdad, the Iraqi prime minister took orders from Moqtada al-Sadr, and instructed the U.S. military to withdraw from Sadr City. The American forces were trying both to stabilize the city but also to find a missing American serviceman. He is still missing.
...
The U.S. military does not have a tradition of abandoning its own soldiers to foreign militias, or of taking orders from foreign governments. No commander-in-chief who actually walks the walk, rather than swaggering the swagger, would acquiesce to such a thing. The soldier appears to be of Iraqi descent who is married to an Iraqi woman. Who authorized abandoning him to the enemy? Who is really giving the orders to the U.S. military in Iraq? These are real questions about honor and sacrifice and a war that is now careening out of any control. They are not phony questions drummed up by a partisan media machine to appeal to emotions to maintain power.

Here's hoping the White House briefing tomorrow can get through the Kerry questions with enough time left over to try and explain that.

The Kerry Flap
Vent here.

Polls
An internal Democratic poll has Ford up 5; CNN poll has Corker up 8. Who knows what to think. But I don't feel confident about TN like I did a few weeks ago.

Virginia is another story - Webb is up in 3 new polls. We might just kick that bully out of office.

If all that holds up Senate control will come down to Missouri, where it's tied.

MEDIA MONDAY
What have you been listening to, watching, reading?

David Byrne Reviews Performances of Puccini and Steve Reich
Guess which one "is as radical as it ever was, which is saying something"?