Reynolds and Hastert are on the defensive, but we need to step up the attack on Boehner and Shimkus.

Help their opponents: Fight the Foley Five

Ward meetings - wish I could make them. Unfortunately, the bank where I work holds their weekly meetings on Thursday night, thus preventing me from doing so.

I suppose fox is trying to scare the disillusioned base into voting.

If the Democrats gained a veto-proof majority, even Bush would be no obstacle to our campaign to destroy america.  We could pass the veto-proof "Surrender to terrorism, drugs and crime" bill.

If only there were some kind of other legislative body that would act as a check on the house...a senate of sorts.

I can't believe that IL-06 is in play.  I lived there in 1996 and that summer we went to a town fair type thing in Naperville and the streets were lined with tables with Dole merch as far as the eye could see, with not a single Clinton-Gore table, and this was when they were running as incumbents.  

It was the only election where I ever pulled a straight party line vote without even researching the individual candidates.  I have never lived in a redder district in my whole life, and I think Jabba the Hyde won at least 75% of the vote.

Chris,

I'm so glad you're beginning to see the big picture here. If we win this election by 8% to 12% we're going to pick up a significant number of seats. If we win this election by 13% to 18% we're going to win a 1932 type landslide!

The fact that we are CONSISTANTLY ahead by 10 to 14 points (with less than a month before the election) shows that we are headed towards a big victory in November. I doubt we'll win 100 seats. But we can realistically say that it's possible for us to win 40 to 50.

What were the polls showing less than four weeks before the 2004 election? How about 2002? 2000? 1998? etc. Democrats are now consistantly polling above 50%! Democrats are consistantly MORE MOTIVATED to vote! Which means, contrary to what the Washington pundocracy says, I believe more Dems will vote than Republicans - skewing the "likely voter" results, which show the opposite.

Too bad Rahm Emmanuel is still targetting two dozen or so! But that Reynold's race was SERIOUSLY tightening even BEFORE the scandal broke. Even though it's in New York, it's still A VERY REPUBLICAN DISTRICT! Which begs the question: how many more "moderate" or "Democratic-friendly" districts, some of which have not even been polled, do you think are CLOSING --- FAST! Or, possibly, may show a Democratic lead...

By my last count - Democrats already LED in THIRTY Republican districts. I understand caution. That's fine. But we have to begin preparing ourselves for a BIG VICTORY in November. Everything seems to point in that direction!

Another thing I want to mention...

The Republicans get 40% of the vote with 90% or so of the Republican base supporting them! The reason they consistantly trail is not because their base isn't supporting them...it's because INDEPENDENTS are not supporting them!

You look at races where the Republicans are doing well or Democrats are not doing as well. The California Governor Race and the Conneticut Senate race. What do these two races have in common? Well, independents are supporting Arnold in California over Angelides and are supporting Lieberman in Conneticut over Lamont.

Everywhere else the opposite is true. Everywhere else Democrats are leading (in some cases by 3 to 1) with independents.

If you remember that break-down of party support by Pew last year, it showed 42% support for Democrats; 38% for Republicans; and 20% for independents. Democrats have a slight edge. This has been countered in past years with more enthusiasm among Republicans over Democrats. Consistantly, Republicans would get 93% of their parties support vs. Democrats who would get 87% or so. That "levelled" the playing field. Independents usually split down the middle. Thus our red-blue 50/50 dynamic which has defined politics in America for the past decade or so.

But in this election...the numbers are reversed! Democrats get 93% base support vs. Republicans getting 87% or so. This, by itself, should shift the vote in our favor by what? 6 to 8% Couple that with a two-to-one advantage among independents and what do you get?

A LANDSLIDE baby! A LANDSLIDE!

One final thing...

1992 was really not that good of a year for us. It was good on a superficial level, we won the Presidency! But don't forget we won the Presidency with 43% of the vote.

That year we LOST 9 House seats, and BROKE EVEN in Senate races.

I sure as hell hope this isn't another 1992!

One absolutely FINAL thing, I promise...

Chris,

Your arithmatic is off. Those three polls show the average Democratic lead to be (among LIKELY VOTERS):

Democrats 51.7%
Republicans 40.3%

Democrat lead by 11.4%

Can someone comment on just how credible Jack Davis is?  I am thinking of sending him a contribution through actblue, but I want to be sure that it won't be throwing money down a well, as there are many others who could use it.  But I HATE Tom Reynolds and would love the post-election narrative that their own campaign chairman lost.  Haha.

Here you go, Chris:

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/10/ time-poll-sex-scandal-has-hurt-gop.html

In this one Davis leads Reynolds 50% - 42%.  Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research did the poll for the Davis campaign.

Story here - http://www.rollcall.com/issues/1_1/elect ion06/15355-1.html

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2006/Oct ober%20Dailies/MarkFoley.htm

13 point lead in the generic ballot (47/34), and 61%(!) think the Republican leadership has been "protecting [Mark] Foley for several years".  Even 31% of Republicans think so.

Bush is still stuck at 40, too, although that is almost secondary at this point.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Bush_Job _Approval.htm

Yes, Fergie's has quite a difficult Quizo. Was only there once, didn't do too bad though.

McCrossen's Tavern in the art museum area has a nice Sunday night Quizo that usually has a decent amount of political/world affairs questions. I rock those.

It's my understanding (and I could be wrong), that in the British Parliament, the majority party usually does better when their margin over the opposition is slight. If Labour controls 5 more seats than the Tories, the party performs better and the government is more efficient than if they control 50 seats more than the Tories.  

The theory here is that the party in power has to retain greater discipline over its members when there is a smaller majority over the opposition, because even just a few defections could lead to blocked legislation or worse.  When the majority is large, however, the government and leadership are less strict with the MPs of their party.

So, mentioning that Fox is saying we could pick up 50 seats and giving into the fantasy of winning 100 just makes me wonder:  Would we be better off with a majority of just a few seats or a majority of 50 seats?

I noticed somewhat randomly that the third district in Arkansas is relatively even on money.  I did a relatively quick search and couldn't find any polling on the district at all which leads me to this question: How many districts are out there without any polling, and how many might surprise us on election day? I know absolutely nothing about AR03 except that it's a traditionally Republican seat, so I'm not saying necessarily that people should be watching it in particular.  However, it seems that there are probably a few seats out there without any numbers that aren't necessarily out of contention.