If Pederson was just as good as Carter, or if Carter just had had Pederson's money... we'd have another one in the bag.

And if wishes were fishes... etc.

-C.

What will your trip to Missouri entail? Beer, BBQ and Blues, or are you gonna be politicking?

It will be great to have Progressive Caucus members Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown in the Senate.  But it won't be a first.  Wellstone was the lone senator in the Progressive Caucus while he was there.

Somehow this business about Democrats ignoring blacks in Maryland is being overblown or misunderstood.  Cardin is Jewish, and O'Malley's running mate is black.  Two of the state's eight congressmen, Elijah Cummings and Albert Wynn, are black.  Mfume narrowly lost the Senate primary to Cardin, and a black Democrat lost the Attorney General primary to a white Democrat.  Personally, I would have voted for Cardin for the simple reason that polls consistently showed him performing better against Steele than Mfume.  Should the party apparatus intervene in primaries to benefit black candidates?  Should it champion one minority group over another, as in the case of the black Mfume and the Jewish Cardin?  That seems like nothing but a pure can of worms to me.  Should Barbara Mikulski retire in 2010, or whenever she does, I would love to see Mfume take her place.

I don't know how many of those MD polls included Kevin Zeese.  I wouldn't expect him to get more than 3% or so, but there's a small chance that could be enough to swing the race.  Zeese's candidacy is a weird case; he's running as an Independent, but both the Green and Libertarian parties have endorsed him.  What the hell?

I think we lose AZ and TN, and win the other close races (MD, MO, MT, NJ, OH, RI, PA, VA).  I predict +6 in the Senate, to 51D-49R.

The 5th District DFL (Minneapolis) is a predominately white district, but Tuesday we probably will elect Keith Ellison, African American and Congress's first Muslim.  The decision to do this was very controversial, with some of the formerly Liberal Dem's around Martin Sabo, (our retiring Congressman) quite publicly making the case they will vote Green.  But assuming Ellison wins, he can stay for two decades, as the district is essentially 74% DFL.  

You've called it as I would, though I expect a Monday poll will actually show Ford closing again. We still are in reach of all of them except AZ, so 7 is doable yet.

If I were to put money down, I'd barely concede TN. And MO, VA, MD, remain the three I worry about most. While I agree with your logic on MD, I'm still nervous about the potential for fraud there. And MO and VA will depend entirely on the better GOTV operations. Warner and Kaine provided the winning ground game that Webb has now inherited. MO? You're right, if Claire wins, she deserves your fine company.

Let's do it.

On Tuesday when I vote, I may just pause a little longer than normal and admire the red light I've pushed next to Bob Casey's name.

BTW, have you seen the "Rendell/Santorum" yard signs that have popped up along Roosevelt Blvd? I saw them yesterday and thought there's a sign of a campaign that knows it's going down.

Can I just mention again how great the Sanders lead is? Not only will he be an amazing addition to the Senate, but he's beating the nastiest campaign Vermont has ever seen. The billionaire Tarrant just flooded Vermont's airwaves wtih some vile ads, and, not only didn't it work, but he's completely discredited in the state. He could've run a nice race, used his millions to create a real discussion, and then run for Lt. Governor or State Senate or something. But now ... I don't think he'd be elected Town Clerk.

This race was never really in doubt, but it's just great to see that all the negative ads money can buy didn't dent Sanders's support at all.

I think it was Matt who postulated on the bitch-slap theory, that the GOP does something against the rules so we'll cry foul, thereby looking like pansies to the public. Even if this isn't the most precise description of the causal mechanism, I think the idea is sound. Here's a less specific version of the theory:

They run racist ads, so in the second to last week of the race, the only thing most people hear about it is the PC-police whining in Ford's defense. Then, for the final push, everything Ford says sounds more liberal, aggravating, whiny, feckless, and/or shrill.

I'm not in TN, and I don't know if Ford made a big deal about it, but the politically-correct or thinly-veiled-racism debate was all over the national media, usually framed with a great deal of skepticism towards those crying foul. Just after that, we saw Corker move ahead in the polls. From the way this race has gone, I don't think racism is enough to explain what happened in the final weeks.

Good luck, Tennessee Democrats -- we're counting on you.

Whitehouse (D) 47.3%--41.3% Chafee (R). I have only included the last four polls here, leaving out the 10/20 Mason-Dixon because the poll is both old and repetitious. For reasons that generally escaped me, this campaign quickly turned into a Whitehouse rout after being close seemingly forever. Now, once again, it shows a closer campaign. But Whitehouse still clearly has the edge--just look at the polling average

I think Whitehouse wins, but I fear it will be pretty close, and I'll be happy when the numbers are in the bag.  Chafee's desperation was plain when he started flashing pix of Whitehouse with Buddy Cianci; hell, we all have pix posing with hizzoner, including my son (little league).  Even so, there will be a small and hopefully negligible block of voters who will simply find themselves incapable of voting against a Chafee once in the voting booth, just because.

Lieberman (CfL) 49.2%--38.2% Lamont (D). It will be a lot closer than this. And Lieberman's corruption troubles are not over when the election is.

Got that right.  Joey Kingmaker is going to find that whichever party he shits on after the election will have plenty of ammo to use in taking him down.  I suspect he'll feel forced to caucus with the Republicans, if only because the Dems don't have quite the incentive to get him tossed from office (they'd be looking at a Rell appointee, presumably Senator Shays) and don't have their hands on the levers of power in the FEC and IRS.

I don't think the New Jersey race was ever really as close as the pollsters put this race, although Kean did do his best to use every drop of goodwill the family name had in New Jersey to keep it interesting.  And he benefited from the Governor's raising of taxes in NJ this year.  But I still think Menedez has more of a base that the polls actually showed.  Many Statewide polls try to get an even sampling thoughout the State, and New Jersey is not (population wise) all that balanced, and I think when the tally's come in, the northern Blue Counties will have a much larger voting block that is represented by the polls.

Fortunately, most of this will not matter in the end because Tom Kean Jr. did eventually opened his mouth and from that point on it really was over (albeit slowly).

Also fortunately the last ditch ethic smear campaign that the Kean Campaign launched (opps excuse me, "independent advertisers" he had "no control" over the content [see TN.]) first tagging Menendez as "on of da boys" trying to link him to organized crime, and then after that turned some Italian-American organizations against him for suggesting that all NJ Italian-Americans are part of Organized Crime, he then went to that well AGAIN trying to claim that Menendez "sold out" his Italian-American constituents for voting against the nomination of "New Jersey's own" Samual Alito.  (As if him being from NJ and being Italian-American would be enough reason to vote for for him).

In the end it will be the arrogance of Tom Kean Jr. that helped wipe out his own campaign.  And that is the only thing I can ever think of saying thank you to Kean for.

I think the Kerry thing hurt him more than anyone else in his state (despite his deman dfor an apology), and I think campaigning with Bill Clinton last week punctured the "Ford's a conservative Democrat" persona he carefully crafted for the past several months in his ca,mpaign ads and campaign.

I don't agree that racism is the reason Ford will lose.

Also, unless the Democrats have gotten to near parity with the GOP on their GOTV operation, a 2 or 3 point lead is meaningless.

I have faith in Montana and Virginia Dems to get out the vote. But I am very leery of R.I. and Missouri.

You can stay with us Chris when Claire wins:
www.dauphinehotel.com

I'm live blogging the race at Kos.  I'll be up all night.

So many have oversimplified the TN race to explain it away that it was because of the RNC ads. Ford was losing momentum even before then and not that many people in TN even considered the ads racially motivated. I am a liberal and I did not see tham having the racial angle that the national media made such hysteria about. A lot more people considered the ads "values" motivated to contrast Ford's constant talk of religion with his lifestyle. Ford will finish higher than any of the recent Democratic nominees for the U.S. Senate in TN who were all white. Ford did well in the early part of the campaign and made huge, huge mistakes in the last part of the campaign which caused him to lose his base. One thing that has stood out in the polls the past several days is that Ford failed to connect with the extreme right wing voters he was targeting. He gave up his own base on a gamble that he would somehow attract extreme right wingers who have not voted for any Democrat in decades. If he had taken a more moderate course and held on to his base and attracted the moderate GOP voters he would have had a shot in this race.

On PollingReport.com, there's a new line for CNN, showing a 20-point generic lead for Dems in the House? 58-38?

that can't be right.

http://www.pollingreport.com/...

This is the Conrad election. Conrad is the weaker senator. As for Dorgan, even Hoevan might not be able to beat him and Hoevan is the #1 Republican in the state.

"New Jersey really owes MyDD"  

Oh, yes!  What would we ever have done without you?

If this is correct - then Lieberman is a key - along with Sanders? - to holding the caucus in the Senate, yes?

You know what?  It seems then, that Matt Stoller's "betrayed in the back" scenarios, were based on the political calculation that we NEED to maintain control of the Senate.  And so we have to curry favor with Joe - which, of course, sucks.

But that's politics, I guess.

I sure hope Lieberman doesn't do a REAL betrayed in the back, and caucus with Repubs.  That would be horrible.

It is funny though.  For all of our making fun of the fact that "it is all about Joe" - in this scenario, it is more about Joe that ever.

Just a heads up. Santorum has a press release out of a poll from McCullough Research and Polling(?), an outfit out of Illinois run by Rod McCullough who is apparently a big Republican operative there. Anyway,
the poll is pretty suspicious looking so if you see
anyone referencing it, be aware, it looks like a rigged poll.

There are plenty of Republican polling outfits Santorum could have used like Susquehanna or SV, but
the fact that he had to go out of state to an IL
GOP operative says it all about how badly his campaign is going.

Rob, you have to admit that if these two candidates Ford and Corker were in any other state ABOVE the Mason Dixon line Ford would win going away...  Heisod and you both seem to try to make up excuses to cover up the bigotry of the south that still percist with SOME of the voter who want vote for FORD regardless of how articulate and well manared he is.