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The best analysis about the Senate is that nobody knows. Anyone who says anything with any degree of confidence about the senate seats in reasonable play, other than that a Pubbie will capture the Georgia seat, is smoking something. Granted, that doesn't make for good television.

Having said all that, I predict at present as a wild shot a Pubbie pick up of 2, but it could go as high as 6 under a reasonable scenario, or as low as no pick up at all. Except for the reasonable best case scenario, the Dems will be able to continue to successfully filibuster Bush's choke point judicial appointments. Look for the number of vacancies to continue to rise, including maybe one or two on SCOTUS. And so it goes.

with the five seats in the South open;
Breaux,
Hollings,
Miller,
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(I can't remember the other two......Michael Barone said the Republicans would probably win three of them.

With the two Republican seats open
Oklahoma
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Can't remember the other one there, either.

Barone said the Republicans would probably lose Oklahoma.

So maybe your prediction of '2' will pan out.

The best analysis about the Senate is that nobody knows. Anyone who says anything with any degree of confidence about the senate seats in reasonable play, other than that a Pubbie will capture the Georgia seat, is smoking something. Granted, that doesn't make for good television.

I missed the show, and am not up on the details of the battleground states. But in a macro-political sense, there may be more Pubbie wins than currently thought if William Safire's prediction turns out to be on the money.

Safire predicted yesterday that Howard Dean would lose Iowa and do worse than expected in NH, causing the Dem primary battle to go on much longer than expected.

If that happens, it means that the Dems will be ripping themselves apart for most of the year, and that a reconciliation behind the eventual winner will be very late, causing many Dems to be still PO'ed at the winner (whoever he is) come November.

If a large portion of the Dems are still PO'ed at there own nominee in November, many may not show up to vote at all. This hopefully will cause Bush's assured win to have much deeper coattails than would have been the case if the Dems were united behind their candidate.

Just a little food for thought...