Congrats, Ricky, because for us it's going to be six more years of:
Posted on 10/26/2006 4:37:25 PM PDT by Oakleaf
I’m pumped! I’m jacked! I’m even enthusiastic! I’ve come to the conclusion that all is going to be well at the end of November 7.
I know what you’re thinking – Hugh’s irresistible good cheer and happy warrior ways have rubbed off on me. Or maybe you’re thinking that my mood was irrevocably altered by hearing Hugh give Andrew Sullivan the radio version of repeated belly-slaps and attention grabs. You know how we conservatives are – We heart torture!!
But the truth is I’ve come to this happy conclusion from cold hard analysis. Across the board, races are tightening. In regards to the polling numbers, I should correct something that Hugh corrected a few days ago – we don’t consider the polls useless. We do think they systematically understate Republican support. So a poll that shows a race tied is good news for the Republican. A poll that shows the GOP candidate nursing a small lead is really good news.
Beyond that, let me turn to my own little echo chamber. Over the past three months, I’d say I received an average of fifty letters a day that were some riff on the sentiment that either the White House or the Republican congress has been a huge disappointment. Over the last week and a half or so, these letters have disappeared. Really, they’ve completely vanished. Other than from one kindly grandfatherly type in Maine, I haven’t received a single letter critical of Republicans this week. (Except of course from my liberal friends, but that’s another matter entirely.)
I know liberals will conclude that this is a demonstration of group-think at its basest. But in truth, it’s a show of the troops coming home just in time for Election Day.
What do we have to thank for such good fortune? I think the horrifying images of Barney Frank measuring drapes and Nancy Pelosi posing for her portrait (or vice versa, but does it really matter?) has had a way of focusing conservative minds. But so too have the tactics of the left. The Foley carping, the Larry Craig alleged “outing”, the Google bombing, and the Charlie Crist “outing” have left an indelible impression that this is not a good election cycle to cast a protest vote.
Then there’s also the empty suit in the coal mine down in Connecticut. If the far left were really able to mobilize support and translate its anti-war passion into Election Day victories, Ned Lamont would be cruising towards the Senate. Instead, he is trailing by double digits and the best the Democrats can hope for as far as capturing the Senate is concerned is to run the table in the competitive races and retain a hold on Joe Lieberman’s loyalty.
By the way, for those of you who keep emailing me telling me there’s no way Lieberman will switch parties, I disagree. But let me put forth an additional scenario that we’ll all find plausible: It’s not at all unimaginable that Lieberman will join the Bush cabinet and Connecticut’s Republican Governor Jodi Rell will then have to appoint a replacement. Maybe she’ll appoint that nice Republican Alan Schlesinger who has so impressed the nutroots. Then everyone will be happy!
There’s also the little matter that as we enter the last twelve days of the campaign, the Democratic holster is empty. What else can they come up with? Another New York Times leak of a classified document? Another “gay” Republican? Maybe Frank Rich will write a column a week from Sunday comparing Bush once more to a movie.
The problem for the Democrats right now and their abettors in the media is that they’ve puked up so much bile, the public has chosen to look away. If the New York Times were to leak yet another classified document, the Republican base would become more motivated while the independents who don’t pay attention to politics would roll their eyes, sensing that the act has gone stale.
SO, IT’S PREDICTION TIME. The House is going to be really close. I’m with Barone. Either we’ll hang on by a seat or two or we’ll lose by a seat or two. Either way, the Republicans will have what we once used to call a working majority – there will be enough mainstream Democrats that we won’t have to worry about two years of impeachment and other Conyers-inspired insanity.
But it’s in the Senate where I’m going to go out on a limb. All the close races? The ones in Virginia, Montana, Tennessee, Ohio, New Jersey, Maryland, and Missouri? We’re going to run the table except for one. I bet Ohio’s where we go down. In Pennsylvania or Michigan, either the brave Santorum or the increasingly impressive Bouchard will pull off the major upset. And in Rhode Island, heads they win, tails we lose. I personally hope the voters return Lincoln Chafee to private life where he’ll no doubt make a profound contribution to society as an eccentric philatelist or something along those lines.
Remember in 2002 on Election Night when the good news kept coming? I’m getting the sense it’s going to be a lot like that on November 7.
Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com .
Bolded emphasis supplied.
Is that a cloud on yon horizon?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/pruden.htm
Against the prospective new tsunami of great expectations comes the voice of Wall Street money, saying, "Hey, wait a minute." Writes Jim McTague in Barron's, the Dow Jones financial weekly: "Jubilant Democrats should reconsider their order for confetti and noisemakers ... Our analysis, based on a race-by-race examination of campaign-finance data, suggests that the GOP will hang on to both chambers, at least nominally. We expect the Republican majority in the House to fall by eight seats, to 224 of the chamber's 435 [seats]. At the very worst, our analysis suggests, the party's loss could be as large as 14 seats, leaving a one-vote majority ... In the Senate, with 100 seats, we see the GOP winding up with 52, down three. We ... based our predictions ... on which candidate had the largest campaign war chest, a sign of superior grassroots support. We ignore the polls."
The Barron's analysis is, as you might expect a Wall Street analysis to be, based on cold, hard cash: No sentiment, please, we're all capitalists here. Cash in the stretch not only buys the television commercials -- the meaner the better -- everyone says he hates, but reflects the confidence of the checkbook.
Barron's employed the money test in both 2000 and 2004, and, bucking conventional media wisdom (always a good thing to do), correctly predicted the Republican gains in both years. In the 34 years since 1972, an eternity in politics, the candidate with the most money has won more than 90 percent of the time -- 98 percent, in fact, in the most recent elections. The best of the pollsters can only dream of such results.
Bumpitttt.
Interesting. Take also into account that plenty of Dem money comes from PACs like the National Trial Lawyers' Association and the voter to dollar ratio of all that money in Dem war chests goes even lower.
Though I complain about the liberal ways of some republicans, when the crunch comes, I vote for the least offensive candidate and that is always the Republican one.
In my own state of Illinois this is a way of life. I will be voting for the rino Judy Topinka, the alternative is worse.
Well then, perhaps I should lay in some smoked salmon and champagne for Election Night.
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Congrats, Ricky, because for us it's going to be six more years of:
Don't worry about the pubs. Americans have had time to consider Iraq and it's no longer a swing issue.
I hope this man gets help for his crack addiction, there's no way Republicans keep Montana and Ohio or win in PA or MI. Keeping the Senate is likely though.
Hugh has no credibility. He's wrong on almost everything he says.
He was wrong on Harriet Miers
Wrong on Dubia
Wrong on The Borders
You can hope and pray all you want... PA is lost.
That may be so, but these aren't Hugh's predictions.
The point about moderate 'rats in the House helping to neutralize some of the more radical leftwingers is interesting too...apparently about a dozen of the 'rat candidates who are doing well against vulnerable 'pubs are conservative, in some cases, such as one race in NC, more conservative than the pubbie - such newcomers on the 'rat side would probably be steamrollered in any initiatives they tried to take by the lefties, but would also probably vote against any of their more outlandish schemes......
Here's to eccentric philatelists!
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