These expectations may well be overheated. Polls over the weekend suggested that
the contest was tightening, and some prognosticators on Monday were scaling back
their predictions, if ever so slightly. (Charlie Cook, the analyst who is one of
Washington’s chief setters of expectations, said in an e-mail message on Monday
that he was dropping the words “possibly more” from his House prediction of
“20-35, possibly more.”)Some Democrats worry that those forecasts, accurate or not, may be setting the stage for a demoralizing election night, and one with lasting ramifications, sapping the party’s spirit and energy heading into the 2008 presidential election cycle.
“Two years ago, winning 14 seats in the House would have been a pipe dream,” said Matt Bennett, a founder of Third Way, a moderate Democratic organization. Now, Mr. Bennett said, failure to win the House, even by one seat, would send Democrats diving under their beds (not to mention what it might do to all the pundits).
“It would be crushing,” he said. “It would be extremely difficult.” Mr. Cook put it more succinctly. “I think you’d see a Jim Jones situation — it would be a mass suicide,” he said.
The Gray Broad finally gives in to reality....
Many of these predictions had been based on polls showing that President Bush,
the Republican Party and Congress were extraordinarily unpopular. But going into Election Day, at least 20 House seats and probably 3 Senate seats were tied or close to it, no matter what the national polls say.
Moral? Tick off a Liberal and vote!
