If political predictions aren't your thing...

Then enjoy this primatial phun:

George W. Bush: the 'Missing Link'!

PREDICTIONS - Cook, Zogby and My Take on the Senate

Charlie Cook still thinks we're looking at a 20-35 seat gain in the House, and 4-6 seats in the Senate. With all the smut that's been flying around out there, that's good news.

A new Zogby poll today, which suggests a breakdown of 27-23 in the governorships after election day. Advantage: Democrats. By the way, governorships are a wonderful way at seeing how the states defy all attempts to categorize into neat red and blue columns. Some of the most liberal states, including Vermont, Hawaii and Rhode Island, have Republican governors. Likewise, some of the most conservative states, such as Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arizona, have Democratic governors.

Zogby's Senate numbers show Webb with a (4 point) lead in Virginia for the first time. Maybe Allen's attempt to smear Webb with his bad racy novels has backfired; maybe Allen's secrecy over his arrest record is doing the trick. I would really love to see Webb win this one.

In Tennessee, Ford is trailing by one point. In Missouri, McAskill is behind by 2. I am skeptical about the Dem's chances in these extremely close races. I am inclined to think that McAskill has the better chance. Stem cell research is on the ballot there and that could motivate Dems to get out and vote. In Tennessee, I am afraid that the Republican Get Out the Vote advantage, coupled with the likelihood that Ford's race may erode some of his numbers on the day, suggests that Corker will scrape through there. We'll see. Zogby has LAmont only 4 points behind Lieberman now, but I'll doubt if that goes anywhere.

I do think that Menendez will pull it together in New Jersey by election day. He seems to be gaining again, and Zogby has him with 6 points on Kean.

By Zogby's numbers (and his methodology is different from other pollsters'), DeWine is closing the gap in Ohio. Other polls show Brown with a good 10 points over DeWine, but Zogby allows him only a two point lead. There is a very strong anti-Republican, anti-incumbent mood in Ohio, however, and I will doubt if DeWine makes it.

My prediction: The Democrats will win Washington, Montana, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland and Yes, Virginia, there is a Senate Clause. The Repugnacious will hold on in Arizona, Tennessee, Missouri, as well as their other strongholds. This will make a 50-50 Senate. The best pickup chance for Senate majority is Missouri. The most vulnerable spot for the Dems is Montana. Burns has been coming back hard at Tester, throwing the L word and the T word around, and voters may be saturated with the Abramoff/corruption message. The latest Rasmussen poll still shows Tester leading by 4, however, so we'll leave it at that. A 50/50 Senate, with Dems taking Virginia, but not Missouri or Tennessee.

Any one have any other opinions?

Another bit of Monday fun

This from Slate - match the porn with the politician who wrote it!

The options include Lynne Cheney, Barbara Boxer, Kenneth Starr, Jimmy Carter, Newt Gingrich and Winston Churchill!

Here's a juicy bit:
"I set the edge of my teeth halfway up her breast, just at the point of tension but not, so far as I could tell, of pain. This was the sweetest flesh I had ever tasted, including fish and fowl."

It gets worse.

Something fun for Monday Morning

Check out these hilarious mock scare ads from Saturday Night Live:

Click HERE

Enjoy!

Signs of desperation

Republican negative smear ads are really scraping the bottom of the barrel. We've all seen the Harold Ford smear ad from Tennessee ('Call me'), and heard about Rush Limbaugh going off HIS medication on the subject of Michael J. Fox, but this I found in the Washington Post takes the cake:

· In New York, the NRCC ran an ad accusing Democratic House candidate Michael A. Arcuri, a district attorney, of using taxpayer dollars for phone sex. "Hi, sexy," a dancing woman purrs. "You've reached the live, one-on-one fantasy line." It turns out that one of Arcuri's aides had tried to call the state Division of Criminal Justice, which had a number that was almost identical to that of a porn line. The misdial cost taxpayers $1.25.

Giving it all away...

Bill Nelson, who is leading Katherine Harris by about 40 points in the Florida Senate race, is following the lead of Kennedy and Kerry in giving away his campaign cash to people who need it more. He gave a quarter million to the state party.

Isn't it time you had a nice long session?

There's only two weeks left until the election, and that means that the session is back, with obsessive analysis and progressive nail-biting! Feel free to comment!

Who has more money?

Democrats are bucking trends lately, and actually raising more money in some cases than Republicans.

In the first 18 days of October, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee raised 9.1 million dollars, almost three times the RSCC's sum of 3.6 million. The DSCC now has more cash on hand than the RSCC: at 9.7 to 8.9 million.

IN the race for the House, the Dem's are only slightly behind the Repub's. The DCCC has 17 million cash on hand, compared to the RCCC's 18.3 million.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=462

The RNC does have more cash-on-hand than the DNC, but the discrepancy is not as great as in previous years. THis is what Charlie Cook has to say on the matter:

"Do Republicans have a financial advantage over Democrats in terms of national party spending? Yes, but that advantage is the narrowest its been in 20 years. The Sept. 30 cash-on-hand figures for the Republican National Committee and the GOP Senate and House campaign committees were just $10 million more than the Democratic National Committee and its Senate and House committees, $77 million to $67 million. The GOP spending advantage is there, but it's nothing like the 50- to 125-percent advantages that we have seen in previous elections."

And it's not that the DNC can't raise the money - they've just been spending it pretty quickly. THis is all part of Howard Dean's 50-state strategy, which has the Democratic Leadership Conference types in a fankle. But it's a smart investment - having permanent staff on the ground in places like Mississippi and Idaho makes sense, and a lot of the Dem's best chances are in 'red states'. All the top positions in the state of Arkansas, for example, are highly likely to flip to the Democrats this year. This strategy will also help combat the Republicans' much-lauded get-out-the-vote operation, and will pay off in two and four years time. So a wise investment.

But it may mean that some races are still a bit cash-poor for the Democrats this year. There is a big push in the netroots to get ultra-safe candidates with plenty of cash on hand to donate to people in competitive districts. Sens. Kennedy and Kerry have already made a good example by giving half a million each. Let's hope that others follow their example!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/25/AR2006102501728.html

So, all in all, the Dem's are in a much better position than at any time in the last twenty or thirty years, in terms of money.