This is just a thought which I may flesh out later. Some claim that the overly partisan rhetoric that Democrats used at Paul Wellstone’s funeral just days before the 2002 mid-term elections helped give the GOP the momentum they needed to pick up seats in a year which favored the opposition. It motivated Republicans to turn out while turning Independents away from the Democrats.

I’m now wondering if the comments the Democrats’ most recent presidential nominee made in Pasadena yesterday may serve a similiar function. That remark compounded with his reaction — instead of apologizing, lashing out at Republicans and conservatives in general and the president in particular.

Just a thought.

UPDATE: Even our frequent (and usually most civil) critic, Patrick (Gryph) agrees that Kerry’s comment was “vile.”

UP-UPDATE:  Please note that I changed the title of this post to reflect more accurately the moment I was referencing.

**GP VACATION UPDATE**: PatriotPartner (John) and I are enjoying ourselves in Phoenix. Our vacation got even more enjoyable when we heard of the ability of John Kerry’s to “SwiftBoat” himself this week. As John said today, Kerry may go down in history as the Democrat politican who brings his party defeat in two successive election cycles — and this time his name isn’t even on the ballot.

Meantime, I think it is worth reminding Senator (and I use that term loosely) Kerry that this isn’t his Vietnam-era Armed Forces. (h/t - Instapundit)

Our review of Pen­tagon enlistee data shows that the only group that is lowering its participation in the military is the poor. The percentage of recruits from the poorest American neighborhoods (with one-fifth of the U.S. population) declined from 18 percent in 1999 to 14.6 percent in 2003, 14.1 percent in 2004, and 13.7 percent in 2005. . . .

In summary, the additional years of recruit data (2004–2005) sup­port the previous finding that U.S. military recruits are more similar than dissimilar to the American youth population. The slight dif­ferences are that wartime U.S. mil­itary enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on aver­age than their civilian peers.

Recruits have a higher percent­age of high school graduates and representation from Southern and rural areas. No evidence indicates exploitation of racial minorities (either by race or by race-weighted ZIP code areas). Finally, the distri­bution of household income of recruits is noticeably higher than that of the entire youth population.

As the woman who would be Speaker should the Democrats win a majority in Congress remains virtually invisible, the New York Times reports (via Best of the Web) that “Democrats have turned to conservative and moderate candidates who fit the profiles of their districts more closely than the profile of the national party.“

Indeed, some of these candidates “have views on issues like gun control and abortion that are far out of step with the prevailing views of the Democrats who control the party. On some issues, they may even be expected to side with Republicans and the Bush White House.“

Should enough of these candidates prevail next week, the Democrats will indeed recapture the House of Representatives. And while that would certainly be a defeat for the GOP, it would not be a defeat of conservatism — nor necessarily a victory for liberalism. Despite winning its majority on conservative ideas in 1994, in the most recent Congress, the GOP has hardly governed as a conservative party.

At the same time, as Republicans have moved away from the small-government ideas which have defined our party at least since Ronald Reagan’s victory in 1980, “a new CNN poll finds most Americans still agree with the bedrock conservative premise that, as the Gipper put it, ‘government is not the answer to our problems — government is the problem.’” (Via Instapundit).

Given that “54 percent of the 1,013 adults polled said they thought [government] was trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses,” it seems the the GOP might be in a stronger position to retain control of Congress had congressional Republicans promoted more policies to reduce the size and scope of the federal government.

That a number of Democrats are running on conservative ideas — and that the GOP has, in large measure, run from such ideas at least in terms of domestic policy — a Democratic victory next week, as I’ve said before, will hardly represent a realignment. Instead, it will show that more than a quarter-century after the Gipper’s election, his ideas continue to appeal to the American people.

And maybe a GOP loss (or a narrow victory) will convince Republicans to return to the ideas which have so helped our candidates in the past.

UPDATE:  In a great piece in the Wall Street Journal, with a theme similar to that of this post, Michael Barone, perhaps the shrewdest analyst of the American political landscape writes, “ideas are more important than partisan vote counts..”  He doesn’t “know what the results of the midterm elections of 2006 will be. But I doubt that they will have the sweeping partisan or policy consequences of the midterm elections of 1874 and 1894, or 1938 and 1994.“  Now that I’ve whet your appetite, as with anything by Barone, just read the whole thing.

UP-UPDATE: Looking at the same articles, Captain Ed finds that this “shows the success of the Reagan message, and once again underscores the profound impact he had on American politics” and observes that if:

the Republicans find themselves in trouble at the midterms, it may come in reaction to the extent that they have failed to grasp the Reagan message. The smaller-government message will still win elections, but the question may be for whom it wins those contests when the GOP fails to tend to its Reagan legacy.

Read the whole thing!

Last week, PatriotPartner made his views known about conservatives sitting out the Congressional election next week.  And I agree, the stakes are too high when the opposition party refuses to acknowledge our nation is at war.

Stanley Kurtz at the National Review Online received similar sentiments in an email from a most important source — a US Solidier fighting the War on Terrorism on the ground.

Sir, you are spot-on about not sitting out this election.  Many of us in uniform are anxious about this election.  Anyone can read and see from the news reports that the enemy here in Afghanistan and in Iraq is cranking up their efforts to produce many more American and allied casualties before the election, during the supposed holy month of Ramadan.  We fear the enemy will be greatly emboldened if the party of cut-and-run wins and will crank up even worst offensives in the hope of our withdrawing all support of both manpower and materiel to our democratically-elected allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, just like our weak politicians did after the 1974 elections to our South Vietnamese ally.

We conservatives don’t have the luxury of sitting out this election, because if the wrong politicians are elected, they will cut off all funding for military operations in Iraq, dooming our fledgling, democratically-elected ally to death and dismemberment.  Everyone around the world, from the caves of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the palaces in North Korea and Iran will be watching this election, this choice before the American people.  Will we stand up for Liberty and continue to support our fledgling, democratically-elected allies of Iraq and Afghanistan, or will we abandon them, like our weak politicians did after the 1974 elections?

The choice is yours to make, I pray along with every fighting man and woman in uniform today, that you will make the right one and not give up on us. We will win any war you commit us to, as you have repeatedly done so in 2002 and in 2004, but we need you, the American voter, to secure our rear while we continue to fight abroad those that attacked us on September 11th.  Don’t give up on us, because we will never give up on you.  Remember only you, the American voter, can lose a war by enabling the weak politicians to deny us victory.  May God Bless you all and our great Nation.

Sincerely,
A Soldier in Afghanistan

First, a big salute to this brave American.  He/she is a true hero and deserves his/her perspective to be heard loud and proud.

There is no question in my mind that the stakes are too high for conservatives to sit out or cast a “protest” vote in order to punish Republicans.  We are in a global world war against an ideology that is hell bent on destroying Western civilization through terrorist attack on our people and our economy. 

All other distractions are just that — and they are not worth obsessing over when our lives and way of life is at stake.  The alternative choice in this election doesn’t take this threat serious and would rather fight to give American civil rights protection to terrorists.  The disconnect from reality among Democrat leaders is simply mind-boggling.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Whenever anti-gay social conservatives write about gay people, they focus on the most extreme aspects of our culture. They are not interested in presenting a dispassionate account of gay America, but rather portraying us as sinful deviants, incapable of making moral decisions.

Many spend hours and hours rooting through gay publications and around gay websites to find examples of the most outlandish gay behavior. Some anti-gay activists even frequent gay conclaves, seeking out those things most likely to cast gay people in a negative light.

And so would the left have us see American conservatives, particularly Republicans in tight races for reelection. A reader recently e-mailed me a link to this New York Times piece about “google-boming” how left-wing bloggers are attempting to manipulate google data so that when someone types in the name of a certain Republican in the search engine, posts and articles critical of him (or her) will appear “high among the returns.”

As I read the article, I could only wonder at the extent to which extremists go to portray their adversaries in a negative light. Left-wing bloggers are practically giddy that they have manipulated so google so that when someone types in “miserable failure,” he gets the official web-site for the president.

Rather than devote their time to promoting the positives aspects of their agenda, they would rather lurk in the swamps of hatred and vilification and spend their time finding ever more creative means to demonize their opponents. I wonder about people who spend so much time stewing in their animosity.

Eighteen day ago, when I asked why some people hate, I noted “that as with most hatred, the issue is not necessarily the object, but quite frequently the subject.” What is it that makes these people so negative, devoting so much time to demonizing their opponents? Some, including gay activists, are even taking advantage of the edit feature for Wikipedia entries in order to add disparaging comments about various Republicans, even if such information is not substantiated.

If I were to ask these activists why certain social conservatives dwell on gays, they would likely say that they’re projecting, a convoluted expression of their own self-hatred. They’re obsessed with gays because they can’t deal with their own homosexual tendencies. I don’t know that this explanation always works, but I’m sure that, in some cases, it holds true.

Beyond such projection, unfortunately some people get a certain satisfaction from demonizing others. Such people include not only the most anti-gay social conservatives but also many on the left who go out of their way to vilify those on the right and to game search engines to lead with negative information about Republicans.

It’s too bad they can’t devote their time and creativity to more positive and productive endeavors.

Should the Democrats’ prevail in next month’s elections and capture a majority in one or both Houses of Congress, you can be sure the MSM will tout this as a victory of liberalism and a defeat of conservatism. Either verdict would be disingenuous, given that, outside of certain urban areas, the Democrats are hardly putting forward a liberal platform and that the GOP has all but abandoned the conservative ideas which helped them regain the congressional majority in 1994.

I read two pieces today which show how this is clearly not 1994 for the Democrats. For unlike the GOP that year, they aren’t running on much of a platform. As writers Margaret Talev and Kevin hall observe (via Lorie Byrd at Wizbang):

When Republicans took over the House of Representatives in 1994, ending four decades of Democratic dominance there, they followed marching orders they’d laid out in their Contract with America.

But if Democrats pull off the biggest shakeup of Congress since then by regaining control of the House and Senate in the Nov. 7 election, they will have no comparable document to guide them and thus may have a smaller claim to a mandate from the voters.

The 1994 Contract with America included draft legislation for budget, tax, military and social policies. It was a roadmap for what the new majority would do starting Day One through their first 100 days.

The Democrats’ version this year - “A New Direction for America/Six for `06″ - is one page long. It lists six fairly general goals - and raises as many questions as answers.

The Democrats don’t have such a roadmap as comprehensive — and specific — as 1994 Contract with America, at least not one they’re making public. As the Wall Street Journal put it today: “What Democrats are campaigning on this year is a Non-Contract with America–mostly generalities about ‘helping the middle class’ and ‘ending the corruption in Washington.’“

While they’re campaigning on banalities and bromides, the Democrats are keeping their real agenda hidden from voters. For, if they make that public, they’d make it clear to voters that they haven’t changed since the American people voted them out of power in 1994. As the Journal puts it: “A Democratic triumph would produce a major shift in the national policy debate, and we can understand why Ms. Pelosi isn’t plastering most of this agenda on billboards around the country.“

To see the type of agenda we’d expect from a Democratic Congress, read the Journal’s piece. And you’ll understand why the Democrats have been keeping their focus on the GOP — and neglecting to campaign on their own agenda.

Clearly today’s Democrats are not the party of new ideas and the new direction in which they would like to take us is not much different from that in which Left has been trying to take us for the past forty-odd years.

PatriotPartner and I are headed West this afternoon for a week in Phoenix. 

No cellphones, no computer, no work, no blogging. 

I’ve done a couple of posts in advance for next week, but unless there is something major going on (and I can find a computer at the hotel) I bid adieu until Sunday, November 5th.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Just after the 1994 election when Republicans recaptured both Houses of Congress for the first time in forty years, people were not only speculating that then-President Clinton would be defeated for reelection, but also wondering whether he would survive a challenge for his own party’s nomination. Well, Clinton avoided such a challenge in 1996 and won reelection by a comfortable margin, even if he failed to win a majority of the popular vote.

Bill Clinton’s comeback that year is one of the great political stories of the 1990s. Under the guidance of political consultant Dick Morris, he turned the tables on his political opponents and convinced the American people he had their interests at heart. Under his strategy of “triangulation,” Morris had Clinton move to the center, compromising with the new Republican Congress on key issues, notably welfare reform, and so crafting an agenda somewhere between that of the Republicans and the Democrats.

This year, ten years since Clinton’s comeback, we are seeing a similar comeback in the Golden State. A year ago, most pundits (but not this blogger) wrote ogg our great Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as a political has-been. That Republican has invested a lot of time and energy into putting four proposals for reform on the ball last fall and lost all of them. His approval ratings plummeted.

A year later, not only have his numbers climbed, but every poll shows him leading his Democratic opponent — in a state where Democrats far outnumber Republicans — by double-digit margins. Governor Schwarzenegger has done this by moving to the center on a few issues and by running a brilliant campaign.

A registered Republican, I have received regular mailings (and phone calls) highlighting the conservative aspects of his record, opposing tax increases, pushing through pro-business reforms, supporting Jessica’s law. Meanwhile, his campaign has highlighted some of his policies which appeal to voters who tend to be left-of-center. Impressed with his environmental record, the PatriotSisterWest, a registered Democrat who lives in San Francisco, is considering voting for the incumbent Republican.

It seems that the Governator has adopted Dick Morris’ triangulation to the politics of the Golden State.

(more…)

If this had not been the year where the Democrats — and their allies in the MSM — whipped themselves into high dudgeon over a Republican Congressman’s inappropriate Instant Messages with underage male pages — or where The Washington Post thought a Republican Senator’s one-time use of the odd word “macaca” to describe an operative of his political opponent, I would agree with Glenn Reynolds that the dirty passages in that Senator’s Democratic opponent’s was “not that big a deal.” After all, as Glenn puts it “they’re novels.“

When I wrote my own novel, I chose not to include any sex scenes, largely because I thought I could better tell my story without them. Many times, when I read a novel, I found the sex scenes gratuitous, distracting from rather than enhancing the storytelling. After reading an excerpt from Jim Webb’s (the Democrat in question) novel, I don’t think that bland prose could do much to enhance any book (or story) — unless the rest of his writing was even worse.

Under normal circumstances, a candidate’s bad prose (in a novel written well before the campaign) should not be an issue in a Senate campaign. Yet, this year, the MSM has seen fit to make an issue of unsubstantiated allegations that Senator Allen used the “N” word well over thirty years ago. And The Washington Post’s own ombudsman acknowledged that “when you put it all together,” her paper’s coverage of Allen’s use of the word, “macaca,” “looked like piling on.“

To be sure, it was a news story, but not one meriting story after story for day after day while the paper downplayed (or downright ignored) the Senator’s stands on the issues. If the the media focuses on one odd statement made by a candidate — as well as alleged statements he made in his youth — is it not then appropriate to bring up actual passages that his opponent wrote in a book?

I wonder now if Democrats — and the MSM — wish they hadn’t spent so much time on Foleygate. For that focus effectively requires them to address Webb’s prose.

(more…)

. . . does that make Mary Princess Leia?

I have hesitated to discuss Andrew Sullivan’s recent interview with Hugh Hewitt for two reasons, first, that everyone on the blogosphere (particularly its right side) seems well aware of it and second, given my past admiration for the writer/blogger, I find it somewhat embarrassing. Andrew, who has proven himself, an agile debater with anti-gay social conservatives was defensive and combative with Hugh, a social conservative who is certainly not anti-gay.

Last week, on Larry King, Andrew looked good, confident and quick on his feet. If he had had time, he certainly would have trounced the social conservatives he was up against, but the segment was far too short for a serious debate. Yet, given more time on Hugh’s program, he seemed to do anything but showcase his debating skills. It was as if he couldn’t believe that anyone would criticize him — or even ask him tough questions — because he shouldn’t have to face such questioning.

Yeah, Hugh asked tough questions, but I’ve seen Andrew handle tougher — from truly mean-spirited individuals. Hugh may have his faults, being he is clearly not mean-spirited.

Hardly the Andrew Sullivan I had seen (and admired) on many a television program — and in person. I recommend you check out Hugh’s post on the encounter with references to other bloggers as well as his own thoughts. His co-blogger, Dean Barnett offers his two cents here.

I have long said that my problem with Andrew’s shift to the left over the past 2 years, 8 months and 3 days is not so much his ideas as his tone. This interview provides a perfect example of what I mean. Hugh asks him if he’s a Christian and instead of responding yes or no, shoots back “What kind of question is that?” Hardly the confident tone of the man who nine years ago on Nightline made the woman whose group was behind the ex-gay ads look like a blithering idiot.

The Andrew on that show — whom I briefly glimpsed last week on Larry King — is not to be found in the transcript of Hugh’s interview earlier this week. And for this one-time reader of Andrew’s blog, that absence is truly sad.

Yet another important voice (and someone I rarely agree with) who is channeling GayPatriot this morning…..

The way the Democratic leadership was in clear collusion with the major media to push this story in the month before the midterm election seems to me to have been a big fat gift to Ann Coulter and the other conservative commentators who say the mainstream media are simply the lapdogs of the Democrats. Every time I turned on the news it was “Foley, Foley, Foley!” — and in suspiciously similar language and repetitive talking points.

After three or four days of it, as soon as I heard Foley’s name, I turned the sound off or switched channels. It was gargantuan overkill, and I felt the Democrats were shooting themselves in the foot. I was especially repulsed by the manipulative use of a gay issue for political purposes by my own party. I think it was not only poor judgment but positively evil. Whatever short-term political gain there is, it can only have a negative impact on gay men. When a moralistic, buttoned-up Republican like Foley is revealed to have a secret, seamy gay life, it simply casts all gay men under a shadow and makes people distrust them. Why don’t the Democratic strategists see this? These tactics are extremely foolish.

Not only has the public image of gay men been tarnished by the over-promotion of the Foley scandal, but they have actually been put into physical danger. It’s already starting with news items about teenage boys using online sites to lure gay men on dates to attack and rob them. What in the world are the Democrats thinking? We saw the beginning of this in that grotesque moment in the last presidential debates when John Kerry came out with that clearly prefab line identifying Mary Cheney as a lesbian. Since when does the Democratic Party use any gay issue in this coldblooded way as a token on the chessboard? You’d expect this stuff from right-wing ideologues, not progressives.

Because the Democrats don’t care about gay people unless they are getting homo campaign contributions or they can throw our community under the bus for political gain.

***********

To that point, it is becoming quite clear that the Democrats were intimately involved in the suppression of potential criminal emails for the sole purpose of political gain.  RadarOnline is reporting that the fired Human Rights Campaign employee who started the Foley scandal is Lane Hudson.  Mr. Hudson was a one-time Democratic Senate staffer and was hired by HRC for field work shortly before the phony “StopSexPredators” blog appeared. 

Lane Hudson - Democrat Activist & HRC Employee
Who Suppressed Emails Of A Potential Child Predator

And here is Mr. Hudson’s Friendster profile.  Matt has more on Mr. Hudson’s long history of being a Democrat activist in the comments below. 

My question is this:  What did Mr. Hudson do from the time Sen. Hollings left the Senate in January 2005 until the HRC hired him this fall? 

I certainly hope that Joe Solmonese has reached out to the FBI to cooperate with their investigation.  If he hasn’t, he damn well better.  I’m sure there are a lot of interesting emails on the HRC computers.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Dan… ya gotta love it when James Taranto sounds a lot like us!

The history of this issue is a striking example of the power of the judiciary to shape American politics and culture. In 1999, when the Vermont Supreme Court issued a similar decision, it seemed revolutionary. Gov. Howard Dean, confronted at town meetings by angry traditionalists, defensively said that the ruling didn’t redefine marriage, which remains a union between a man and a woman. Dean nonetheless said he favored civil unions, and he signed the bill the court had ordered the Legislature to pass.

Five years later, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court mandated same-sex marriage, in name as well as in effect. And just over two years after that, the Vermont approach is the “conservative” one, or at least the “moderate” one, at least in New Jersey. Yesterday’s vote among the justices in Lewis v. Harris was 4-3, with the dissenters asserting, à la Massachusetts, that same-sex couples have the “right to the title of marriage” as well as to its material benefits.

Two years ago the New York Times reported that President Bush–frequently vilified by gay-rights supporters for backing the Federal Marriage Amendment–endorsed the idea of civil unions:

In an interview on Sunday [Oct. 24, 2004] with Charles Gibson, an anchor of “Good Morning America” on ABC, Mr. Bush said, “I don’t think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that’s what a state chooses to do so.” . . .

According to an ABC transcript, Mr. Gibson then noted to Mr. Bush that the Republican Party platform opposed civil unions.

“Well, I don’t,” Mr. Bush replied.

So the country has traveled a long road since 1999, when Vermont’s ruling seemed revolutionary. Of course, one should not overstate the case: Only a handful of states afford legal recognition to same-sex unions, and all of them are in the Northeast save California and Hawaii. Most states have enacted laws or constitutional provisions preventing same-sex marriage, and some bar civil unions too.

These provisions resulted from a backlash after the courts’ rulings in Vermont and Massachusetts–a backlash that has probably served the electoral interests of Republicans, who, despite the president’s liberal views on civil unions, remain the party less eager to expand gay rights. In the long run, though, the move toward legal same-sex unions may prove inexorable. All those state restrictions on same-sex unions could be struck down by five Supreme Court justices.

We have mixed feelings about all this. We sympathize with both the traditionalists’ resistance to redefining marriage and gay couples’ desire to enjoy both the tangible benefits of marriage and the affirmation that comes with legal recognition. We guess we’re with President Bush in thinking civil unions are a reasonable compromise. But we’d also be happier if this were thrashed over democratically rather than forced upon society by the courts.

We’ve been saying that for over two years right here!

[Related Story - Same-sex marriage now becomes political dispute in New Jersey - Advocate.com]

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

On the first anniversary of President Bush’s second inauguration — and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Gipper’s first — I called the Democrats, “the Party of Obstruction, noting how the Democratic leadership of both the House and the Senate was eschewing constructive efforts to work with the Republican majority and uniting their caucuses to oppose the president’s initiatives. They weren’t interested in effecting any compromises with him, just blocking any proposal he put forward, merely because he had put it forward.

In a recent interview with 60 Minutes, potential Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi made clear that should her party win control of Congress next month, she will continue this practice of obstruction. Claiming that the election is about the President and Vice President, she would be satisfied to make “them lame ducks.”

So, although the President was elected to a four-year term — and given that Pelosi claims she has taken “off the table,” she believes a Democratic majority should render him ineffective. In other words, she remains more committed to preventing the nation’s Chief Executive from accomplishing anything than in working with him to promote the national interest. No wonder she threatens “to deny plum assignments to members who vote with the Republicans.“

Contrast this with House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the last Republican Speaker to serve under a Democratic President. In his two terms as Speaker (1995-99), while often at odds with Bill Clinton, that Democratic President, he and House Republicans worked with the Chief Executive to forge a consensus domestic policy, passing landmark welfare reform and balancing the federal budget.

While often derided as a vindictive partisan, Gingrich was able to overcome whatever partisan animosity he had to serve the national interest. Pelosi, however, has not indicated she has no intention of overcoming hers. She said she “was being gentle” when she “called her Republican colleagues ‘immoral’ and ‘corrupt,’ and . . . said they [were] running a criminal enterprise.“

If, in the last few days of the campaign, the GOP makes clear Pelosi’s record of obstruction, they should have no trouble building on their momentum of the past few days and holding onto the House. No wonder Mrs. Pelosi has been virtually absent from the campaign trail — in stark contrast to Newt Gingrich in 1994, the last leader of the House minority to lead his party to majority status in mid-term elections.

Back when I was in high school and Harry S Truman was (as he remains) one of my political heroes, I wrote a paper on the 1948 election. And while the conventional wisdom long has been that the polls predicting that his Republican opponent Thomas Dewey would defeat him for reelection that year got it wrong, I recall coming across one article saying that the polls weren’t wrong, just out of date.

Back then, there were only a handful of polls (as opposed to the plethora today). The scholar who had written that article noted that the last poll (showing a Dewey victory) taken that year had been completed two weeks before the election.* No wonder that polls failed to detect the last-minute surge to the Democratic incumbent.

This year, less that two weeks away from the fall elections, with more regular surveys of the electorate, we see some signs of momentum “flowing in the right direction,” that is, toward the GOP. Couple this surge with evidence that belies MSM reports of a depressed GOP base that “the GOP base does seem pretty angry - angry at the Democrats, angry at the media, angry at those who keep telling them they’re not going to show up on Election Day,” it seems that while the Democrats are certain to make gains this year, it won’t be the blowout they — and their allies in the MSM — have been predicting.

In the Senate, Republican candidates are surging ahead in Tennessee and Virginia while inching ahead in Missouri and closing the gap in Rhode Island, Montana and even Minnesota. And there has been similar momentum in House races. While it seems likely that the GOP will hold onto the Senate, the battle for control of the House remains too close to call.

As we head into the campaign’s final stretch, the GOP could still hold onto the House if its Get Out the Vote (GOTV) effort is as good as advertised and if Republican candidates convince voters that they are better able to govern than the Democrats. Given that the Democrats has so far not offered much in the way of an agenda for America, it still seems likely that many last-minute voters will opt for the incumbent party as they did here in 1948 and in Britain in 1992.

Whether that last-minute surge will be enough to protect their majority in the House is, at this moment, anybody’s guess.

-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest)

* I have tried to track down that poll online, but have failed to do so. It would be interesting to see how accurate my memory is here, whether the last poll in 1948 was taken two weeks before the election (as I remember) or at some other interval.

UPDATE: Over at Hugh Hewitt, Dean Barnett seems to share my sentiments, agreeing that the “House is going to be really close.” Looking at the polls, he finds that “Across the board, races are tightening.” Looking at his e-mail, he finds that e-mails from disgruntled conservatives “have disappeared.” He sees that as a sign that “the troops coming home just in time for Election Day.” And he highlights a problem for the Democrats:

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.

Now that I’ve whet your appetite, just read the