What a relief!
It’s been a long, tough campaign season and the level of mud-slinging has simply gotten to the point where I’ve been sick of it for a month. As I mentioned at the end of comments in last week’s political post, thank goodness it seems the American people are sick of it as well and are finally voting for real change of leadership across the board.
It looks like the Republicans have gone totally on defense in the Senate as they try to hang onto 40 seats as just 37 seats are solidly Republican with Oregon, Minn, NC and NH up for grabs. Even Georgia may swing Democrat, giving the Dems a fillibuster-proof majority, and Alaska looks like a lock to join the Blue States in the Senate. While Sarah Palin’s sole official function may be to break ties in the Senate on the off chance she is elected – we won’t be looking for a lot of tie votes in 2009 or 2010!
In the House, the Dems already hold a slim majority (217) and it’s looking like they can count on 250 seats in January, a pretty good majority (435 total). It’s crazy to try to call House races but strong voter turnout can’t be good for Republicans, nor will the large amount of new voter registrations in states like PA and Florida, where they may be upset in districts they are currently "counting" on.
Despite all this, my activist Democrat friends have never looked more worried and that’s a good thing. They are pushing really hard to get out the vote and working as if they are about to lose as the bitter lessons of the last two elections have not been lost on them. My biggest fear for the Dems was complacency and, fortunately, the disinformation campaign waged by McCain where they claimed they were close in the polls for the past two weeks has whipped the Dems into a frezny and driven donations through the roof.
John McCain’s appearance on Saturday Night Live this weekend pretty much summed it up for me. The guy who I would have voted for in back in 2000 has morphed into a guy who will say anything to get elected and it was just sad to watch him read these lines to the camera as he just doesn’t get that the joke isn’t even on him anymore, the joke IS him:
"You know, a lot can happen in three days," he confided to Seth Meyers, anchor of the faux news report. "And while I am confident that we will emerge victorious, I’m also considering a few radical last-minute strategies. There’s the Reverse Maverick: I do whatever anybody tells me. I don’t ask questions; I just go with the flow. And the Double Maverick, "where I go totally berserker and just freak everybody out. How about the Sad Grandpa? That’s where I get on TV and go, ‘C’mon, Obama’s gonna have plenty of chances to be president! It’s my turn! Vote for me!‘"
It was his turn back in 2000 and Bush and the Republican Party stabbed him in the back, now they run him as a shell of his former self – all compromise and little straight talk – RIP, the Republican party…
Oh yeah, one last thing. I’m going to officially go high here and predict 360 electoral votes for Obama, just shy of Clinto’s 370-pont pounding of Bush the first. Reagan has the Preidential record with 525 – not a chance there and Bush sqeeked out over Gore 271 to 266 (while losing the popular vote by 500,000). No one is questioning where the popular vote will go but Florida, Ohio and PA are massive swing states and I think PA is in the bag for Obama and I think he takes Florida too.
