There is no shortage of early declarations of an Obama-led rout come 11/4, three weeks from now.
Chickens.
Not hatched.
Don't count.
Still, here's just a few feel-good samples from diverse quarters:
Top campaign officials for both parties, pollsters and independent experts say the intense focus on the economic turmoil and last week’s bailout vote have combined to rapidly expand a Democratic advantage in Congressional contests. Analysts now predict a Democratic surge on a scale that seemed unlikely just weeks ago, with even some Republicans in traditional strongholds fighting for their political careers, and Democratic leaders dreaming of ironclad majorities.
In North Carolina, Senator Elizabeth Dole, a former Republican presidential contender and cabinet member, is teetering. In Kentucky, the opponent of the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, has drawn even in some polls, though Republicans say they believe he will win.
NY Times
How John McCain Lost
By Robert Stacy McCain
John McCain lost the election Sept. 24 and Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States. Nothing that is likely to happen between now and Nov. 4 can change this outcome.
Since Sept. 24, polls have increasingly pointed toward a Democratic landslide. Obama not only has an outside-the-margin advantage in nearly every national poll, but leads strongly in enough battleground states that if the election were held today, the Electoral College vote would be 353 for the Democrat, 185 for the Republican. Even Karl Rove's electoral map now shows Obama winning.
The American Spectator
WASHINGTON (AP) — The financial turmoil that has devastated the stock market is also battering Republicans in congressional races, giving Democrats a chance to topple GOP incumbents once considered safe and wrest seats in pivotal districts and states.
Voters' deepening anxiety about the economy following the enactment of a $700 billion financial industry bailout has created the conditions, just over three weeks from the Nov. 4 election, for an anti-Republican tide that could hand Democrats insurmountable majorities on both sides of the Capitol, according to lawmakers and strategists in both parties.
"It is hurting every Republican across the board. This environment has just become very toxic for us," said Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio. "It could very easily be a wave" in Democrats' favor.
AP
Virginia Rep. Thomas M. Davis III headed the Republicans’ successful national House campaign efforts in the 2000 and 2002 election cycles as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). So it is a sign of the difficult straits that his party is in these days that Davis — at a luncheon event Friday at which he paired off with the Democrats’ current chief House campaign strategist — said the Republicans appear certain to lose a sizable number of seats for the second consecutive election.
“I readily concede you’re going to see an election where we’re going to lose double digits in the House,” said Davis, who is retiring from the Northern Virginia seat he has held for the past 14 years. Davis made the comment at an event at the National Press Club at which Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen , chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), expressed confidence that his party would expand the House majority it won in the 2006 elections.
Both Davis and Van Hollen noted, however, that there also are a lot of close races, and that the national political environment, agitated by the sharp downturn in the economy, is volatile with just 25 days to go before Election Day.
CQPolitics
It’s something that has been cautiously whispered about for months, but now it’s out in the open. Could this be a “wave” election?
The last time is happened, of course, was in 1994 when Republicans rode a tidal wave of voter discontent and swept Democrats out of power in Congress, disposing of longtime Washington fixtures that never saw it coming. Candidates who wouldn’t have had a chance in more conventional elections, from states and districts they never should have had a chance in, winning a net gain of 54 seats in the House and eight in the Senate.
Nobody is predicting quite that level of gains for Democrats this year – at least not yet. But if the economic meltdown has been the earthquake that has jolted the landscape, the tsunami that follows could be unpredictable.
The signs, from top to bottom, are hard to ignore. At the presidential level, Barack Obama has established a solid, if slight, lead in the national polls. More importantly, the battleground states at the moment are almost exclusively traditional Republican must-haves like Florida and Ohio in addition to states that have been traditional locks for the GOP, such as Indiana, Virginia and even North Carolina.
CBS News
Feelin' good right about now?
You betcha!
The GOP knows Gramps' campaign is done for, and pragmatically they aren't concerned too much about his future political career. The rest of this campaign is about Congressional seats and, to a lesser extent, Sarah Palin's political future -- and whether she has one.
Despite the fact that Grampy played "good cop" for a few minutes two days ago, there's no sign that McCain's kind face is going to reappear any time soon. Since the campaign isn't about him any more. the likelihood that McCain has any say whatsoever in how the balance of the campaign is to be run is very slim.
Who, I wonder, is now calling the shots for the GOP? Are we going to see the trend to low-blow politics continue?
What I fear most is a desperate gambit to make Palin the rallying point for a reassembled GOP, a new conservative Republican coalition of evangelicals, right-to-lifers, and Fox News zombies.
Other than delivering a crushing blow to the McCain-Palin ticket in 3 weeks, how do we best avoid that nightmare?