At the bodega this morning, getting myself two large coffees and a huge bottle of water to slap myself into consciousness, I noticed the top story in the dead trees edition of the Sunday Times. The article they think is most important is given at the top of the fold, the right-most column, and one might miss this emphasis if only reading the NYT on the web, where the article is just the second on the list of "More Politics."
Here it is: House Majority Remains Uncertain, Republicans Say
Music to my ears! And yours too, I hope. It signals two things possibly: Rs are lowering expectations and the tradmed is realizing it set the narrative too strongly, too soon.
Republicans carry substantial advantages as they move into the final month of the fall campaign, but the resilience of vulnerable Democrats is complicating Republican efforts to lock down enough seats to capture the House and take control of the unsettled electoral battleground.
If you read the article, you'll see that the NYT is attributing this R difficulty to the Rs themselves, conveniently deflecting attention away from the premature electoral determination by the tradmed itself. In any case, this article should inspire all Ds. How sweet would it be to retain both the House and the Senate? This would be the only thing that could turn the screechiness of the Tea Party into dulcet tones for the rest of us.
Other good news may be that even overwhelming amounts of corporate cash may not be enough to just buy the elections. We see that strategy failed for the Presidential election, and certainly uberrich self-funders this electoral cycle are still facing battles. Meg? Carly? Linda? How's it going, gals?
Yet even as spending from outside groups is threatening to swamp many Democratic candidates, Republican strategists estimated that only half of the 39 seats they need to win control of the House were definitively in hand.
(snip)
“We have a lot of work to do,” Mr. Boehner said in an interview.
The expert tanner has a lot more to do than play golf and bake in unnatural light this fall.
Of course, the grey lady puts on her Fox fair-and-balanced outfit, wrapping up the article with some "wisdom" from Senator Cornyn:
Senator John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said Democrats were delusional if they believed an upswing was under way.
“I’m sure they are looking for any glimmer of hope or opportunity,” Mr. Cornyn said in an interview. “I think things are pretty much locked in. The trajectory is pretty much fixed, and I don’t think things are going to change much.”
But Mr. Cornyn might want to read the article for a dose of reality. The scene is still very fluid and there are further predictive instabilities thrown in because of early voting:
But the field remains unusually unstable at this stage of the campaign, with early voting already under way in seven states and people in 17 more states eligible to begin casting ballots in the next two weeks.
All I know is that this article has been a great accompaniment to my first cup of joe, and I'm starting to think these midterms will be more like 1966, where Rs made substantial gains, but Ds retained the House majority. With the caution that, of course, 2012 is not 1968.
The Rs are downplaying expectations, and the tradmed is taking note of the D resistance and the rise in our enthusiasm. The future is not yet determined. We had an amazing rally in D.C. yesterday, and CNN and MSNBC even noticed. It wasn't just a tree falling in the forest with noone there to hear it.
Happy Sunday! Take heart! Work hard! And let's surprise the hell out of the Rs on November 2nd. Who of us wouldn't love to see the look on the tan man's face when he realizes that he's still just the minority leader?
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