House Elections Final 4 Style Pool

With all this buzz about "fantasy Congress", I figured I'd put together a March Madness-style bracket with the 64 most competitive GOP-held House seats.  Anyone who wants to play, e-mail me their entries.  The rules are as follows:

I grouped the races by region (with two lower-seeded races out of geographical place to round out the brackets).  I also seeded the races.  Because this is a Democratic blog, in all cases, we are betting on Democratic challengers.  Thus, I did not include the competitive defensive races in (IL-08, GA-08, GA-12, IA-03, or VT-AL).  Within each region, I bracketed races by their seed--1 with 16, 2 with 15 and so on, just like the NCAA.  

Here's how this is going to work: you pick the winners, but you have to pick by bracket (and made colorful, usually lame titles for each bracket).  Thus, to pick, say, Brad Ellsworth in IN-08, you also are picking Colleen Rowley in MN-02.  You get 1 point for each win, plus additional points for a winner's seed (a 3 seed gets 4 points; an 11 seed gets 12 points, and so on).  Here's the wrinkle: you get 10 points for each bracket you DON'T pick.  So, if, say a 3 seed wins but the corresponding 14 seed loses, the people who picked the bracket get 4 points, but the people who didn't get 10.

The brackets (Dem candidates listed first):

East Region

Bracket 1 (Broken Hearts): #1 PA-10 (Chris Carney facing Rep. Don Sherwood) and #16 PA-04 (Jason Altmire facing Rep. Melissa Hart)

Bracket 2 (Down with W): #2 PA-07 (Joe Sestak facing Rep. Curt Weldon) and #15 NY-25 (Dan Maffei facing Rep. Jim Walsh)

Bracket 3 (Still the One who got Foley to run): #3 NY-26 (Jack Davis facing Rep. Tom Reynolds) and #14 NY-19 (John Hall facing Rep. Sue Kelly)

Bracket 4 (Ladies' Choice): #4 PA-06 (Lois Murphy facing Rep. Jim Gerlach) and #13 NJ-07 (Linda Stender facing Rep. Mike Ferguson)

Bracket 5 (Fish n' Franks): #5 NY-24 (Mike Arcuri facing Ray Meier) and #12 NH-02 (Paul Hodes facing Rep. Charles Bass)

Bracket 6 (Shotguns at Chappaquiddick): #6 CT-04 (Diane Farrell facing Rep. Chris Shays) and #11 NY-29 (Eric Massa facing Rep. Randy Kuhl)

Bracket 7 (Pork and Frat Parties): #7 CT-02 (Joe Courtney facing Rep. Rob Simmons) and #10 NY-20 (Kirsten Gillibrand facing Rep. John Sweeney)

Bracket 8 (Team Murphy): #8 PA-08 (Patrick Murphy facing Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick) and #9 CT-05 (Chris Murphy facing Rep. Nancy Johnson)

North Region

Bracket 9 (The Sheriff and the Whistleblower): #1 IN-08 (Brad Ellsworth facing Rep. Jon Hostettler) and #16 MN-02 (Colleen Rowley facing Rep. John Kline)

Bracket 10 (Hawkeye Handoffs): #2 IA-01 (Bruce Braley facing Mike Whalen) and #15 IA-02 (Dave Loebsack facing Rep. Jim Leach)

Bracket 11 (Count Chocula and Frightenberry): #3 IN-02 (Joe Donnelly facing Rep. Chris Chocola) and #14 NE-01 (Maxine Moul facing Rep. Jeff Fortenberry)

Bracket 12 (A Ney Protegee and a Fake Combat Vet):#4 OH-18 (Zack Space facing Joy Padgett) and #13 IL-10 (Dan Seals facing Rep. Mark Kirk)

Bracket 13 (Pryce (is Wrong) and Mean Jean): #5 OH-15 (Mary Jo Kilroy facing Rep. Deborah Pryce) and #12 OH-02 (Victoria Wulsin facing Rep. Jean Schmidt)

Bracket 14 (The Frosh and the Term-Limit Pledge Breaker): #6 IN-09 (Baron Hill facing Rep. Mike Sodrel) and #11 MN-01 (Tim Walz facing Rep. Gil Gutknecht)

Bracket 15 (I Got Nothing): #7 IL-06 (Tammy Duckworth facing Peter Roskam) and #10 OH-01 (John Cranley facing Rep. Steve Chabot)

Bracket 16 (Read My Lips: No New Wingnuts): #8 MN-06 (Patty Wetterling facing Michelle Bachmann) and #9 WI-08 (Steve Kagen facing John Gard)

South Region

Bracket 17 (At Least Ohio Voters Don't Have to Spell Out "Shamansky"): #1 TX-22 (Nick Lampson facing write-in Shelley Sekula-Gibbs) and #16 OH-12 (Bob Shamansky facing Rep. Pat Tiberi)

Bracket 18 (Ousting a Child Predator and a Wingnut): #2 FL-16 (Tim Mahoney facing Rep. Mark Foley (whose votes go to Joe Negron)) and #15 FL-08 (Charlie Stuart facing Rep. Ric Keller)

Bracket 19 (Our QB beats their Fortunate Son): #3 NC-11 (Heath Shuler facing Rep. Charles Taylor) and #14 FL-09 (Phyllis Busansky facing Gus Bilirakis)

Bracket 20 (Medicare Plan D + CAFTA = Early Retirement): #4 FL-22 (Ron Klein facing Rep. Clay Shaw) and #13 NC-08 (Larry Kissell facing Rep. Robin Hayes)

Bracket 21 (Yes, Virginia, there is a Blue Wave Coming): #5 VA-02 (Phil Kellam facing Rep. Thelma Drake) and #12 VA-10 (Judy Feder facing Rep. Frank Wolf)

Bracket 22 (Beating a Used Car Dealer and an "Asshole"): #6 FL-13 (Christine Jennings facing Vern Buchanan) and #11 NY-03 (Dave Mejias facing Rep. Peter King)

Bracket 23 (Blue Bluegrass): #7 KY-04 (Ken Lucas facing Rep. Geoff Davis) and #10 KY-02 (Mike Weaver vs. Rep. Ron Lewis)

Bracket 24 (Potential OT Here): #8 TX-23 (several Dems facing Rep. Henry Bonilla in open primary) and #9 KY-03 (John Yarmuth facing Rep. Anne Northup)

West Region

Bracket 25 (G Force): #1 AZ-08 (Gabrielle Giffords facing Randy Graf) and #16 WA-05 (Peter Goldmark facing Cathy McMorris)

Bracket 26 (Rocky Mountain High): #2 CO-07 (Ed Perlmutter facing Rick O'Donnell) and #15 CO-05 (Jay Fawcett facing Doug Lamborn)

Bracket 27 (All About the Buzz): #3 NM-01 (Patricia Madrid facing Rep. Heather Wilson) and #14 CA-50 (Francine Busby facing Rep. Brian Bilbray)

Bracket 28 (Ladies' Choice II): #4 WA-08 (Darcy Burner facing Rep. Dave Reichert) and #13 AZ-01 (Ellen Simon facing Rep. Rick Renzi)

Bracket 29 (Harry and Gary Unseat the Nuts): #5 AZ-05 (Harry Mitchell facing Rep. J.D. Hayworth) and #12 WY-AL (Gary Trauner facing Rep. Barbara Cubin)

Bracket 30 (Good Grief! California's Sleaziest): #6 CA-11 (Jerry McNerney facing Rep. Richard Pombo) and #11 CA-04 (Charlie Brown facing Rep. John Doolittle)

Bracket 31 (The Homophobe and the Idiot): #7 CO-04 (Angie Paccione facing Rep. Marilyn Musgrave) and ID-01 (Larry Grant facing Bill Sali)

Bracket 32 (What Happens in Vegas (and Reno)...): #8 NV-02 (Jill Derby facing Dean Heller) and #9 NV-03 (Tessa Hafen facing Rep. Jon Porter)

•  Tips

  (and, yes, you can and I'm sure will, point out improvements on my nicknames)

  by Superribbie on Mon Oct 23, 2006 at 12:25:01 PM PDT

•  Clever, but...

  ...with 10 points for every bracket you don't pick, I'm not sure that it doesn't make the most sense for me to not play at all. It's conceivable, though unlikely, that we could pick up 32 seats and still not have a single bracket pay off at more than 9 points. Basically, it comes down to how well one can select longshots, but the penalty for choosing incorrectly is high enough that I'd only want to make predictions in 1 or 2 races I felt strongly about (unless of course I expect there to be a massive wave of 50+ pickups, which I think is extremely unlikely).

  I've never participated in an NCAA pool, so maybe they work in kind of the same way, but from where I'm sitting it looks like I can pick up an easy 320 points by doing nothing at all.

  by phenry on Mon Oct 23, 2006 at 12:47:33 PM PDT

  •  Hmmm

    Maybe I should make it 5?

    by Superribbie on Mon Oct 23, 2006 at 01:35:38 PM PDT

•  Try Hawkeye Hand-offs

  Let me be one of probably a few to point out that the Cornhuskers are Nebraska (so if you had, say, another way out bracket with Maxine Moul and Scott Kleeb this would have been right). Braley and Loebsack, as Iowans, are from the Hawkeye State. Major faux-pas.

  Otherwse, this rocks!

  by johnlarca on Tue Oct 24, 2006 at 09:53:11 AM PDT