Poll Positioning, (or Poll Dancing)

Another day, another reason for democrats to get their hopes irrationally high:

Political Wire: Democrats Could Take Senate

Standing Eight still does not believe, even with all that's gone down this week, that Dems will take back either house, but we are shorting our odds once again. The prospect of a one-house takeback, which only a month ago we marked as a 3 to 1 underdog, is sliding up toward even money, we'd call it a safe 3 to 2 dog as of this morning. One more implosion in the GOP could push it to even money. But more likely than an implosion is whatever October Surprise Rove has in his (quite well padded) back pocket. (We're thinking Osama turns up mid-month, or Bush and/or Cheney survives some sort of trumped up health scare or threat just before Halloween, but there are probably more subtle ways for baldy to git'r'done. Not that subtlety is Rove's strong suit.)

And even at even money (ha,) one thing we have to remember is that Dems think the only way to gain seats is to win the elections, while GOPers know that there's a second way: stealing the elections. This gives the edge in any coin toss to the GOP. And plenty of these races will be coin tosses.

Specific predictions: Ford in TN and Whitehouse in RI will win their contests, and McCaskill certainly could, but the NRCC recently spent alot of Mark Foley's dirty dirty money and a lot more than that on a negative advertising blitz against her. Anyone who still questions whether such a blitz could work should ask my friend Max Cleland. So call Claire a toss up for the moment, and Webb still needs help, which does not speak well of his campaign, given all the help Allen's already given him.

Our prescription for Dems: (not that we're a doctor, and not that anyone's listening to us,) Keep talking about Iraq. Never shut up about it, even when the electorate tries to tell you it's 'fatigued' of hearing about it, which will happen if you talk about it enough, at which point the proper strategy would be to continue talking about it. Tell the electorate that no matter how fatigued they get they are not as fatigued as the Army and Marines in the field, and there's only one thing they (the voters,) can do about it: VOTE.