Final Preparations

We're entering the final week before the election and conventional wisdom has the Dems picking up control of the House of Representatives while narrowly missing it in the Senate. By the same token, the GOP-Karl Rove election machine could manufacture another victory (by hook or by crook?) or there could be Democratic tidal wave to "throw the bums out" that completely turns over Congress and gives El Presidente no cover during his last two years of damage. I mean, office.

The GOP have the advantage of incumbency, of U.S. naval forces just arrived in the Persian Gulf (possible incitement to war with Iran), a fearful or paid for Fourth Estate including a well-watched Republican news network, and a mega-shot at controlling the last day of the news cycle before the election, Monday, November 6th, as they're staging the sentencing of Saddam Hussein (would you expect anything less than shameless?) two days before our election.

Any bets on what the sentence will be?

So after that public bloodletting, or the promise of such, kind of a torture season climax for anyone who's still happy we went in there, there's just GOTV. That's Get Out The Vote as abbreviated.

With all this in mind, here're a few tidbits to help get a grip on where we're at:

The Four Key Senate Races

Per the Associated Press, GOP majority rule in the Senate will be decided by four too-close-to-call contests:

- Former Undersecretary of the Navy Jim Webb (D) challenging Sen. George Allen (R-VA)

- State Auditor Claire McCaskill (D) challenging Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO)

- Rep. Harold Ford (D) vs. former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker (R) for the Tennessee seat Bill Frist is vacating.

- Appointed (2004) Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) vs. State Sen. Tom Kean Jr. (R)

Money quote:

Democrats must gain six seats to win control, and have strong leads in Rhode Island and Montana as well as Pennsylvania and Ohio.

They're all great dramas and how these four races develop on election night will tip you off to the tone of this country for the next two years.

The Fear

For those of us who sleep less easily wondering, "Seven Reasons Why Karl Rove Is Optimistic" was just posted today on The Hotline (part of The National Journal Group). The main reasons (and it's a great, eye-clearing, article to read through), summarized, are:

1. 20 margin-of-error close races he thinks he can win with his GOTV. )Which is why I will always wish the Dem candidate be at least 5% ahead of their rival coming into Election Day.)

2. They think they can win the Senate races in Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri, and will look to put together an upset elsewhere.

3. 15 Congressional districts where they think they did enough negative advertising to knock down the Dem candidates' favorables and squeak back in with their scoundrel.

4. A mantra: What happens during the last week of the election matters as much as what happened during the last month; what happens during the last three days matters as much as the last week. Republicans might catch a break from exogenous events; they might win news cycles in critical areas.

See above re: Saddam. The November surprise?

5. Money. A bit more of it than the Dems, and all running through Ken Mehlman at the NRCC. Whereas there are several different top tier money distributors on the Dem side.

6. They may have lost the periphery of their base, but their core base is revved up, all the usual volunteer programs proceeding apace as with previous years.

And, the saving grace:

7. This final reason is perhaps the most important. If Karl Rove evinces one shred of doubt about the fate of Republican congressional control, he’d be lucky if half of the volunteers who diligently show up to Republican victory centers across the country pack up and go home. Optimism breeds faith. And more importantly, optimism could mean the difference between losing 14 seats and losing 35.

They always play this confidence game, and it always does well for them. Does this mean the Dems should play as confident? After being crushed in the final vote or aftervote three times before, should the attitude be sanguine about our chances (advantage: take nothing for granted) or unwaveringly confident (advantage: juiced Dem electorate)?

My thinking is that it's good to believe people are fed up, that when they get into that booth with that touchscreen on Nov. 7th, even if they're not sure their vote will be fairly tabulated, they'll just want to change the by now ludicrous course this country is on, no more support to the way it's going, the GOP, pull out every leg of George Bush enabling possible.

A boy can dream.

The Improvements

According to an Adam Nagourney article in the Sunday New York Times entitled, "Democrats Push to Counter G.O.P. in Turnout Race":

After two national elections in which Republicans’ sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation helped them triumph over their opponents, Democrats have invested heavily in catching up.

Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean is candid that they might not be at parity yet, expecting more likely to be so in 2008, but thinks the Dems are enthused enough about their chances and GOP depressed enough about their leadership that it'll tip the scales their way on the 7th.

Other Democratic leaders disputed Mr. Dean's view, saying they were increasingly confident about their party's ability to achieve parity, and perhaps regain its dominance, against the Republican get-out-the-vote machinery. Democrats pointed to evidence of what the party's $35 million in spending on turnout programs, nearly matching Republicans, has given them in tight races like the Senate campaign here in Missouri, where Senator Jim Talent, a Republican, won office in 2002 by just 21,000 votes.

Nagourney quotes Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) who's on top of the Senate races this year, who says, "We believe we are now equal to them."

The truth is that until or unless Dr. Dean can get the party GOTV apparatus under a single authority, the question is whether the Dems are unified enough in anti-Bush/GOP/Iraq War purpose to win this election with their decentralized approach:

Democrats are getting help this year in recruiting volunteers from an arena that has more often taunted Democratic officialdom, bloggers and groups like the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and MoveOn.org, which has started sophisticated Internet-based turnout operations that rival what even some party committees are doing.

"We're in about 40 districts right now," said Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org. Mr. Pariser said his group had trained 70,000 people to use its Web-based program to call prospective Democratic voters on lists that MoveOn.org had assembled.

A friend asked today if I was guardedly optimistic. He is, but I'm not yet prepared to go that far. I'm hoping, praying, that by Monday, November 6th, there's no amount of BushCo manufactured news that can stem their bleeding, maybe one last grand slam scandal to drive a stake in their feverdreams of empire, and November 7th flips it all the Dem way.

But even if it does, my money says that the Democrats should sure as hell be better prepared this year for the post-election Karl Rove-direct attack on the results of various key races until he can have some judge give him a majority.

You know, his M.O.