Is abortion losing its political power?

Michael Barone thinks so:

"Prolifers should learn from South Dakota that they aren't going to be able to ban abortion entirely, at least not in any but a few small places. Prochoicers should be noticing that the restrictions that legislatures have been placing on abortion do not prevent abortions from being generally and widely available. Voters even in South Dakota have shown themselves unwilling to agree with prolifers that abortion is morally entirely unacceptable. But voters who have supported restrictions on abortion have shown themselves unwilling to agree with those prochoicers who consider the provision of abortion an unalloyed moral good. The status quo is not acceptable to the rigorous purists among us, and is probably not entirely congenial to most of us. But it seems to be acceptable to the great majority. And so it may be that the abortion issue will be less of a motive force, on both sides, in our politics."

Interesting take, with potential implications for the '08 nomination races, especially on the Republican side.

Don't forget about Jeb

This article should really have appeared in The Onion, but instead it's from CBS News. OK, maybe I'm actually not that surprised.

Think you are almost done with Bush? Think again:

"So, who do they plan on running for President in 2008? Let's see. Who's comfortable with all these friends and advisors of the first George Bush? Who has experience in waging war against Iraq? And who could become president without saying one negative word about the current president? There's only one man who fits this bill. That's right — George Herbert Walker Bush."

I'll grant that most of this article is supposed to be a joke, just not a very funny one. (Hat tip: Moonbattery)

What exactly would it take to be dissatisfied?

I'm happy to announce that Senator Elizabeth Dole, chair of the NRSC, is pleased with her performance:

"As the chairwoman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, it was Sen. Elizabeth Dole's job to keep the Senate in GOP hands. She couldn't.

So after two years in the Senate Republican leadership, Dole tumbles into the minority - back to her status as the freshman senator from North Carolina and, perhaps, out of favor among Republican activists frustrated by Tuesday's election results.

Dole said she's satisfied with her performance.

'I can sleep well at night knowing we did everything possible to hold the Senate,' she said in a telephone interview Thursday. 'All I know is I worked my head off, and that's all you can do.'"

She did all she could. Or did she? Let's review the fundraising of the key party committees for both sides (through 10/18):

• RNC - $208m, DNC - $119m; Republican advantage 75%
• NRCC - $152m, DCCC - $108m; Republican advantage 41%
• NRSC - $78m, DSCC - $104m; Republican "advantage" -25%

It isn't a stretch to think that even parity with the Democrats (i.e. an additional $26 million) would have saved at least one seat, and hence the majority. Regardless of what headwinds the Republicans faced this year, the NRSC faced the same ones as the other Republican committees. Yet the NRSC performed significantly worse, all while having fewer seats to defend than the Democrats.

Any way you cut it, Dole's leadership was an unmitigated disaster, and she deserves a fair amount of the blame for having lost the majority. I hope her colleagues remember that the next time she runs for a leadership position.

(By the way, I'll update my look at incumbent Republican Senators that were sitting on excess cash after all the spending reports are in for the final few weeks of the election.)

Did you enjoy the time off?

OK, at least they can't blame us for starting the '08 election cycle already:

Democrat Vilsack launches run for White House

Election potpourri

So the dust has settled a bit, although there are still about ten house races to be called (and most likely to be recounted). If everything holds as appears likely, the Republicans will have lost 29 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate. By now you've read tons of exhaustive commentary on the voting, so I'm not going to be thorough here. I only want to highlight a couple of issues, briefly, and then move onto two more in depth.

Predictions revisited. Hold on, let me get some tissue for this egg on my face. More seriously, I was obviously off having suggested the losses would be 15 and 3 (good thing I do better at picking stocks). Actually, the House is less surprising to me than the Senate. As soon as the first generic exit polls came out (what issue was important to you, when did you make up your mind, etc?) I knew we were in trouble; if I had revised my guess after reading those, I probably would have said we'd lose 25 seats. The Senate was a lot more unexpected; for the record, the three races I had wrong were Virginia, Missouri, and Maryland (the last of which was probably a little bit of wishful thinking on my part).

How to handle losing an election. With all due respect to my friends on the Left, I think there may be something to learn from the Right here. If you spent a good part of the past day talking with, reading, or listening to various conservatives, you didn't hear sour grapes about "stolen" races, taking to the streets, etc. This even though 22 of the Democratic House gains last night were by 2% or less, 18 by fewer than 5000 votes. Not to point out the obvious, but if the vast right wing conspiracy was bent on staying in power no matter what, don't you think we wouldn't let something like that happen? Or maybe that we would change some votes in Montana or Virginia? We lost, and losing has consequences, which we will live with. There will be spirited debates about why more voters didn't agree with us, not about how they really did but those nefarious Democrats disenfranchised them. Of course, there are still idiots who think Bush - despite apparently not fixing the election - is instead building concentration camps and planning on martial law to stop their effect (Hat tip: Hot Air).

A conservative country. Or, more accurately, a moderately conservative country. Most conservative ballot initiatives passed nationwide, and a lot of the newly elected Democrats are much more conservative than the average Democrat in today's Congress (in fact, a number of them could quite easily pass for Republicans). The biggest hits the Republican caucus took were in its moderate ranks, not in its conservative ones. Most of the losses stem from corruption and the war, not a broad to move to the Left. I'm not saying that couldn't happen in the future, only that it didn't happen yesterday.

2008. Non-political junkies don't want to hear this, but people are going to be talking about 2008 in a meaningful way before you're done returning those Christmas presents you don't like. No incumbent President or Vice President running, leaving the race wide open. Both sides of Congress realistically at play (my early feeling being that the House is more vulnerable than the Senate, but more on that another time). It is going to be the mother of all elections, and both sides are going to be bringing their "A game." Brace yourself.

CNN's blogger party. In case you missed it, CNN gathered a bunch of the big bloggers from both sides of the aisle to all blog from the same place in DC. A number of the blogs I read religiously were there. I didn't watch CNN's TV coverage, but from what I read and saw in pictures it didn't seem very conducive to work, and that there were some pretty big tech issues as well. More importantly to me as a "consumer" of their blogs, I think the work really suffered (at least one participant seems to agree). I'm guessing it was very tough to focus there, flip channels, chase down things on the web, etc. Overall, a lot of the stuff that came out of the room last night was, well, kind of superficial and late. I'm not going to pick out any specific examples - after all, I want them all to link to me in the future (*wink*). The participants might have gotten a lot out of the experience (meeting each other, etc.), but they should know that such benefits came at a cost. They can decide for themselves if the trade off was worth it.

There you go, a couple of random thoughts. I want to delve deeper, though, into two other issues because of the election: what's the next step on Iraq, and some comments about the nature of compromise in electoral coalitions. Those each deserve their own post; expect them sometime tomorrow.

The election

Cliff May sums it up nicely:

"The Democrats said: 'Had enough?'

The Republicans said: 'It could be worse!'

The voters said: 'Let’s find out.'"

Much more later, as I am still recovering from staying up way too late trying to figure out how in the heck it takes so long to count votes in Montana.

I am really worried about the Senate . . .

. . . in 2008. Republicans have 21 seats to defend, while the Democrats have only 12. This year the GOP actually had fewer seats than the Democrats to defend. Plus, there are a number of potential retirements in that list . . .

What, too early to start talking about 2008? OK, I promise not to mention it again until . . . tomorrow.

Just trying to lighten the mood a little today . . .

Gadfly's crystal ball

Well, it's finally here. Months of vitriol behind us, billions of dollars spent. The polls open in a few short hours, and by this time tomorrow we should - aside from potential recounts and litigation - know roughly how it will all turn out.

Are you ready? Have you read what some of the experts predict? Do you know how you're going to track the results as they come in? Have you filled out your bracket? Do you know what the fallout is going to be depending on the results?

Well, for what it is worth (which isn't much), I just went through all the Senate races and the 50 or so most competitive House races to see how I think they will turn out. In the Senate, I see the Republicans losing 3 seats, leaving them at 52. This mean they would both retain the majority, as well as avoid any danger of Chafee pulling a Jeffords and flipping control by switching parties (although I currently have him in my loss category anyway).

In the House, I have the GOP losing 15 seats, putting them at 217. Yikes. I swear, I didn't plan it that way, it was just what the piles added up to after I finished sorting them. By the way, that is with me predicting the Republicans will lose two of their three incumbents in Connecticut. Holding all three (as we discussed here and here) would keep the House GOP. Should the House actually wind up 218-217 Democratic, all bets are off. I'll put off speculating about the consequences of that until we see if that happens. Needless to say, the House could break either way.

If the Republicans do lose 3 and 15, what will that mean? Well, if you look back through history, Presidents in their sixth year average something like 29-35 seats lost in the House. You don't see any mention of that kind of historical context in this article by the Times today, but be sure to keep it mind. A loss of 20 seats, say, would actually mean a historical out performance by the Republicans, not that it will be reported that way should it happen.

There will be plenty of time for analysis later. In the meantime, don't forget to vote.

What if the GOP retains control?

Stanley Kurtz has given the topic some thought:

"No doubt, there are those who will dismiss all this as implausible scare-mongering. Profanity at liberal political websites, Democrats rooting for America to lose a war, the end of open and fair exchange on America’s college campuses, efforts to stop military recruitment, suicidal infighting over foreign policy in the party of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman: I admit that it all sounds implausible. It certainly bears little resemblance to the America that once was. Nonetheless, I greatly fear that a last-minute Republican victory could usher in some or all of these consequences. So before you push that lever, think long and hard about the dangers of a Republican win."

On a more serious note, there are some people with real stakes in this election who seem to think it matters quite a bit. Of course, these are the same people that I hear from one of our Senators (as well as some editorial writers) aren't always the brightest bulbs:

"...People in the US who want to support the troops, who believe we are engaged in a war, and who recognize the long term consequences of failure need to look past all other issues and vote Republican. Democrats have no policy and can not be trusted. But, even worse, they display no apparent understanding of the dangers to our western civilization presented by the enemy. Their actions since 2001 indicate they are willing to sacrifice the safety and integrity of the USA in the future for short term political gains today.

Ironically, I say this, not as a Republican - (I am Libertarian) - but as a person who recognizes that islamicist fundamentalism is the single greatest threat to our western society in the modern era. I say this as an atheist. I say this as someone who is apalled by the anti-science bias of the Republican party. I say this as someone who doesn't give 2 shits about abortion, suppressing gay-rights, or activist judges. So, as you can tell, the majority of Republican issues are anathema to me, and I still fervently hope they retain control of the Govt..."

[ADDED: Read this article, too.]

Wait, some people think you should vote for the Republicans even of you disagree with them on some issues? Somebody tell Sullivan, assuming he's not still rereading his book.

Teflon John

Save for maybe comptroller, make no mistake about how bad the NY state-wide races are going to be for the GOP. One obvious way to tell? Finger pointing in the New York Times about the losses even before the polls open:

"Anticipating historic political losses in New York tomorrow, state Republican leaders are lashing out at the national party in Washington, saying it has exploited New York donors and blown opportunities against a prime target, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton."

Well, isn't that helpful? There are going to be a lot of Republican operatives in this state looking for jobs pretty soon, and it seems some want to get a head start on "framing the issues." Of course, it's not the locals' fault; it's national's:

"'The national party comes into New York, does significant fund-raising here, and then there’s very little in the way of national support for statewide races,' Mr. Faso said. 'It’s disappointing, and a serious mistake in terms of party building.' . . . While New York Republicans are used to giving more to Washington than they get back, they say they are particularly aggrieved this year."

Apparently, political giving is some sort of model of federal pork barrel spending. Pay a bunch to the center, but make sure some crumbs make it back to the local hacks. As a donor, let me assure you that I want the money given to national committees, organizations, etc. to go to the places it will be most effective, not where people feel put out.

At a more basic level, realize this: New York is a very rich area for political donations to both parties. The article reports that New Yorkers have donated $152 million this cycle. If the people closest to the local races are apparently unmoved to give, why should the national groups do so in what appears to be lost races?

I reserve, though, special disdain for our Senate candidate, John Spencer, with whom you may remember I've already exhibited some displeasure:

"'They blew the Hillary race, and now Hillary has a ton of i.o.u.s from Democrats nationwide for when she runs for president,' said Mr. Spencer, who is trailing Senator Clinton by more than 30 percentage points in most public polls."

Pardon my language, but I've got to say, that takes balls. "They blew the Hillary race." They? Give me a break.

Through September 30th, John Spencer raised $4.7 million for his run. Clinton raised $37.9 million. He has never shown momentum in any of the polls. In, you know, the real world, this type of drubbing might be thought to reflect on the candidate or the race he ran. In this bizzarro world, however, it becomes the fault of others:

"Mrs. Clinton has had nary a worry this fall, thanks to a poorly financed and politically lackluster campaign by Mr. Spencer, who said he was counting on Washington support and money to keep her on the ropes. Now Mrs. Clinton is even more formidably positioned for a possible presidential run in 2008, he said.

'I think national Republicans were afraid that if John Spencer took off as a candidate, it would divert millions of dollars into New York against Senator Clinton, whereas they wanted to spend the money elsewhere,' said John McLaughlin, Mr. Spencer’s senior strategist."

Why should Spencer have been counting on national support? Are there not enough Republican donors around here? Couldn't they tell if he was an investment worth making?

Mr. McLaughlin is right about something. National Republicans did want to spend the money elsewhere, namely where they could win. It was up to Spencer and his campaign to show them that New York was one of those places. They failed quite miserably to do so.

Well done, gentlemen. Well done.

More CT

Like I said before, if you set fire to your house, sometimes you wind up burning it down. Who knows if it will come down to this, but oh the joy if it does.

UPDATE: I can't be as dumb as I look if the Economist notes the same thing, can I? Even if it did take them a couple more days . . .

Kerry on Conan

OK, not the real John Kerry, just one of Conan's still pictures with the lips moving. Still funny:

Kerry: "Until Bush admits he's botched this war, I, John Kerry, vow to continue to tell jokes all the way to victory on election day."

O'Brien: "OK, actually, sir, I don't think that's what your party needs right now. I don't think people want you out there telling jokes."

Kerry: "Get ready to laugh. A guy walks into a bar, and orders a purple knee high."

O'Brien: "Uh huh, yeah."

Kerry: "The bartender says, 'What's a purple knee high?' And the guy says, 'Our soldiers are idiots.' Wait, I botched it. Wait. That's not how it goes. Hold on. Wait a minute."

Delicious irony

Via RealClearPolitics:

"The apparent end of the much-ballyhooed Lamont phenomenon is causing a great deal of soul-searching and recrimination in all corners of the Democratic Party. The bloggers that once championed Mr. Lamont as an awkward but earnest savior now alternately blame Washington’s strategists for hijacking their candidate and Democratic leaders for abandoning him. Beltway consultants fault the Lamont campaign for failing to move the candidate beyond his left-wing celebrity and define him for a greater electorate. . .

'The primary was much more about anger at Bush and the war,' said Josh Isay, a media advisor to Mr. Lieberman and former consultant to Mayor Michael Bloomberg who joined the campaign in August. He stressed that the Lieberman campaign was taking nothing for granted, but argued that the general electorate played much more to his candidate’s favor. 'You have different people going to the voting booth; you have Republicans, independents, unaffiliated—a bigger pie of Democrats.'" (link)

Had they left him alone, Lieberman would have cruised to reelection this year, and they could have devoted their resources elsewhere. Instead, they made a stand in Connecticut, diverting people, money, and media that could have gone to other races (and been deployed against, oh, I don't know, Republicans).

Instead, they targeted their former Vice Presidential nominee - one who agrees with them on almost everything else - simply for his position on the war. Some big tent.

He's been one of the most popular politicians in the state over the past two decades, a state that has more independents than members of either party. They mistakenly thought he would be driven off into the sunset, but were obviously wrong about that.

Now they are paying the price. In a lovely lesson of actions having unintended consequences, their strategy and Lieberman's reaction to it might just save the House for the GOP:

"Sen. Joe Lieberman alienated plenty of Democrats with his independent bid. Just imagine their anger if he costs them control of the House.

The three-term Connecticut senator is aggressively pursuing Republican and independent voters in his race against Democratic nominee Ned Lamont and little-known Republican Alan Schlesinger. That targeted appeal — and the potential for a strong GOP turnout — could save three GOP House incumbents struggling to return to Washington."

It is very possible that the control of the House will literally be by a seat or two. If the Republicans wind up with 218 or 219 seats by means of holding onto their three Connecticut incumbents, can you imagine the reaction of the Left? Oh, the delicious irony. Of course, they will blame Lieberman, rather than their actions which created the situation in the first place.

Republican against capitalism

If you read this blog, it's should be clear that I'm a Republican, and hence want the GOP to win next week. That said, I'm not the type who thinks you never criticize someone on your own side, as I've shown here and here. This is one of those posts.

I just heard an absolutely awful radio ad for Congresswoman Sue Kelly. She was criticizing her opponent John Hall for owning mutual funds that invest in, among other things, Pfizer, Wal-Mart, and oil companies. There was also a charge that one of the companies in one fund shifted something offshore for tax purposes (or something like that, I missed the exact point). I've looked on her campaign site (and elsewhere) for a link to the ad itself, but can't find any. I'll post one if I can track it down.

Now, I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt that this is in response to other things that have been happening in the race. This clip that I just found from a cable TV debate suggests that the issue of Hall's mutual fund holdings has come up before. That said, do Republicans really want to be running ads that disparage opponents because they own mutual funds, especially ones that own such mainstays of the American economy? So much for the "ownership society."

I'm sure there are plenty of Kelly defenders that will say I am missing the "nuance" of the ad, that it is about hypocrisy, etc. Nonsense. If I, as a political junkie and investment professional, am missing the nuance, then I can guarantee you that the average voter will as well. And it will contribute to a culture that will make attacks like this acceptable. In the end such a culture will be much more damaging to Republicans rather than Democrats, never mind society at large.

I know next to nothing about Sue Kelly and the dynamics of this race. But I do know that this ad is just terrible, and if this is the best she can do, we are in real trouble. Maybe her internals are even worse than the published numbers, which show it a toss-up right now. The ad reeks of desperation.

Plus, if poor Larry Kudlow hears this ad he might just have a heart attack, and we can't have that happen.

UPDATE: An anti-Kelly blogger in the comments provides the link that I couldn't find myself; you can listen to the ad here. I actually wound up hearing the ad a few more times today on the radio, and let me tell you that it did not grow on me. At all.

About the only possible (defensible) rationale I could think of for it would be if Hall had made similar accusations about Kelly before. Even then, this is just stupid (and that's the nicest word I can come up with for it). As I said before, I know very little about Rep. Kelly, and even less about her race this year. For all I know, she may be an excellent congresswoman, and I selfishly want her to win this year in order to help preserve the Republican majority. That said, the best thing I can say about this ad is that it is embarrassing (to the side that paid for it, mind you). If saying so gives comfort to her opponents this week, so be it.

Please, take this thing off the air already, and make a real case for why either 1) you deserve to be sent to Washington, or 2) your opponent does not. This ad is not it.

Quote of the day

Just watched (at 5:12 pm eastern time) an exchange between Wolf Blitzer and Jack Cafferty on CNN. Cafferty went on a rant about Kerry's comments yesterday. Not the comments themselves, of course, but rather their effect:

"Why is John Kerry speaking anywhere about anything? What does he symbolize when it comes to the Democratic Party? Failure. He lost the election in 2004. . .

[Howard Dean should say to Kerry:] 'Go get on your boat. Go fish. Go play soccer. Go out and commune with nature. Sit in the woods until the election is over. Please don't talk. Please don't have your picture taken. Just go away.'

He symbolizes failure. You know, watching the Democrats try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is a spectator sport in this country, and here they go, flirting with it again. . . Why is he talking to anybody? . . . Wait till the election is over. It's not helping."

You can almost hear him thinking, "With all the help we're giving you, how can you possibly not win this thing running away? Get out of our way, we'll take care of it." I think he's worried.

I'll look for a video link, and if I can find one will post it.

UPDATE: Welcome Hot Air readers. You might also be interested in GOP senators who are sitting on their cash (here and here), a conspiracy theorist who thinks that the government has a cloaking device, what CBS News thinks of the current Congress, or what Ted Turner had to say about North Koreans being "thin." Enjoy.

UPDATE 2: Here is a link to the transcript. The portion in question is a little less than half way down.

UPDATE 3: Don Imus has advice similar to Jack Cafferty's (via Drudge):

Regarding the contention that this was just a "joke" gone wrong, well, the only person who knows that for sure is Senator Kerry. As for the broader opinions of the military by some on the Left, though, I will direct your attention to some excellent comments by John at Power Line. Money quote:

"Why are liberals so determined to hang on to these discredited stereotypes of the past? I suspect it is because the young men and women who serve in the armed forces are a constant reproach to liberals' facile, politically-motivated pronouncements on foreign policy. Iraq is a disaster (never mind that I voted for it)! But the young men and women who are stationed there don't think so. They re-enlist in remarkable numbers; a large majority believe in their mission; and they are working hard, risking their lives, and making considerable progress on many fronts. So it's helpful for liberals to think: what do they know? They're only soldiers--they must be dumb!"

Obviously there are many people who don't think like that. But I know from my own experiences that such an attitude definitely exists.

UPDATE 4: "Mel Gibson without the booze."

This ad brought to you by the DNC

I had the TV on in the background before while I was on the computer. As you would expect for the week before the election, over the course of an hour there were candidate ads for senate, congress, some state-wide races and some local ones. I wasn't even looking at the screen a few minutes ago when a new ad started with the following voice over:

"Stepping up when the do little congress won't."

OK, must be a Democratic ad for something. It continued:

"On issues like immigration, the minimum wage, stem cell research, and the environment, states are taking the initiative, and California leads the pack."

California? I'm in New York. What candidate thinks they should mention California?

"Tonight, the Golden State's tough new laws, and what they mean for you. When Katie Couric reports from LA on the CBS evening news. See it now."

Wow. And they're surprised that no one trusts them.

Quote of the day

"Bush hatred is silly and parochial and reductive: History is on the march and the anti-Bush crowd is holding the telescope the wrong way round." - Mark Steyn

There is still time to make a difference

As a follow-up to my earlier post here, I just spent some time on PoliticalMoneyLine looking at the latest cash on hand figures for the various Republican senators and candidates. First, more bad news about the overall state of the NRSC, from the committee reports:

As I said before, what a disaster. Given the incredible importance and closeness of the election, though, are our existing Republican senators in any position to help out? Here are the latest cash on hand figures for current Republican incumbent senators:

I took the polling data from here. So, we have incumbents who aren't even up for reelection this year sitting on $46 million in cash, and people who are running this year but up by over 30 points sitting on another $19 million. That's $65 million in total.

Think among them they could come up with $10 million or so for the NRSC in about 24 hours? I do.

Think another $10 million or so of ads in two or three key races might be enough to save some seats? I do.

I know that I am ignoring the PACs they run, etc., and that I am also in a way penalizing those who have done a good job raising money. The fact remains, though, that these resources are currently there, and spending down some of them over the next two weeks may be the difference between a majority in the next congress or not.

So, how do we get some pressure on these senators to get their checkbooks out? Dole clearly isn't up to the challenge - the pressure is going to have to come from elsewhere.

[As an aside, I'm sitting here thinking through GOP monetary campaign strategy in a coffee shop in NYC's East Village. If the people around me knew what I was typing away about, they would probably throw me out. Or something worse . . .]

UPDATE: Power Line quotes Charlie Cook on the MD Senate race, which he now thinks is a toss-up:

"One question is whether the national Republican Party will get involved in the race now that polls show a closer-than-expected contest? Advertising in Maryland, particularly in the Washington, DC media market, can be expensive and there are only 11 days left. If the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee or the Republican National Committee does become engaged in the next few days, they could make a difference just by matching what national Democrats have spent and launching some attacks on Cardin."

There's a place for some of that money. NJ would be another good choice. Actually, to hit NJ you need to buy time in NY and Philadelphia. Generic ads in the Philadelphia market would have the added benefit of helping Santorum as well. MO, TN, and VA would seem to be the other candidates for more help.

If you're up by over 30 points, kick in 20% of your cash - you don't need it. If you aren't up for reelection until 2010, kick in 20% of your cash - you'll have plenty of time to get more. If you're up for reelection in 2008, kick in only 10% of your cash in order to be extra cautious. If the existing GOP senators all did that, it would mean an additional $11 million for ads in the coming 10 days.

Don't any of them want to be chairmen next year?

Mr. President, pick up the phone

This is just inexcusable. Overall, Elizabeth Dole's leadership of the NRSC has been a disaster - out-recruited, out-fundraised, out-maneuvered. What's past is past, though. As of today, what can be done is that those GOP Senators sitting on ample financial resources can pony up, and fast. If it means you need to run a few more fundraisers next year to refill your account, then that is what you do. If they don't do it on their own, it's time for the President to do some old fashioned arm twisting. In case any of them haven't noticed, the stakes, are, um, kind of high.

For what it's worth, I've thought for a while (say the last two months or so) that the Republicans were going to lose three seats this election, leaving them with 52. I guess I should stick with that, although if I was going to update it today, I might drop down to 51. 52 will probably require winning either Montana or New Jersey; either is possible, but both are looking tougher.

UPDATE: Blogs on the left are getting the right idea, and pushing their flush candidates to shift resources for the common good. When are the blogs on the right going to do the same? The clock is ticking. . .

John in Wonderland

I'm sorry, but if John Spencer thought the NRSC was going to pour money into the NY Senate race, he's delusional (via the Note):

"He said National Republican Senatorial Committee head Elizabeth Dole promised him millions last year. But the political weather has darkened for Republicans, now worried about saving endangered seats. When Spencer went to Washington last week for the money, Dole sent him home empty handed.

'I'm deeply disappointed in their lack of courage,' he said. 'To actually give me nothing is an outrage.'"

In case he hasn't noticed, the party actually has a couple of other races that it is keeping its eyes on, maybe ones a tad bit closer than Mr. Spencer's bid.

If you run for Senate, it is your responsibility to raise money for your campaign, not to claim "outrage" that the national party is choosing to devote resources to races where, you know, their candidate is maybe within 20 points.

The NY GOP disaster looks as likely as ever.

UPDATE: And Bruno positions to take as little heat as possible, although what he is saying is true.