Guide to Tuesday night's US election results

Stuart Rothenberg and Nathan Gonzales on Political Wire provide a guide to the "Races to Watch" on US election night on Tuesday. Bear in mind that we are five hours ahead, so the fun starts at midnight (our time) by watching for three results in Kentucky, which should show the shape of things to come for the House of Representatives.

No doubt, BBC News 24 and Sky News will be covering the elections throughout the night.

If you can't get CNN through the cable or satelitte, I would recommend CNN Pipeline which allows you to sign up for 24 hours for just 99 cents. It gives you a dashboard which allows you to watch any one of four live feeds plus their whole current news video collection. It is well worth subscribing in the run-up to the elections and for election night.

Pollsters: Kerry cock-up won't have much impact on elections

Reuters are reporting that "Sen. John Kerry's "botched joke" about the Iraq war riled fellow Democrats and temporarily energized Republicans, but it is unlikely to have much, if any, impact in Tuesday's congressional elections." They go on:

While a Republican backlash against Kerry could help determine the outcome of a few razor-close congressional races, it's highly unlikely to change enough votes to determine the battle for control of Congress, analysts said.
"The impact will be very, very minimal," said Stuart Rothenberg of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. "This election is not about John Kerry.
It is about George Bush and the war in Iraq."
Rothenberg said he doubted the flap would cost Democrats a seat in the Senate, though it could have an effect on a few tight House races.

US Democrats' election prospects: It can't be this good!

The US blogosphere is buzzing with good news for the Democrats in the run-up to next Tuesday's congress elections. But my feeling is: It can't be this good!

A remarkably frank "Republican strategist" on Channel 4 news last night, who freely admitted Bush's unpopularity, predicted Democrat control of the House with a 3-4 seat majority and Republicans keeping control of the Senate by hanging on in Montana, Missouri and Tennessee.

If the Democrats manage just that, plus a clutch of gubernatorial wins, then at least we have got to the end of a dark, Bushy tunnel!

However, if we suspend our natural caution for a moment and enjoy some of the things streaming in from the polls very recently, they are incredibly good for the Democrats:

-Political Wire reports excerpts from the latest Rothenberg report. It predicts House Democrat gains of 34-40 seats and Senate gains of 5-7 giving the Democrats control of both chambers.

-The latest strategy memo from Stan Greenberg and James Carville says:

It is very hard to look at the most recent Democracy Corps survey in the 50 most competitive Republican-held districts finished last night and not conclude that we are headed toward a 1994 election -- with the Democratic majority approaching that of the Gingrich Congress. The named Democratic vote for Congress has moved up from a 3-point lead to 7-point margin since Sunday, with the named Democrat for the first time moving over 50 percent (51 to 44 percent). For the first time, the Democratic candidate is ahead on average in the bottom tier of least competitive races.

-My US psephological hero, Ruy Teixeira, has handed down his third Election update. He reckons that the favourable polling amongst independents for the Democrats will swamp any Rove get-out-the-vote "magic" (which he demolishes in importance anyway):

National polls continue to confirm a very wide lead for Democrats among independent voters. For example, the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll showed the Democrats running an amazing 28 point lead among independents, a finding that was discussed at length in the Post story on the poll. As I have continually stressed--and the mainstream press is now starting to pick up on--the Roveian fire-up-the-base-and-screw-the-middle strategy only works mathematically if losses in the political center can be minimized. Now they can't and the GOP is likely to pay the price--and very probably not just in this election.

Teixeira also reports excellent polling for the Democrats amongst many groupings:

Let me also draw your attention to a very interesting study released by the Pew Research Center that, among other things, compares a wide range of demographic groups' current voting intentions to their voting intentions at this point in the 2002 campaign. If you read one poll in detail this election cycle, let it be this one. The Pew data show huge swings toward the Democrats among many important voter groups including seniors, middle income voters, non-college educated voters, whites, rural residents, married moms, white Catholics--the list goes on and on. In effect, these shifts have turned yesterday's swing voters into Democratic groups and many of yesterday's Republican groups into swing voters.

Man who "talks to Bush or advisers every Monday" allegedly orders his crystal meths

It is very sad when someone is embroiled in a scandal, mainly of their own making. I feel great sympathy for Pastor Ted Haggard, and more especially for his family. But you have to ask how anyone could be so stupid.

Ted Haggard is the accepted leading voice of 30 million Evangelicals in the US. Wikipedia says:

Author Jeff Sharlet reports that Haggard "talks to... Bush or his advisers every Monday" and opines that "no pastor in America holds more sway over the political direction of evangelicalism."[12] In a June 2005 Wall Street Journal article, "Ted Haggard, the head of the 30-million strong National Association of Evangelicals, jokes that the only disagreement between himself and the leader of the Western world is automotive: Mr. Bush drives a Ford pickup, whereas he prefers a Chevy."[13]

Now, it is alleged that he said this on the phone, referring to an order for crystal meths:

"Hi Mike, this is Art. Hey, I was just calling to see if we could get any more. Either $100 or $200 supply. And I could pick it up really anytime I could get it tomorrow or we could wait till next week sometime and so I also wanted to get your address. "

Katherine Harris to get hammered at the polls? Sob. Sob

It would be indecent for me to show any glee in reporting that it looks as though Katherine Harris will get well and truly stuffed in her bid for the US Senate.

Or, as the BBC puts it more reservedly: "Recount Unlikely".

Forever engraved on my brain, will be the image of Harris announcing in 2000, with all due pomp and ceremony that, surprise, surprise (as she was both Co-Chair of Bush's Florida election campaign and the person responsible for purging the Florida electoral rolls of anyone remotely likely to vote for Gore) Bush was to receive Florida's electoral college votes and therefore become President.

I take no pleasure now (he lies) that she is going to get hammered at the polls, having spent a fortune of her own money and been more or less disowned by Jeb Bush and many Republicans.

I repeat, I take no pleasure whatsoever now in reporting that she is going to get absolutely hammered at the polls.

George Bush's real intended joke about Iraq

Jerome Armstrong reports via TP that John Kerry apologised for his botched joke:

This morning on MSNBC, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) apologized for his comments on Monday. "Of course I'm sorry for the botched joke," he said, calling his comments "pretty stupid."

End of story. Unless of course the Republicans really want to show everyone in the US that they are so desparate this is all they can campaign on - a cocked up joke which has been apologised for.

If they do continue to press this one, then perhaps there should be more circulation of George Bush's real intended joke about Iraq - click below. I see that Joe Lieberman particularly enjoyed the joking.

Update on Republican "mock outrage"

The Daily Kos has an excellent post on the Bush/Kerry "joke" storm.

Even Republican Dick Armey agrees that the Republicans noise on Kerry's botched joke is "mock outrage"

The actual line Kerry meant to say was:

I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq.

And here is some of Kerry's rebuttal:

If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I'm sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.
I'm not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq . It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.
The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.
Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they're afraid to debate real men. And this time it won't work because we're going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq .