Yes Virginia, the Democrats believe in Santa Claus.

 

I don’t think even the inflatable reindeer up there believes in Santa Claus… 😉

A commenter linked to this Bob Parry piece in the previous thread, but it is good enough to roll out again (on Donner! on Blitzen!):

Considering everything that’s at stake, many Democrats appear to be devoting way too much energy to their anticipation of victory – and to an obsession with polls about which seats are “in play” – rather than in sealing the deal with the voters.

Oh.  Voters.  Them…

“I’ve moved from optimistic to giddy,” Gordon R. Fischer, a former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, told the New York Times.

“I know a lot of people are in somersault land,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., and chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, although he didn’t count himself among them.

Democrats also seem to be hoping for victory by default as Republicans sink under the weight of chaos in Iraq and corruption scandals on Capitol Hill.

Alert the elves to prepare for our arrival!

“I think we have the best chance to take over simply because of the pileup of disasters,” said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. [NYT, Oct. 22, 2006]

Granted, some Democrats have issued cautionary warnings against over-confidence and many remember their premature celebrations in 2004 when the early exit polls showed Sen. John Kerry winning the White House. Opinion polls two weeks before an election mean even less, especially given the GOP’s reputation for hardball election tactics.

hmmm.  Some even believed they would win well into the cocktail hour on Nov 2, 2004…

But there is a troubling sense of déjà vu as Democrats let Republicans raise alarms on the Right about the dangers of a Democratic victory, while Democrats let up on their warnings to liberals, independents and even constitutional conservatives about what a Republican victory would foreshadow.

Yes… Candy Crowley and her line up of DLCers, Third Way, Red State Dems, and whoever else have a wonderful hatchet job running off and on all day long on CNN.  It was gag worthy.  They say there will be a similar production for the Republican side of the bed. 

Oh I don’t think so:

CROWLEY (voice-over): Asheville, we have a problem.

What’s a Democratic anyway? The party struggles to find itself and Shuler gets an unexpected assist.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CROWLEY: Hardcore Democrats in the 11th District have been waiting 16 years to put one of their own in Congress, but honestly, this is not what they had in mind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On a number of issues, on abortion, on immigration, and on gay rights, he’s absolutely indistinguishable from Charles Taylor.

CROWLEY: Ouch. Shuler just doesn’t fit the template. It’s remarkably difficult for a conservative to find space in the party.

The day her husband was nominated, Teresa Heinz Kerry did a meet and greet with the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Not exactly.

SAUNDERS: You know, I went to a DNC meeting one time, and they said, you know, the Women’s Caucus will meet over here, and the Black Caucus will be over here, and the gays will be over here. We forgot about the big tent. We’ve assembled a whole bunch of pup tents.

COWAN: And many voters, particularly white men, saw that collection of interest groups and said, that’s not me, there’s nothing in it for me.

CROWLEY: This is party with so many identities, it has no identity.

HATTAWAY: When you see an R after the candidate’s name on the ballot, you pretty much know what you’re going to get. Too many people in too many places see a D on the ballot and they don’t know what they’re going to get.

CROWLEY: This is no way to win an election. Democrats have been a minority on Capitol Hill for 12 years. When George Bush’s term ends in 2009, Democrats would have occupied the Oval Office just 12 of the last 40 years. In the last two elections, Gore and Kerry lost the entire South and much of the mid and interior West.

Tell Grover Norquist to move over.  The Dems will let ol’ Mudcat Saunders murder them, and from within.  Why off shore the work?

I was not going to bother to add this, a hard swipe at Rahm… But for the third day the Taps at the close of The News Hour was for 15, 16, 17 names.  Mostly men, from 19 to 40.  I felt like I was being tossed about on sharp rocks.  I am sick to death of the war mongers.

The closing graf:

But Emanuel and his fellow hawks may yet fail to get their way. Major figures among the rulers of U.S. empire, and their well-compensated advisors, from James Baker to Jimmy Carter to Zbigniew Brzezinski to Mearsheimer and Walt, see disaster looming unless the neocons of both War Parties with their dual loyalties to the U.S. and Israel are brought to heel. Second and more important, the people are fed up with the war on Iraq and wary of other wars the hawks like Emanuel have planned for us.The politicians who win office, whether Rove’s Republicans or Emanuel’s Democrats, will have to deal with this rising tide of anger or risk losing their sinecures. That risk is offset by the machinations of Emanuel and others to guarantee that there is no genuine opposition party or movement. And that lack of a real opposition is a problem we must solve.

Brownstein has a piece up in the LA Times… polls – LA Times/Bloomberg – and observations.

Underscoring the midterm election’s volatility, the survey results in all of these contests fall within the margin of error for the polling, which means they are too close to call.

The Democrats need a net gain of six seats to win a Senate majority. Polls in the other key Senate races show Democratic challengers holding consistent — though in some cases narrow — leads against GOP incumbents in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Montana.

If Democrats captured those three seats, won Ohio and held New Jersey, Senate control would hinge on the outcomes in Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia.

If Democrats win two of these three races, they would have a 51-49 Senate majority. If they win just one, the Senate would be split 50-50 between the parties and Vice President Dick Cheney would provide the tie-breaking vote in the chamber for Republicans.

The latest Times/Bloomberg surveys underscore the trends that are creating opportunities for Democrats — particularly anxiety about the Iraq war and erosion of support for the GOP among centrists. But the poll findings also highlight the obstacles Democrats face in converting the national current of discontent into gains in conservative-leaning states.

Taegan Godard has polls up for races as well.  I am not a numbers person, but I see cliff hangers.

The latest round of MSNBC/McClatchy polls, conducted by Mason-Dixon, show Democrats “are slightly closer to taking control of the Senate than they were last month.” These results shows Democrats gaining five seats. To take control, Democrats need to win six seats.

Pennsylvania: Bob Casey (D) leads Rick Santorum (R), 51% to 39%
Rhode Island: Sheldon Whitehouse (D) leads Lincoln Chafee (R), 48% to 43%
Missouri: Claire McCaskill (D) leads Jim Talent (R), 46% to 43%
New Jersey: Bob Menendez (D) leads Thomas Kean Jr (R), 45% to 42%
Washington: Maria Cantwell (D) leads Mike McGavick (R), 52% to 37%
Ohio: Sherrod Brown (D) leads Mike DeWine (R), 48% to 40%
Montana: Jon Tester (D) leads Conrad Burns (R), 46% to 43%
Tennessee: Bob Corker (R) leads Harold Ford (D), 45% to 43%
Virginia: George Allen (R) leads James Webb (D), 47% to 43%

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UPDATE, 5:20 am

I don’t know how many articles I have read on Nancy and the damned committees and chairs.  But Isikoff is up with a projection on the god damned mess… and if this has been reported before, I have missed it:

[B]ut much as Democrats might like to see a thousand hearings bloom, there is one thing standing in their way: the Democratic leader herself. Nancy Pelosi, who would presumably become Speaker if the party wins the House, has made it clear that she does not want to turn the Capitol into a courthouse. There will be hearings, and plenty of them, but according to a top Democratic staff member familiar with Pelosi’s plans—who, like all aides, wouldn’t be named talking about strategy—the would-be speaker intends to keep tight control.

The aide says Democratic leaders will have veto power over committee probes—something that in the past was the domain of the committee chairmen themselves.[snip]

The “powerful chairman/woman of the ___________ committee”… but finds he or she is tied to Mother.  And Reid and whomever else…

Great.

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UPDATE, 12:45 pm

“This just in”:

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:

N.J. SUPREME COURT: SAME-SEX COUPLES ‘MUST BE AFFORDED … THE SAME RIGHTS AND BENEFITS’ AS MARRIED COUPLES

http://abcnews.go.com?CMP=EMC-1396

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UPDATE…

Achtung!  Heil Sam!

From Hotline On Call:

Brownback Slams NJ Marriage Ruling

The first major national political figure to respond is…. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS):

“The decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court only deepens the constitutional crisis with respect to the protection of traditional marriage, and warrants swift, decisive action by Congress in the form of passage of the Marriage Protection Amendment. Huge social changes should be decided by the people and their elected representatives and should not be forced by the courts.”

 And MPA would be the updated version of DOMA?  So, how many Democrats line up to parse their love, their sacred exclusive love, for the opposite sex?

Enough.  The Republicans always get what they need from the Dems.

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UPDATE…

Well I am up here as the site won’t let me comment.  I think that is being sent way way past the Spam Filter.  Sigh.

Schumer is on Cspan, at the Press Club.  He is all but taking a victory lap.  Oh, the usual caveats… they blur.  It was earlier today, Liddy Dole is there also.

“We never thought we’d be here three months ago, but Here We Are!”

What a fucking idiot.

Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously – at just being TOLD they are going to win […]

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UPDATE, 3:15 pm

Tasini on Wellstone, who died a 4 years ago today with his wife, daughter and everyone else in the plane:

[H]e was the only senator running for re-election who had the courage to vote against the Iraq war resolution. And it wasn’t an easy political vote–he was in a tough re-election race but one that I believe he would have won because ultimately Minnesota voters, even those who didn’t always agree with him, respected his integrity and authenticity. Frankly, had he been alive today, I think there would be a huge movement to get him to take up the banner as the progressive candidate for the 2008 Democratic nomination (though, with his typical self-deprecating humor, Paul once dismissed his chances of running for president, saying, “I’m short, I’m Jewish and I’m a liberal”) While other senators who want to grab the nomination explain their vote for the war resolution as one that was cast because they were lied to or because of “false intelligence,” Paul had the moral compass to understand that attacking Iraq was immoral, unnecessary and would lead to the pointless deaths of tens of thousands of people.

What would an America be like if Sen. Paul Wellstone had still been in the U.S. Senate? Well, for one thing, Republican Norm Coleman would not be a U.S. Senator. You can bet Paul would have led a filibuster fight against the nominations of now-Justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts. My guess is that he would also have stood with Russ Feingold and called for the censure of the president–a position that no other Democrats have the courage to take.  [snip]

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UPDATE, 5:20 pm

Daniel Ellsberg get off a good one, re-capping ’64 and ’02, then on to Iran.. He calls again for an official to step forward, as whistle blower… via Common Dreams   [thanks to Madman]

[E]ven more ominously, Philip Giraldi, a former CIA official, reported in The American Conservative a year ago that Vice President Cheney’s office had directed contingency planning for “a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons” and that “several senior Air Force officers” involved in the planning were “appalled at the implications of what they are doing- that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack-but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objection.”

Several of Hersh’s sources have confirmed both the detailed operational planning for use of nuclear weapons against deep underground Iranian installations and military resistance to this prospect, which led several senior officials to consider resigning. Hersh notes that opposition by the Joint Chiefs in April led to White House withdrawal of the “nuclear option”-for now, I would say. The operational plans remain in existence, to be drawn upon for a “decisive” blow if the president deems it necessary.

Many of these sources regard the planned massive air attack-with or without nuclear weapons-as almost sure to be catastrophic for the Middle East, the position of the United States in the world, our troops in Iraq, the world economy, and U.S. domestic security. Thus they are as deeply concerned about these prospects as many other insiders were in the year before the Iraq invasion. That is why, unlike in the lead-up to Vietnam or Iraq, some insiders are leaking to reporters. But since these disclosures-so far without documents and without attribution-have not evidently had enough credibility to raise public alarm, the question is whether such officials have yet reached the limit of their responsibilities to our country.

Assuming Hersh’s so-far anonymous sources mean what they say-that this is, as one puts it, “a juggernaut that has to be stopped”-I believe it is time for one or more of them to go beyond fragmentary leaks unaccompanied by documents. That means doing what no other active official or consultant has ever done in a timely way: what neither Richard Clarke nor I nor anyone else thought of doing until we were no longer officials, no longer had access to current documents, after bombs had fallen and thousands had died, years into a war. It means going outside executive channels, as officials with contemporary access, to expose the president’s lies and oppose his war policy publicly before the war, with unequivocal evidence from inside. [snip]

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