I Salute You

X-posted at dKos

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening”

The sun has set here and polls will open before she rises again. There’s a big, fat full(ish) moon high above the Hudson Valley this evening and I’m exhausted. I decided that I needed to just sit down and just be still for a few minutes. When I stepped back from the chaos and the nerves and the coffee for a precious minutes, I was overwhelmed by a profound sense of gratitude to all those countless folks who, much like you and much like millions of other folks across the country you and I will never meet, are fighting like hell to take their country back.

I salute you.

I salute all those out there who spent the past few weeks knocking their knuckles raw, those who put their patriotism where their shoe leather meets the streets. I salute all those fine folks who literally walk the walk, who spent their weekends meeting their neighbors and engaging them in the process all up close and personal. I salute those who have overcome their shyness or reticence to talk to strangers. I salute those who travelled to new neighborhoods to walk, new towns, upstate, downstate or a new state entirely.

I salute you.

I salute those who cold called strangers to take their country back. I salute those who badgered their friends to join them in cramped offices to spread the word over the phone. I salute the pajamahadeen who called strangers across the country for candidates in other states. I salute “free nights and weekends”! I salute all those lovely people who with no time to spare who still found the time to reach out personally to folks who were sometimes on the other side of the continent.

I salute you.

I salute all those weary eyed staffers and volunteers who have decided to put your money where your goddamn mouth is, who decided to go “all in”, who chose to make damn sure that when their children and grandchildren ask them years from now what they did back in ’06 to take their country back that they had one hell of a story to tell. I salute those who have spent the past few weeks and months existing on cold pizza and stale coffee, who have grabbed those precious 15 minute power naps in the corner with one eye on that district map taped to the wall.  I salute all those who won’t sleep tonight as they are tweaking the final stages of their 96 hour plan, as they sift the lists of “ones” and “twos” who most need to be contacted tomorrow.I salute those disheveled hordes who have literally spent the night at the district office, the HQ, the union hall.

I salute you.

I salute all those who have taken those bleary eyed volunteers from far away into their homes, who have given them a bed, a meal and a shower. I salute all those amazing folks who have dropped by their candidate’s office with a plate of cookies or a bag of fruit or a box of sandwiches. I salute those who have called the office just to ask “What do you need?  What can i do right now” or “Are you guys hungry?”

I salute you.

I salute those who have given all those $25 contributions to the campaigns, often to campaigns in other districts or other states. I salute those who gave and gave and gave again. I salute those who found this struggle so damned important that they decided to sacrifice a dinner out or new pair of shoes or whatever to send that money to some candidate next door or on the other coast.

I salute you.

Finally, I want to salute all those who were told by the “wise” men/women that your desire to run was “doomed”, that dems can’t win here, that this district, this county, this state will never elect you. I salute all those who were told that they’d never be able to raise enough money or get enough support to be a “serious” contender, that they’d be a “vanity” candidate. I salute all those who listened politely as the Powers That Be told them that they’d be tilting at windmills and then decided, against all that “wise” counsel, to roll those sleeves up and throw all caution to the wind and, well,  run anyway, whether it was a run for the US Senate or for their local school board. I salute all those who listened to all the naysayers and found the situation in our nation to be too dire to sit this one out, who threw all caution to the wind and decided to brave the inevitable assault of the slime machine. I salute those who couldn’t stomach being a spectator to the continued violence wrought on our Constitution, the perpetuation of this continuing clusterfuck in Iraq, the shoveling of more and more to the few while asking more and more of the many, the looting of the Treasury from war profiteers and the cronies an determined that someone had to do something. I salute those who chose to take it upon themselves and against all the “friendly advice” offered by the knowitalls to put it all on the line and challenge that GOoPer incumbent on the town council, or Mr. Good-Hair-Been-There-Forever CongressCritter. I salute your courage and your patriotism and your sense duty.

My hat is off to everyone, top to bottom, who is engaged in this fight to reclaim for the American people what is rightly theirs, namely their own government.

I want to second what Al Rodgers said yesterday:

It’s a privilege to serve with all of you.

Hear hear.

I salute each and every last one of ya.

Now, let’s go out there and seal the freakin’ deal, kids. It’s time to take the country back.

You in?

Election Predictions 2006+29-38 House

Well, here goes. My method is going to be different than usual, instead of specific % predictions on every given race my method for both the House Predictions has a two tier (wave) system. First Wave races have a 75% chance of winning, Second Wave races have a 25% chance of winning. I have 37 First Wave races times 75% for a gain of 29 seats. Second Wave House 39 seats times 25% for a 9 seat gain, totalling a pick-up of 29-38 seats (incl VT-AL).  There’s more:

The listings are in descending order, those towards the top of the waves are most likely to win:

,

Competitive Congressional District Races ( in2 Waves)

First Wave-75% chance of winning (39) = +29 gain

Vermont – AL – Welch
Texas-22 – Lampson
Florida -16 – Mahoney
Ohio-18 Space
Iowa –01 – Braley
North Carolina – 11 – Shuler
Pennsylvania –10 – Carney
Pennsylvania – 07 – Sestak
Colorado – 07 – Perlmutter

New Mexico – 01 – Madrid
Arizona – 08 – Giffords
Wisconsin – 08 – Kagen
Indiana –02 – Donnelley
Indiana –08 –  Ellsworth
Florida – 22 – Klien
New Hampshire – 02 – Hodes
New York 24 – Arcuri
Kentucky –04 – Lucas
New York – 25 – Maffei
New York – 29 – Massa
Connecticut –04 – Farrell
New York – 20 – Gillibrand
Indiana – 09 – Hill
New York – 19 – Hall
Nebraska – 03 – Kleeb
Pennsylvania – 06 – Murphy

Pennsylvania –08-Murphy
Connecticut – 02 – Courtney
Connecticut – 05 – Murphy

Kentucky – 03 – Yarmuth

Idaho – 01 – Grant
Illinois – 06 – Duckworth
California – 11 – McNerney
Ohio –15 – Kilroy
Colorado –04 – Paccione
Wyoming – AL – Trauner
Virginia – 02 – Kellam
Florida – 13 – Jennings
Arizona -05 – Mitchell
Kansas – 02 – Boyda

,

Second Wave- 25% chance of winning (37) = +9 gain

New York – 26 – Davis

Arizona –01 Simon
Colorado –05 – Fawcett
North Carolina –08 Kissel
New Jersey – 07 – Stender
Washington – 08 – Burner
Ohio – 02 – Wulsin

Minnesota – 06 – Wetterling
Nevada – 02 – Derby
Minnesota – 01 – Walz
Pennsylvania – 08 – Murphy
Ohio – 01 – Cranley
Illinois – 10 – Seals
Virginia – 11 – Hurst
Nebraska –01 – Moul
Virginia – 10 – Feder
Kentucky – 02 – Weaver
New York –03 – Meijas
New York – 13 – Harrison
Florida – 08 – Stuart

California  – 04 – Brown
California – 50 – Busby
Washington – 05 – Goldmark
Kansas –04 – McGinn
Pennsylvania – 04 – Altmire
Ohio – 12 – Shamansky
West Virginia –02 Callaghan
Iowa – 02 Loebsack
New Hampshire – 01 – Shea-Porter
Virginia – 05 – Weed
Ilinois – 19 – Stover
New Jersey – 05 – Aronsohn
New Jersey –02 – Hughes
New Jersey –03 – Sexton
New Jersey –04 – Gay

By what margin will Bob Shamansky win?

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Virus alert: Bush 2.0 installs Awakening 3.0

Let’s not misunderestimate the problem here. GET OUT THE VOTE. Friends and family, acquaintances and strangers. Put Bush 2.0 back in the box and secure the American system, we have an important document to save from corruption. Awkward computer metaphor, but what the hell, it’s true. EVERYBODY VOTE.

  In case we’ve forgetten:
  I’ve heard the call. I believe God wants me
  to run for president.

  They want the federal government
  controlling Social Security like it’s some
  kind of federal program.
  Please don’t kill me! (in the voice of Karla
  Faye Tucker)

  I encourage employers to permit their
  workers time off during the lunch hour to
  attend the noontime services to pray for our
  land.
  We should fund the armies of compassion,
  we should not discriminate against faith-
  based programs.

  I believe God did create the world. And I
  think we’re finding out more and more and
  more as to how it actually happened.
  Like I said, the legislature’s job is to write
  the law, and it’s the executive branch’s job
  to interpret the law.

  This crusade, this war on terrorism is going
  to take a while.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

Republicans Unleash Dirty Phone Tricks

As you may know by now, the National Republican Campaign Committee is making a Hail Mary play by harrassing Democratic-leaning voters with automated calls structured with a misleading introduction that suggests that Democrats are responsible for the call.  The kicker is: if you hang up, the robocall firm then calls you back several more times with the same message, often at horrendous hours.  It’s classic slimeball Republican skullduggery: harrass the opposition’s voters to suppress the vote (or worse, flip it).  Unfortunately, the scheme has flown under the radar until the last few days (when Josh Marshall helped break the story), so it could be effective.  However, in many states, calls such as these are illegal, and DailyKos diarist G2geek has an excellent diary up on ways to fight back against the Republican Party.  New Hampshire’s Attorney General has already put a partial stop to the problem there.

The DCCC has a press release condemning the tactics here, including information on how the $600,000 worth of attack calls were allocated in the past week.

About Those Tightening Polls…

There have been a couple of general ballot polls out in the past couple of days (namely, Pew and ABC/Washington Post) purporting to show a sudden “surge” of Republican momentum in the last few days of the election.  Hotline editor Chuck Todd does the digging and comes up with the 1994 general ballot polls from around this time:

A trip through The Hotline archives for the weekend before the ’94 election shows the generic ballot as follows:

ABC: — 47-46 in favor of the Dems (a 6-point swing in the last week toward the Dems)
Gallup: — 51-44 for the GOP (a 4 point swing in the last week toward the Dems)
NBC: — 46-35 for the GOP (a 2 point swing in the two weeks toward the Dems)
Times Mirror: — 48-43 for the GOP (a 7 point swing in the last month toward the Dems)

I’m not suggesting that this election won’t be close, but I definitely am suggesting that this “natural tightening” in election eve polls is something to keep in mind before anyone potentially loses their head or chews off their fingernails.

Election Eve Plans

Just to let you know, Swing State Project plans to be buzzing and fully operational on election night tomorrow.  I’m booking off the whole evening to follow the returns here with you, and as I’m in the fabulous Mountain Time zone, I’ll likely be up a bit later than some of the East Coast bloggers.  We’ll be throwing up open threads all night with key updates on the latest developments across the country.  User diaries will also be fully functional as usual, and I hope you will take advantage of them–but do so at a reasonable volume (I’ll let your own discretion judge that for now).

For poll closing times and key races for all 50 states, please consult DavidNYC’s diary here.  It’s going to be a long night tomorrow.  (And hopefully a fun one.)

My Predictions

50-49 Senate plus Liberman who then switches parties to make it 51-49 red.

House: 237-198.  I think we pick up (in order of the state-by-state series)

CO-4,7 (and CO-6 before CO-5)
IN-2,8,9,stay-up-late-and-have-some-popcorn-for-3

NV-mmmmaybe2
NC-8, 11 (Touchdown!)
IA-1, mmmmaybe2
NM-1
WV-I-got-a-good-feeling-about-2
KS-I-got-a-better-feeling-about-2
CT-2,4,5
IL-6,10

ID-1-yeeeeha
WY-AL-yip-yip-yip-yeeeeha!
WI-8,mmmmmaybe5
KY-3,4,rooting-fer-2
MN-1-sorry-on-6-sorrier-about-2
WA-5,8
VA-2,10
NE-3,and-I-wouldn’t-say-no-to-1
FL-13,16,22
VT-AL
NH-2
AL-in-my-dreams-1-and-3
AZ-1,5,8
OH-1,6,15,18 (I think Meanjean hangs on)
PA-4,6,7,10
Pickups I didn’t get to:
NY-3,26,29
NJ-7
TX-22,23
CA-4,11,50,52

Biggest fumbled opportunity- MI-8

By what margin will Bob Shamansky win?

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Swing State Project Predictions Pool

(Bumped! Last chance to get your predictions in! – promoted by James L.)

I just created a predictions pool for us over at Predict06.com. Predict06 is a neat site which automates the process of predicting the outcome in sixty-two competitive House and Senate races. The pool feature allows a group (such as Swing State readers) to engage in a bit of friendly competition amongst itself.

So click here to join. All you need to do is create a user account (take five seconds) and you can start making predictions right away. There won’t be any prizes for this pool (unlike our home-grown contest), but you can earn bragging rights. And among the hardcore junkies who hang out here, that’s saying something!

UPDATE (James L.): Predict06 has expanded their playing field by 15 House seats.  Get on over there and update your predictions accordingly!  Also, I’m really pleased to see that 68 people have joined in on the Swing State Project pool so far.  We’ve already cracked the top five pools and are closing in fast on the DailyKos and RedState prediction pages.  It’s no secret that Swing State Project readers are some of the sexiest, savviest electoral thinkers on the internet, so let’s prove the CW right by calling these races correctly!  Get your predictions in today, because tonight will be the last night that Predict06 will accept your submissions.