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6/4/2006 2:31:19 AM

The Mid Term Predictor

 Although an increasing number within the GOP are privately predicting the House will change hands in November, there are still many more political pundits inside and outside the Beltway hedging their bets against, such pessimism based solely on solidly registered Republican Congressional districts (gerrymandered or otherwise) and the accepted talking point that the Dems have no message. (Quoting Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio ‘the good news is the Democrats have no message, the bad news is they may not need one’.)

 It’s very well possible to maintain such a mindset if, like the Vice-President, all the televisions are preset to Fox News before your arrival. And no matter how many times you link to the DNC website, those on the Right will purposely mistake the stated ‘message’ as just more ‘Bush Bashing’. Tip O’Neil’s adage still applies, that ‘…all politics is local’. Yet, Chris Matthews will not venture beyond his isolated cable perch to size up the impressive slate of Congressional candidates Rahm Emmanuel has assembled, just as the significance of the ‘Fighting Dems’ will be lost on partisan Republicans.

 So we will look to the results of the California 50th Congressional runoff this coming Tuesday as the bellwether of what we are to expect this coming November. Count on a win by Democrat Francine Busby to be more than reducing the count to 14 seats for the Democrats to regain the House, but the start of a revolution.


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