There's a new study out this morning from the Campaign Finance Research Institute that reminds us — for all the talk of how much small money Sen. Barack Obama has raised on the Internet — of the role of big money in politics. It should be sobering to those who think that small donor money obviates the need for fundamental reform of the campaign finance system.

This study just looked at one path of big money: the broad array of nonprofits active in the 2006 election: 527 political organizations, Section 501(c)(4) social welfare groups, (c)(5) labor unions and (c)(6) trade associations, and "taxable" entities that operate as nonprofits. Check it out.

It should would be nice to get access to the databases the authors used for this study.

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The mid-term elections are over and the people have decided that they want their corrupt members of Congress to come back home. In a Bloomberg article today, Rep. Rahm Emanuel states that eight seats flipped due to the corrupt activities of the current, or recently resigned/indicted/plead guilty, occupant. After reviewing the Bloomberg article and the members of Congress tied to congressional scandals it seems that Rahm has presented a lowball number of congressmen sent home. So let’s take a look at these members of Congress who will no longer be wearing the congressional uniform of solid blue suits, American flag lapel pins, and an unfailing arrogance of power.

* Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.): Hayworth’s claim to corruption fame is that he “took at least $56,200 from” Jack Abramoff and used Abramoff’s skyboxes for five fundraisers since 1999. Hayworth did show his sweet side by giving $2,250 of the money he received from Casino Jack to help relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina (because they weren’t getting the money from anywhere else). But Hayworth’s greatest moments came during this, his final election campaign. In a book about illegal immigration that Hayworth released this year he advocated for the “Americanization” program that Henry Ford proposed in his essay “The International Jew.” Then, Hayworth dispatches his aides to a debate at a synagogue where Jonathan Tratt, one of the aides, stated that Hayworth, a Christian, is a “more observant Jew” than any of the actual Jews present. Tratt’s wife was confronted by some of these not-as-observant-as-J.D. Jews and told them, “No wonder there are anti-Semites.” No wonder you’re not a Congressman anymore.

* Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.): Does this guy even need to be profiled? Pombo, chairman of House Resources Committee, which oversees tribal concerns and U.S. protectorates, refused to investigate Jack Abramoff’s corrupt dealings with Indian tribes and the Northern Marianas Islands. Could it have been all the cash Abramoff stuffed into Pombo’s political action committee and campaign coffers? Or maybe it was the skybox tickets for his staffers? Rhetorical questions aside Pombo was known as an instrument of energy corporations and a favorite of former Rep. Tom “Make-my-day” DeLay. Voters got sick of Pombo, the classic Astroturf politician, and his schtick and decided that they’d rather not send a congressman to Washington who is already bought and paid for by.

*Rep. Charles Taylor (R-N.C.): Taylor’s problems did not stem from sharing the name of a genocidal dictator. Taylor did, however, share his signature to help out Jack Abramoff. (Notice a pattern here.) Bloomberg’s Salant writes, “Taylor and [Sen. Conrad] Burns wrote a letter to the Interior Department in May 2003 seeking a $3 million grant for of one of Abramoff's clients, the Saginaw Chippewa tribe. They then included the allocation in a congressional spending measure.” Plus, Taylor seemed more concerned with friends in Russia than about the jobs in his district. Maybe he can look for work in one of those manufacturing factories that Western North Carolina is known for…oh wait, those don’t exist anymore?

*Rep. Don Sherwood (R-Pa.): I think everyone expected Sherwood to choke on Tuesday after he, well, paid a hefty sum to a former mistress who had accused him of choking her. Not much else to say here. The guy’s acting like Wayne Brady on the Chapelle Show; who’s going to vote for that.

*Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.): When your nickname is “Crazy Curt” you know that you’re in electoral trouble. Just weeks before the election Weldon’s lobbyist daughter’s offices were raided along with the offices of a Russian energy company that Weldon had been helping out in his official role in Congress. Weldon has also made wild accusations about the war on terror and about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He even almost went on his own fact-finding mission to Iraq, Indiana Jones style, after refusing to believe that no weapons were found. Weldon’s next stop: a federal court house.

*Rep. Sue Kelly (R-N.Y.): Someone had to pay for the Mark Foley scandal and Sue Kelly wound up being that someone. Kelly, who sat on the page board when Foley was acting like Austin Powers on the Internet, refused to answer questions about Foley’s behavior, ran away from television reporters, and did not show up to a televised debate.

*Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.): Burns was the top recipient of corrupt cash from Jack Abramoff and penned a letter with fellow Abramoff pal Charles Taylor to help secure a $3 million grant for Abramoff’s client, the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe. Burns also decided to spend his reelection race attacking and cursing out firemen, declaring, a la Nixon, that President Bush has a secret plan to win in Iraq, and making generally racist and stereotypical comments about immigrants. Burns will now get to spend more time with his little Guatemalan friend.

*Reps. Bob Ney, Tom DeLay, and Mark Foley: These guys all already resigned their seats and one them is on the way to jail. Their late replacements all lost their respective elections and there’s no need to go back and review the various misdeeds of these three stooges.

That’s ten seats, nine in the House and one in the Senate, which flipped because of the member’s less than responsible activity. Don’t worry guys; your roster is likely to expand. A December 9^th run-off between Dollar Bill Jefferson and Karen Carter should bring a Democratic member to the team. And let’s not forget the on-going federal investigations into seven members who are going to be sticking around.

I’d like to say it ain’t so, but this team is only going to get bigger.

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CNN's exit polls are showing that "corruption in Washington" is extremely important for 42% of voters, the highest number for any issue. I know, they're exit polls, but almost every Congress watcher and political reporter wrote off corruption until the Mark Foley scandal broke. Were they wrong the whole time or is this a reaction to the Foley cover-up? We'll find out tomorrow, but all that I know is that these blog posts all sound about right.

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Rain is on my mind these days. Out here on the Oregon coast the seasons abruptly changed last week. We moved from the brisk and sunny days of Septober to the onset of the annual rains. The first wind warning of the season is now upon us. Soon the rain will be slicing down in horizontal sheets, like it often does out here from November to April.

All of which brings to mind, on this election eve, thoughts of Hurricane Katrina. In fact, tomorrow’s election – in the face of a Class IV political hurricane – raises the question that bedeviled New Orleans last summer: will the levees hold?

The levees in this case are the artfully drawn congressional district boundaries that are supposed to deliver predictable results no matter what political storms are raging outside. And if those concrete walls are not enough to keep out the storm surge, there’s always the mountain of money available to any incumbent who makes even the most minimal effort to collect it. Washington has no shortage of lobbyists, PAC directors, and other well-heeled and well-connected donors willing to pitch in with the bucket brigade.

This year they’re working overtime. The number of nervous incumbents is way up in 2006, and so is the money – about one-third higher than it was just two years ago. This is one political hurricane that’s taking no one by surprise.

And how could it? The most casual glance at the polls illustrates the dangers of incumbency this year, at least for the GOP. The Iraq war is unpopular. The president is unpopular. Congress, mired in scandals, is deeply unpopular.

That’s been especially worrisome for Republican Senate incumbents this year. Historically, senators have been more vulnerable to changes in the political winds than House members, and their reelection rates reflect that. For one thing, senators run statewide and you can’t exactly gerrymander state lines. That leaves embattled incumbents with only their mountains of money to protect them.

Well, that and one other ingredient. Unlike their real-world counterparts, political hurricanes do offer some measure of human control, however imperfect. And that’s been the second element of the administration’s twofold strategy: build up the levees and muzzle the storm. Downgrade it from a Class IV to a more manageable Class III or even Class II.

The president’s barnstorming last week – albeit to deep red states like Nebraska and Kansas – was supposed to damp down the howling winds at least a bit. And indeed it seems to have buoyed the Republican base, who were treated – for the first time in a while – with nightly news video of George Bush amidst cheering, rapturous crowds.

The convenient timing of Saddam’s guilty verdict yesterday was the cherry on top of the sundae, if I may be allowed one non-meteorological metaphor. We’ll see tomorrow how well the strategy worked.

So where will I be looking for indicators of how the levees are holding? Mark Foley’s Florida district will be one place to watch for a breach. If the reliably Republican voters in that district hold their nose and vote for Foley, knowing that the votes actually count for his replacement – that will be a sign that the GOP fortress in rock-solid districts can withstand just about anything. And vice-versa, of course, if the Democrat wins.

On the Senate side, the race I’m most watchful of is in Montana. Conrad Burns, who got more money in campaign contributions from lobbyist Jack Abramoff than anyone in Congress, has been in serious trouble for months. His opponent, the crew-cutted John Tester, looks like he just walked out of an alfalfa field – hardly a liability in a state that likes its politicians rough-hewn. But President Bush’s rally in Billings played well across the state, the race has tightened to a toss-up, and the Republicans are making hay in their campaign ads belittling “Tester the Taxer.”

I’m bypassing the office pool this year, but it looks to me – as it does to many prognosticators – like the GOP levees will break in the House and hold – by a whisker – in the Senate.

As I was with Katrina, I’ll be glued to CNN tomorrow night to see how it all comes out. I’ll be especially interested to see any interviews with Karl Rove, chief architect of the GOP’s defensive strategy. So far, he’s been doing one heckuva job.

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If there was ever a test case for whether voters cared about the abusive earmarking practice than the race in WV-01 would be it. This year Rep. Alan Mollohan found himself the subject of a federal investigation into his use of earmarks to create a series of nonprofits headed by his real estate partners. Mollohan, like other West Virginians sent off to Washington, is a prolific earmarker and has created an entire technology corridor — this technology corridor being the reason for the investigation — in northern West Virginia through earmarks. But will voters punish Mollohan for his earmarking or do they see his perch on the Appropriations Committee as a means of attracting money and jobs to a seriously depressed state economy.

While Mollohan’s opponent, state Del. Chris Wakim, is counting on voter anger over Mollohan’s earmarking editorials like this make me think that people in West Virginia really like their pork.

Byrd’s the man who’s leading the hogs to the trough, followed by Congressman Alan Mollohan, who reportedly has earmarked $480 million for West Virginia over the past decade.

Now we can’t be as naive to think that just Byrd and Mollohan are the only ones behind these earmarks, but we’d like to see Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Reps. Nick Rahall and Shelley Moore Capito make the list as well.

It might be pork, but West Virginians should clearly love it.

It’s putting meat on our tables.

West Virginia and Alaska are two states that are dependent upon the practice of earmarking. Many rural areas are also increasingly relying on this secretive process to help them obtain road improvements, jobs, and numerous other amenities that they can’t afford themselves.

Rural areas tend to be the most targeted for earmarks and other federal assistance. It puts meat on their tables. Mollohan certainly is facing some backlash for his actions, but nothing akin to what Republicans who have done similar things are facing this year. Any other year and Mollohan’s actions, despite West Virginia’s appetite for pork, might have caused this election to be a toss-up but Mollohan looks to be safe again. The current political climate, where voters would rather pull a lever for Clem Kadiddlehopper over any Republican, is certainly helping Mollohan as much, if not more, than his ability to put pork on the table.

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Rep. William Jefferson’s, D-La., current race for reelection is being described as “like being in a fight with an octopus”. The nine-term incumbent is currently facing 12 opponents in what is his toughest race to date. Jefferson’s difficulties stem from a federal investigation that has already netted one guilty plea, $90,000 in cash in Jefferson’s freezer, and an unprecedented FBI raid on Jefferson’s congressional office. Absent these factors it is unlikely that most of Jefferson’s opponents would have challenged him.

Since Jefferson has been under a cloud of scandal he has lost his powerful seat on the House Ways and Means Committee, House Democratic leaders, including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, have called for him to resign his seat, and he has lost the endorsement of the Louisiana Democratic Party. That endorsement has gone to state Rep. Karen Carter, who has also received the endorsements of every major local newspaper. Today, another Jefferson opponent, state Sen. Derrick Shepherd received the endorsement of 20 officials in Jefferson Parrish.

One of the quickest ways for an incumbent congressman to lose reelection is to become the target of an investigation or get your self embroiled in any manner of scandal. Voters tend to question the character of those accused of impropriety, especially those in Washington, but Jefferson still manages to hold onto support in his district. Most observers still believe that he is fighting an uphill battle, especially with the dramatically altered demographics in post-Katrina New Orleans.

In some radio spots Jefferson casts himself as a social conservative fighting against abortion and gay marriage. Apparently these are values that he doesn’t like to wrap in aluminum and hide in his freezer. Jefferson’s lone big endorsement has come from Mayor Ray Nagin. The race will likely mimic one of the two races that Nagin has won in New Orleans.

Nagin won his first campaign for Mayor with a chunk of the African-American vote and solid support from white voters. White voters have already gone sour on Rep. Jefferson and would most likely swing the election to one of his opponents, most likely Carter. Nagin’s second victory was won by locating and getting out the vote of displaced African-American New Orleans residents. Jefferson is relying on Nagin’s political operation to help him identify and bring these displaced voters to the polls on Nov. 7^th. A large turnout of displaced African-American voters would work to Jefferson’s advantage. Unfortunately for Jefferson, this is an unlikely scenario.

Jefferson may eke out what would be a surprise victory. But even if he were to defeat the octopus on November 7^th Jefferson would still face an even more difficult opponent in the coming year, the long-arm of the law.

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at another one of the members of Congress currently under investigation. To see this list refer to this Congresspedia page.

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Here’s another double-edged benefit of the internet: this year, thanks to YouTube and other sites that let users post and share videos, the whole world can see the sort of sleaze that passes for political advertising as Election Day draws near.

In fact, the one-two-three punch of Google, YouTube and a broadband connection means that anyone can do in a few seconds what I did yesterday – learn about offensive ads in a newspaper story, then take a look at them yourself.

The sleaziest I’ve seen to date is the anti-Harold Ford ad produced for the Republican National Committee. That sent me to YouTube, where I found there are so many political ads this year you need to search the site not just for “Harold Ford” but for “Harold Ford RNC” to quickly find the ad.

To save you the bother, the New York Times has since added video of the ad both to yesterday’s original story and today’s follow-up. (Of course, I’m talking about the online edition of the Times – not the paper version that now seems so quaint and incomplete.)

Sleaze works, which is why political consultants rely on it year after year – especially in those crucial 10 days before the election. But what exactly do they mean by “works”?

In the eyes of a political consultant, sleaze “works” when it drives up the negatives on their opponent. But that’s hardly the only work those ads do. Especially when both sides start piling it on, the cacophony of charges, half-truths and breathlessly whispered innuendo pervades the whole atmosphere like a toxic chemical fog.

Not only the politicians are tainted by it, we all are. Just at the time when notions of civic duty and American democracy should be swelling our chests and making us look forward to casting our ballots, we’re made to feel – at best – like pest exterminators, and at worst like unwitting dupes in some great scam.

That’s one reason I have a hard time lecturing people who’ve turned their back on the whole thing, refusing to participate in elections at all. Given the environment, that’s a disturbingly rational reaction.

Frankly, given the atmosphere in Washington the past couple of years, some selected shorts from C-SPAN would give the voters a reminder of all the sleaze they need to see. But no, the consultants have their playbooks and we’re in for it once again.

Fortunately, we at least have comic relief – and YouTube has those too. A few favorites are The Truth About Rod Worthmeyer, Political Attack Ads and, for a change of pace, Al Qaeda Responds to Political Attack Ads.

But enjoy these over-the-top spoofs while you can. In another two years, they’ll probably be considered mainstream.

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I don’t know what percentage of the ballots filed every election in the state of Oregon have food stains on them, but I’ll bet it’s higher than the national average.

I say that, having splashed a little spaghetti sauce on my ballot at lunchtime yesterday, as I sat filling it out on the kitchen table. I did the same thing the last time I voted, though that time, as I recall, it was gravy.

Chalk it up as an occupational hazard of voting by mail - which is what all of us do here in Oregon every time there’s an election.

My ballot arrived Monday, about a week after the official voter guides. At lunchtime yesterday, I laid out everything on the dining room table and worked my way through the propositions and the candidates one by one, marking my choices on the ballot as I went. In all, I guess it took about 30 or 40 minutes to read everything and fill it all out. Today I’ll drop it off at the post office and be done with it for another two years.

Oregon’s experience with voting by mail dates back more than 20 years, starting first in county and local elections, where it was adopted to save money. (Mail-in elections cost only about one-third to one-half as much as standard polling place elections.)

When Bob Packwood resigned from the US Senate in 1995, time was short, budgets were tight, and the state of Oregon conducted the whole election by mail-in ballots – the first time it had ever been done for a federal election.

The exercise proved so popular that the League of Women Voters sponsored an initiative in 1998 to make voting by mail mandatory for all Oregon elections. The proposition passed easily and every Oregon election since 2000 has been conducted entirely though mail-in ballots.

A survey of Oregon voters in 2003 by University of Oregon political scientist Priscilla Southwell found that the practice remains very popular in the state:

The results suggest that Oregonians, across all demographic and partisan categories, continue to favor this type of election. A majority of respondents indicated that their turnout has not changed since the adoption of vote by mail. However, almost one-third of the respondents reported that they voted more often with vote by mail – particularly women, the disabled, homemakers, and those aged 26-38 years. These results also suggest that no partisan advantage is likely to result as a consequence of elevated turnout under vote by mail.

Indeed, in 2004 Oregon was one of only seven states whose voter turnout exceeded 70%.

What I like most about voting by mail – aside from the kitchen table convenience – is that it interferes with the last-minute smear tactics that have become so commonplace in politics today. To have their most devastating effect, those attack ads have to appear in the final 10 days in the campaign, casting a malignant tone to the election just as people are getting ready to troop out to the polls.

That tactic doesn’t work any more in Oregon, since people here mail in their ballots over a nearly three-week period leading up to Election Day. Pity the poor mudslingers.

Voting by mail has one other advantage that will be especially apparent this year, when so many states will be experimenting with electronic voting: there’s no problem with hard-copy backups in case of recounts. Though I almost hate to admit it, sometimes the best solution is low tech.

Is voting by mail the greatest thing since sliced bread? Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Is it better than slogging down to the polls on Election Day, waiting in line at some elementary school or fire house, then sequestering yourself behind curtains in a cramped booth? You bet.

And I ask you, aren’t a few food stains on the ballots a small price to pay for a better democracy?

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After readings Bill’s post about this convetional wisdom-bucking Barron’s article predicting that the Republicans will hold onto to both Houses I decided to take a look at the same numbers that they were looking at. First let’s look at the campaign finance information since that’s how they decided to pick the winner of each individual race. Instead of looking at the numbers of every race I decided to use the National Journal’s recently released House Race Rankings. I’ve discounted Democratic seats that they list because we’re talking about the Republican Party holding off a Democratic challenge and so I looked the defensive position of the majority party. This is based data released by the FEC on October 20, 2006 and compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

In the National Journal’s top 30 races to watch (all seats held currently by Republicans) there is an average Republican advantage of $423,868 money raised. However, there are eleven races where the Democrat leads in money raised. There are six races where the Republican has more than $1 million more than their opponent, one race where that total exceeds $2 million, and yet one more race where the total is above $3 million. The Democratic advantages are in AZ-08, FL-16, IL-06, IN-08, IA-01, MN-06, NY-24, OH-18, PA-07, TX-22, and WI-08. Nine out of eleven of these races are open seat races where a Republican is retiring (or has resigned under a cloud of corruption). If we go with Jay Cost’s analysis of the Barron’s article — "A direct dollar-to-dollar evaluation is probably more appropriate in open seat elections, and so they will make a genuine theoretical "purchase" there" — than these nine seats will flip to the Democrats.

The second 30 races in the National Journal rankings, of which I have only looked at the 24 held by the GOP, show a stronger financial situation for the Republicans. Republicans in these races hold an average money raised advantage of $774,743. Only two Democrats in this group hold a financial advantage over the incumbent and one of those challengers’ apparent financial advantage was picked apart by Jay Cost in his analysis of the Barron’s article. Ten of the 24 Republicans hold a financial advantage of over $1 million while one hold a $2 million advantage. Many of these races have shown promising polling for the Democrats so it is probably the monetary advantage that these incumbents hold that keeps prognosticators like the National Journal from moving some of them up. In total, if we go by the Barron’s predictive model, which Cost at Real Clear Politics pretty much destroys, than 13 Democrats will win in currently GOP districts. There will be a couple of Democratic losses, Melissa Bean in Illinois and Jim Marshall in Georgia, according to Barron’s model so that makes for a gain of 11 seats for the Dems.

But the Barron’s article also mentions the economy as Bill wisely pointed out. According to many the economy is doing great; the stock market is rising, gas prices are falling, everything’s going well. Right? Well, not exactly. A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll shows that only 43% of Americans describe the economy as excellent or good compared with 57% who call it not good or poor. Only 17% think that the economy is getting better while 45% believe it is getting worse. However, people are satisfied with their personal situation by a 59%-41% margin. But these numbers don’t really tell the whole story. This story by McClatchy Newspapers looks at Ohio as a bellweather for the elections and it contains a lot of anecdotes about people’s economic situation.

Columbus, the capital, is in the center, divided politically and almost alone in doing well economically. The rest of the state is racked by economic pain as Detroit’s "Big Three" automakers retrench and manufacturing jobs evaporate - another 34,000 in the past year, according to the Ohio Manufacturers Directory.
…
"Given what’s happened here, I’ll probably go Democrat," said Darrell Fowler, 48. Previously he voted for Bush and Republicans. He works at the soon-to-be-closed Ford transmission plant in Batavia, east of Cincinnati.

Among the plant’s remaining 1,400 employees is Fowler’s fiancee, Melissa Blankenship, 39, a Democrat who said she’s very motivated to vote this year. The couple, both of whom have children, said they could be out of work by year’s end.
…
Bill Combs, a 43-year-old electrical technician and divorced father from Batavia, voted Republican for a decade and twice backed Bush. He said that he figured the GOP’s commitment to keeping corporate America healthy would translate to job security at the paper company where he worked.

But Combs was laid off late last year when his company downsized at home and looked overseas. His new job at a plastics plant came with a $6-an-hour pay cut, no pension and a shaky future. He drives a Ford pickup, expensive to fuel, because he wanted to buy American, but the Ford plant is closing anyway, and Combs worries that that will hurt the local tax base, public schools and the housing market.

He plans to vote for Democrats this year. And once his daughter is grown, he plans to leave Ohio.

"I’m not gaining anything in this world," he said, filling his truck with gas. "I don’t have a good outlook for ever doing anything but surviving."

In many Northern and midwestern states this is the sense of the economy to the average voter. They aren’t admiring the height of the Dow Jones or wowed low unemployment levels, considering that unemployment numbers do not factor in those who have given up looking for jobs. These areas are hurting and guess what, they’re where this year’s congressional majority is going to be decided. There are three states that are bound to provide a large portion of any Democratic gains this year and they are Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania. The seats in New York that are considered in play are all in the upstate region that has been decimated by manufacturing job losses (just look at the economic message that Jack Davis has been running on in Tom Reynolds’ district). Currently there are six New York seats in play. Pennsylvania holds a potential of five seats which include seats in both the Philadelphia suburbs and those further out into the interior of the state. And Ohio contains up to five seats that are threatened by Democratic challengers. We can also look at the districts of Charles Taylor and Robin Hayes in North Carolina where manufacturing jobs have been fleeing as fast as they can.

When it comes down to it the Barron’s prediction doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me. I’ve only touched on the two issues which they decided to focus on and Jay Cost gives the best refutation of the campaign finance angle. But no one, especially Barron’s, seems to mention the real reason why this election could be so devastating to the congressional GOP majority. It’s the war, stupid. (Barron’s mentions the word "Iraq" three times in the article.) When was the last midterm election that had this country mired in a deeply unpopular conflict, the economy was not seen positively by most Americans, and Washington was awash with scandal? Let’s just say that it didn’t end well for that President’s party then, and it probably won’t now.

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Sunday is usually not a serious day for news. There’s always a scrap or two of something quotable from the morning talk shows – that’s their purpose, after all – but it’s usually pretty ephemeral stuff, all but forgotten by Monday afternoon.

But not this Sunday – at least not to my reading of a story in the Monday papers about a comment by President Bush that aired yesterday on ABC. Here’s the recap from a New York Times story:

Mr. Bush has been saying for months that he believes Republicans will keep control of the House and the Senate, and he is not changing his tune now, even if it means taking the rare step of rebuking his own father.

In an interview shown Sunday on ABC News, Mr. Bush was asked about a comment by the first President Bush, who said this month that he hated to think about life for his son if Democrats took control of Congress. “He shouldn’t be speculating like that, because he should have called me ahead of time,” the president said, “and I’d tell him they’re not going to.”

Okay, you might be tempted to chalk this up under Things Which Must Be Said Although Not Entirely Believed – something any president has to resort to from time to time.  The story’s headline, after all, refers to Bush’s duty as “Optimist in Chief.”

But does he really believe this? Has Karl Rove actually convinced the president – as he’s tried to convince others in the party faithful – that everything is under control, that the GOP’s get-out-the-vote effort will pull out this election like it’s pulled out all the others since 2000? That all the polls are wrong? That the public will be endorsing another two years of Republican leadership on Capitol Hill?

If so, then Wednesday morning, November 8, is going to be one of the most interesting days in recent American history, simply to see how George W. Bush will react. Oh to be a fly on the wall the moment he first looks in the mirror on that morning.

No matter how much the president has wrapped himself in a “State of Denial” – to use Bob Woodward’s latest title – there’s a finality to election results that’s inescapable. And that’s why I’m so interested in the president’s reaction: it may be a telling precursor to how he’ll react when the reality of the mess in Iraq finally hits him square in the eye.

If the Democrats do take over Congress, and the long-anticipated hearings and investigations into the administration’s dealings begin, the watchword of the final two years of the Bush presidency is likely to be “unraveling.”

That’s the sort of thing the president’s father was warning about in the comments his son so pointedly dismissed in the interview yesterday. The younger Mr. Bush sees none of it.

Not yet, anyway.

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