DEMOCRATS' BEST WEAPON IN ELECTION-- BETTER THAN NEY, FOLEY, DELAY-- BUSH, BUSH, BUSH

One of the first e-mails I read today was from a friend in Colorado telling me how they couldn't even give tickets away for Bush's rally to rescue anti-gay fanatic Marilyn Musgrave's faltering campaign. As Rove has him frantically hopscotching around the country to rally the dwindling Republican base, GOP poll numbers keep sinking lower and lower. The more they see of Bush, the more he is associated with the congressmen he's campaigning for, the better the fundraising is for Democrats and the better the polling is for Democrats.

Newsweek has a story by Marcus Mabry talking about why the magazine's newest poll shows Republican candidates doing worse. And the more Bush shows up on the campaign trail, the greater the momentum for Democrats. Like I said yesterday this election is a referendum on the Bush Regime and his rubber stamp Congress. And people are pissed off (except for the 30-something percent who think Ted Haggard was using meth and blowing that hooker to do research). "The new poll finds support for Republicans (and for President Bush) receding. For example, 53 percent of Americans want the Democrats to win enough seats to take control of one or both houses of Congress in the midterm elections on Tuesday. Those results are close to early October levels, while less than a third of Americans (32 percent) want Republicans to retain control. If the elections were held today, 54 percent of likely voters say they would support the Democratic candidate in their district versus 38 percent who would vote for the Republican-a 16-point edge for the Democrats. Despite round-the-clock coverage of John Kerry’s Iraq gaffe this week and non-stop rallies in which the President paints Democrats as weak-on-terror tax lovers, the political momentum has returned to the Democrats."

The Republican Establishment (Rove) has given up on the House entirely and is now focusing on one thing: holding the Senate. With Bush and Cheney trying to help Macacwitz (a goner), Talent (a goner) and Corker (a probable winner against reactionary Harold Ford who has turned off the Democratic base by trying to sound like a Republican), suddenly Kyl's senate seat in Arizona is looking shaky. "Democrats 'should pick up five to seven seats,' said Stuart Rothenberg, who writes a nonpartisan political newsletter from Washington. If he had to guess, he said, 'I expect the Democrats to win six seats,' but the outcome is far from certain. The picture in the House remains grim for Republicans, with analysts from both parties predicting that Democrats will pick up the 15 seats they need for the majority, and possibly twice that number."

"Grim" wasn't the word today's New York Times used to describe the mood of Rove's troopers; it was "glum." Actually, when the Times first published the story the headline was "Republicans Resigned to Idea of Big Losses." They then changed it to the slightly less devastating "G.O.P. Glum as It Struggles to Hold Congress".

But any way you slice it, they only have one hope now: Diebold. Even Nebraska is on the verge of switching out three Republican seats for 3 Democratic ones! Now it's all about getting out the vote.