Most of the political commentary I read makes it seem like the Democratic Party is on the brink of a huge swing of fortune in their favor.  They call it a “wave” election, like 1994, when the party in power is swept away by a “wave” of voter discontent.

I’ve argued that the GOP has “gamed” the system to prevent just such a thing.

I believe I see the effects of the gaming of the system coming into play that will prevent this from being a “wave” election.

The “countercurrents”, to extend the metaphor, are GOP money, incumbency, gerrymandering, GOP get out the vote superiority, and technical rigging of the balloting.

For most of us, a New Jersey high court ruling that the state’s marriage laws that give hetero couples certain financial and government services advantages over homosexual couples violates constitutional equal protection notions doesn’t seem like a big deal.  It is a big deal, however, to a small part of the GOP evangelical base that hates the idea of “gay marriage.”

Whatever your opinion may be on gay marriage, GOP turnout specialists are using that ruling to microtarget with mailings and phone calls that splinter of the religious right and especially in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  The thinking is that the mailings and calls will increase GOP turnout in those three states.

So?  Well, the Dems, hoping to take the House, are in dogfights in upper New York state in three races and three House races in Pennsylvania and in the U.S. Senate race in New Jersey.  The mailings and phone calls fly “under the radar” of polls and the televised media.  The fact that they are un-reported or under reported doesn’t change the dynamics of the election towards the GOP.

The polls themselves are also showing some late campaign turnarounds for the GOP in places like Maryland, where the U.S. Sen. candidate Ben Cardin had been in a comfortable lead, but is now within the margin of error against his black GOP rival, Michael Steele.  Same for House races in places like Fla.-16 and New York 24.  For several weeks, top GOP leader Reynolds, caught up in the Foley scandal for not taking more action to protect pages, has been trailing by 5 or more points, but the last two polls shows him leading 4-5 points.   For months, all the movement in the polls has been from more Republican to less Republican to Toss Up to Leans Democrat.  Now, we’re seeing movement in a very few places in the other direction.

News stories that are too technical for most people to pay attention or understand are also showing up indicating that vote rigging is also in place to help the GOP.  GOP Secretaries of State like Ted Strickland (oops. Ken Blackwell, who’s running AGAINST Ted Strickland.  Thanks to alert new registered reader Aberrant Equation.)  in Ohio in ’04 and katherine Harris in Fla. are taking their marching orders seriously and there are already complaints that urban (Democratic) precincts will have too few voting machines and GOP exurban precincts too many.  New laws requiring voters to show voter IDs and proof of citizenship, etc., are being put into place for rigorous enforcement against blacks and Hispanics, which will mean long lines and long delays in Dem leaning areas.

In case you’re not reading between the lines, there are several current stories in the newspapers about campaign ads crossing the line of decency, civility and even the truth.  GOP ads are getting complaints in Tenn., where Corker is playing the race card against Ford in that Senate race, for example.  The GOP has put $100 million — a staggering sum — into attack ads for the last three weeks of the campaign.  One of them has only a ticking clock behind images of Islamic Jihadists threatening to bring terrorism to America and a tag  line over a fiery explosion at the end that says:  “These are the stakes.  Vote Republican.”  It’s an updated version of LBJ’s “daisy” ad of 1964.  It works.

And, lest we forget, gerrymandering also plays a role.  In 1994, when the GOP swept both houses of Congress, there were more than 100 seats “at play” and they “flipped” 54.  This year, there are only 58 seats at play due to gerrymandering.  Even among the seats that are “open”, the odds are against the Dems.  You would think that the seats left open by the resignations of Rep. Foley and Tom DeLay would be natural Democratic Party wins.  The GOP has a write in candidate in Texas and the Republican in Florida has to get past the Foley name on the ballot.  However, those districts are SO Republican, it’s still a tooth and nail fight.

So, I’m sticking by my guns.  The Democratic Party will pick up the 15 they need to take control of the House, but it’ll be a razor thin majority.  My first predictions were that the Dems would only pick up 13-14, so I’ve become more optimistic over the summer.  Democrats will have four more Senators, but not six, and the GOP will keep the Senate. 

Most of you know that I’m an old-style lefty from the 60s and that I’m a yellow dog Democrat.  I vote the rooster, in the archaic early 20th Century way of saying it in Oklahoma (the rooster is the official insignia of the Oklahoma Democratic Party and was used when literacy wasn’t what it is today and all we could do was read icons, kinda like on the computer screens where people type “u” when they mean “you” … er …).

And I WANT the Dems to prevail on Election Day.

Charlie Cook, a respected bipartisan political polls reader expert type commentator guy, is talking in his latest (Oct. 17) column about a turnaround of 30-40 House seats from GOP to Dem and a 50-50 split or 51-49 for the Dems in the Senate.

Maybe.

I’d like for that to be true.

I want that to be true.

I think it would be good for the country if that were true.

I just don’t think it’s going to come out that way.

I look at the poll numbers available to me and the environment of the polls (how did those districts vote in the presidential election and/or last midterm elections) and who took the polls and how (person to person or by phone or by robo-call) and I come up with much more conservative numbers.

Yeah, I can see how it’s possible that Charlie Cook could be right. 

I just have more caution about interpreting what’s going on.

I still think the GOP will retain the Senate.  A 50-50 split would surprise me and set up what I think would be an interesting kabuki play about partisanship and the “go fuck yourself” vice president.  I don’t see it.  The Dems will pick up seats, to be sure, but they will not, in my opinion, sweep. 

I still think the Dems will take the House.  I think the Dems are going to pick up about 20-22 seats.  Not 30-50.  I think when you add up all the votes for Democratic House candidates and all the votes for GOP candidates, the Dems will have 55-57% of the votes.  In another election, like the one in ’94 when the GOP swept away many years of Democratic Party rule, that would mean many more seats.  This year, the GOP just got through redrawing and redistricting in several states.  They locked in 5-7 additional seats in Texas alone.  It was unfair and despite Supreme Court rulings otherwise, I think unconstitutional.  Whether that is true or not, it was certainly important and this year’s election shows why.

In my opinion, the projection of Cook and others like him do not adequately take into account the push back of $100 million in GOP attack ads over the next three weeks.

That’s because the effects of those ads are not yet showing up in polls.

If you just look at the polls that are out there and try to use an averaging out to take out the bias of Dem polls and GOP polls and good polls and bad polls, you come up with Charlie Cook’s conclusion.  The trend lines all go that direction.  The “wrong track-right track” polls and generic party preference polls also go that direction.  That’s good evidence for a persuasive case, and more than enough good evidence for a news column or a brief TV commentary.

From the perspective of someone who’s been inside a couple of campaigns, those seem like blunt instruments compared to the sharp pencils Karl Rove is using.  I think he’s looking at those specific ad buys in specific markets and some under the radar closely targeted “smart bomb” mailers and phone bank calls and sees a chance to hold the Dems to no more than 15-17 seats and maybe save both the House and the Senate.

I also think there are some Republican incumbents who have distanced themselves from the White House who will regret the hell out of that decision next January because Rove and Bush will still have lots of power to reward and punish.

To my fellow left wing Democrats:  just remember that we won both in 2000 and 2004 and that the GOP stole the elections.  Do you think they’ve reformed?