I’ve written some about the House races, predicting the Dems will fall short a very few seats of the 218 they need to flip from the GOP hold.

Just briefly on the Senate…

The GOP needs just one of the following six races to go their way:  Rhode Island, New Jersey, Ohio, Montana, Missouri and Tennessee.

If you look at where the GOP is spending their money, they seem to have given up on saving Sen. Burns in Montana, Lincoln Chaffee in Rhode Island and upsetting Menendez in New Jersey, although those races are all within striking distance for Republicans.

That leaves three critical races: Ford (D) vs. Corker in Tenn.; McCaskill (D) vs. Talent in Missouri; and, Sen. Mike DeWine vs. Bob Casey (D) in Ohio.  Polling shows all three of those races within the margin of error of the polls, but Casey has been consistently leading in Ohio by a margin of 3 percent.  The Missouri and Tenn. races have flipped and flopped in the polls, but in this post Mark Foley atmosphere, the Dems have begun to show consistent, if thin leads.  It’s the “firewall” strategy, the press is calling it:  all they have to win is one of these three and it’s game over, so let’s pour money into the races.

If the GOP only wins one of these three races, it’ll be 50-50 in the Senate with V.P. Dick Cheney casting the deciding vote.  Wouldn’t that be interesting?

Anyway, election night Nov. 7, watch for U.S. Senate returns from these three states and you’ll likely know early how things will go.

In the House, I’ll be watching three upstate N.Y. races and three Indiana races in the early returns.  If those six appear to all go to the Dems, it’s game over; four or five of the six and it’s still a tossup; a three and three split or worse and the Dems will fall short in the House.

Yeah, I know.  I’m the only one who gives a shit at this point.  I don’t care.  It’s something that I like to keep up with.