D.C. Political Wags Take Bold Stand Against Cavanaughism

The smart guys at the invaluable Hotline have finished their penultimate ranking of House, Senate, and statehouse races; unlike our own Tim Cavanaugh, they see the bell tolling for the GOP. For example, their top 7 Senate races - the ones most likely to flip - are all in Republican seats. Same for their top thirty-eight House seats. Democrats are about to walk into the governors' offices in Massachusetts, Arkansas, New York, and Colorado, which promises to inspire some fun, flop-sweaty explanations from 2008 presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki, and Tom Tancredo.

If you want to follow this stuff, ignore the presidential press briefings or blog outrages of the day. Check out the Hotline and check out sites like Election Projection (current prediction: 50/50 Senate, nine seat Dem majority in the House), Electoral Vote (51-49 GOP majority in the Senate, 23 seat Dem majority in the House), and the online betting pools. You can watch thousands of pieces of localized data come together to form a picture of what's happening in flyover country. Right now, it's a nervous nation putting its faith in Speaker Pelosi.