The Occasional Observer

Darn, I'm good. I was reviewing some old comments, and came upon this one. More than 2 months before the election, while most folks on RedState were still crowing that losing the Senate was unthinkable,

Fredo said...
It's hardly unthinkable. I'd say 75% that the Dems re-take the House and 25% they retake the Senate. They need to sweep the toss-ups and then steal a likely-G.O.P. seat (TN, most likely) to get the +6 swing they need. Brown will beat DeWine, Casey will beat Santorum, Tester will beat Burns, and Whitehouse will beat Chafee or Laffey, so that's +4 right there. They need McCaskill to beat Talent, which is, say, 60/40 likely for the Dems, and then they need Ford to beat Corker in TN. CW is Ford will lose, but I think he's got about a 40% chance to take the prize right now. If McCaskill and Ford win, the Dems have the Senate.

I do not believe the GOP will get a single pick-up. Despite all the confident talk, McGavick is blowing up in WA (after his less-than-candid DUI admission), and Kennedy hasn't built any momentum in MN. Kean is leading in his race, but NJ going GOP in 2006? I'll believe it when I see it.

The GOP's best chance to retain the Senate? Corker winning in TN. If not, we need Kean in NJ or Talent in MO. And if we only hold the Senate b/c Kean wins and its 50/50, that's barely a majority. With Collins, Snowe, Spector and Kean, no real pro-life judge will get through the Senate.

I'm getting another bourbon.

9/05/2006 9:38 PM

Saw through the Jersey polls, called MO as more likely Dem than GOP, knew WA and MN were lost, and rightly called Corker as our best shot to retain the Senate (when they were still polling in a dead heat). Of course, the only thing I didn't see was getting Macaca'd in Virginia, but some events are just too bizarre to predict. And it took something just that bizarre for the Dems 1-in-4 chance (as I saw it) to bear out--without the Allen implosion, the GOP would have held.