House races in the east hold the key to what happens in the election. If the eastern contested House races go to the Democrats by 9PM EST, the House will be lost to Republicans before we cross the Mississippi where the polls in mountain and western time zones remain open. The western states' close races will then go to the Democrats because Republicans will no longer feel motivated to come out to vote to hold the House, and the argument that a Pombo, McMorris. Reichert, JD Hayworth, Heather Wilson will at least have some clout compared to their freshman-to-be challengers (McNerney, Goldmark, Burner, Mitchell, Madrid) will have vanished.
If, on the other hand, the eastern House seats remain in limbo, or the Republicans are holding them, then this will become a pitched battle in which we remain embroiled for months.
In HuffingtonPost, 11/02/06, "Prepare for Civil Disobedience", it was suggested that the likely scenario was that the polls bounced around, but on balance stayed more-or-less the same, and the election results favored the Republicans in defiance of the exit polls. The call was to ready our psyches for civil disobedience.
It is not the power of the Democratic Party that will be at stake, as it was for Republicans in '00, but the power of the American people stolen from them by this chicanery. Cheney has already promised that the will of the people will be ignored, and Bush obliged by annointing Cheney's pal Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary-for-Life, on the grounds that he has done "a fantastic job".
Tester has bumped ahead of Burns in Montana, McCaskill has slightly widened her lead over Talent in Missouri, Ford may have closed a supposed 12-point gap to 3 points in Tennessee, Menendez has widened his lead in New Jersey, while Chaffee seems to have taken the lead in Rhode Island, and Steele has closed on Cardin. Virginia remains too close to call, although a local Virginia poll as Webb surging to a 7-point lead (one can only hope). The generic poll shows a greater lead for Democrats than Republicans had in 1994.
Voter suppression activities are already well underway in Virginia--Republicans calling voters and telling them their polling place had changed--and Missouri, with officials "reminding" people about voter "ID" issues. A Republican robocall repeatedly calls voters repeating the name of the Democratic candidate to make the voter angry with the Democrat, a high tech version of their 1950s' trick of calling voters after midnight demanding they vote for their opponent. The robocall is programmed to redial immediately if the voter hangs up to avoid hearing the message.
Voting machines will play their distorting role tomorrow. In '04 the districts without paper trails differed more from the exit polls than those with paper trails. In '04 in certain New Mexico precincts, if you chose the Spanish language ballot, your vote for President was not recorded, and 70/30 Kerry/Edwards exit polled precincts came out closer to 50/50. In '00 they outmaneuvered us, seemed to want it more (and, we now know why), and had one more vote on the US Supreme Court (such as the Chief Justice, who, until Bush v. Gore, and after Bush v Gore said that the equal protection clause, because it was part of the anti-slavery amendments, appled only to discrimination because of race, and not other "suspect classifications".) In '04 they had raised the terrorist threat level everytime Kerry/Edwards was gaining momentum, and were prepared to tar a challenge as injecting uncertainty during wartime.
This time, it will be different. By 9PM EST, we will know if we need to sharpen our spears.
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