I know, I know...it's not likely, but a brother can dream can't he?

Following up on my post from yesterday and incorporating some of the suggestions/corrections from the comments made there, let's take a look at our best case scenario in the November Senate elections.

Right now, we're at 49 Ds, 49 Rs and 2 I's.  When the smoke clears on election night in November we'll be at 62 Ds, 37 Rs and 1 I.
Here's how it's going to happen....

It's been five LOOOONG months since I last posted a Senate '08 diary. Back then, Fidel Castro still ran Cuba (in name, at least) and Iowa was anyone's game to predict. Two weeks before my diary was posted, a loon held Clinton's Rochester, New Hampshire office hostage for several hours. And about the time my diary was posted, the hottest news on Campaign Trail '08 was Sex On the City (if you don't remember, it's okay...it was Rudy Giuliani's 497th scandal of 2007).

Anyway, much has changed, and the Senate '08 picture has seemingly gotten brighter and brighter for the Democrats. Retaining a Senate majority seems just about assured, and expanding it significantly looks likely. That's what a basket-case economy and unanimously disdained President will do for the opposition party. Good times.

My Senate roundup below the fold! . . .

I was going to make this first post an introduction explaining how I came to be reading blogs everyday, how it all started in the Fall O' Aught Three...how I came to bookmark the old Calpundit blog because it had the best blogroll on the web, even though I didn't know what a blogroll was called at the time...ah memories. He used to have a mountain of traditional media links on the side of his page, links going places like the Toledo Blade and The Houston Chronicle, The New York Times, and The Seattle PI. I bookmarked it and used his page as my gateway for reading the news. Then, of course, the TANG story got big and Kevin got deep in the weeds, starting to link to more of those funny-named websites sitting below the traditional news sites, so I started reading those too.

Anyway, I was going to write some long pointless post of introduction like that, but decided no, I won't do that. Instead, I'm going share a video I put together in the time I should have spent writing a better first post. I've tried to repackage Sen. Whitehouse's recent speech into a condensed version, one that hopefully relays to the viewer the import of his revelations in an understandable, but shorter, manner. After the jump.

Here's the latest rankings for Senate '08.

1. (last month: 1) Colorado (OPEN) - Leans Dem pickup

The GOP still has no one running. Are they already giving up? Rep. Mark Udall (D) continues to raise money and quietly position himself as the frontrunner. If Repubs are lucky, this will stay close like the state's last open race in 2004. Equally possible, this is becoming Illinois 2004 all over again, in which the GOP conceded their own seat before campaign season was at its height.

The rest of the races below the fold!

John Mulligan at the Projo provides an article on Whitehouse's trip to Iraq:  

It seems worth noting that on two major issues that Senator Whitehouse spoke on the Senate floor about, there was a great deal of media attention and some immediate action.  The first issue is the firing of US  Attorney Iglesias, which Whitehouse spoke about on Wednesday, and which got media coverage in The New York Times and elsewhere (including on this blog) on Thursday.

Issues discussed in the interview include:  the Iraq War and Senator Reed's response to the President's current plan, Senator Reed's plan going forward in conjunction with Senator Levin, the Biden-Gelb plan and its feasibility, concerns regarding the long-term effects of war on American military service personnel, including PTSD, and whether our VA's are funded to handle the issues, health care and the crisis of the uninsured, Senator Reed's efforts to fund SCHIP for the state of Rhode Island, the medicare prescription drug benefit and Reed's support of the proposed changes, education funding from the national level and fulfilling the promise to fund special education under IDEA,  addressing the national deficit by stopping the President's tax cuts,  funding alternative energy projects in the US. The interview is approximately 22 minutes long.

Good news, everyone!  Senator Reed's office contacted me today and they are interested in having me sit down with the Senator for an interview.   Here's where you do your part and help me plan the topics for this interview.  Comment away all you several hundred people out there who are coming to this place every week!

One idea that David suggested was approaching the interview from a social work perspective and talking about the number of walking wounded returning to the US from Iraq.  Another thought of David's was to ask Senator Reed had any regrets about votes he has made in the past while.  Also, David suggested trying to elicit his forward-thinking vision for the Iraq war.

On a more personal note, I am looking forward to congratulating the Senator personally on the birth of his daughter.  This is a great occasion in his life.

I know everybody's been doing it, but call me a late bloomer. Here I go, with my first Senate 2008 diary. THE FIRST.

So, without further ado, let's delve in.

First, it's fair to call the following Senators totally safe so far:

Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama
Ted Stevens, R-Alaska
Larry Craig, R-Idaho
Pat Roberts, R-Kansas
Carl Levin, D-Michigan
Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico
Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island
Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina
Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee
Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming

Read my full Senate rundown below the fold...

Micro-targeting, my ass!

You can draw up statistical voter models to your heart's content, give them a fancy name like "72 Hours to Victory" and then sell the package to the media as an unstoppable juggernaut that turns out rubber-stamp Republican voters like American flags coming off a Chinese production line.

But you cannot put lipstick on a pig and call it an eagle. And you can't run a phone bank without committed volunteers living on nothing but pizza if you treat them like Wal-Mart part-timers with pre-existing medical conditions.

And no matter what the numbers in the fancy computer analysis say, you can't wrap a red bow around Republican hamburger and sell it as ground steak. Or at least that's how one member of the GOP GOTV Elite Hit Squad saw it in an essay he penned called "Life as a GOP Slave."

Going through the archives, I came across this old post from August 28:

Democrats were right in 2004: the Republicans have adopted a draft. It only applies, however, to party workers employed by state victory committees in the east of the Mississippi. For many it will be worse than boot camp. They are to be sent to Rhode Island to try to rescue Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee's re-election campaign in the September 12th primary.

Workers start arriving Friday and will be charged with sorting out the mess that Washington operatives believe is the Chafee campaign. First task may be to get Republican voters to forget Chafee's erratic performance in the last two of the four broadcast debates between the incumbent and his lively challenger, Cranston mayor Stephen Laffey.

Scores of GOP workers will begin arriving this week and stay through the open primary as they search for and then try to persuade some of the 70,000 registered Republicans and several hundred thousand independent voters eligible to participate in the open primary to support Chaffee. Draftees, many of whom may be more compatible with Laffey, will be paid by their home-state committees. Food and lodging expenses will be picked up by Republican National Committee.

It wasn't just the millions that Liddy Dole dumped into Chafee's campaign, both in the primary and then in the general, it was also the scores of boots she removed from battleground states East of the Mississippi.

For three weeks, the NRSC took its troops out of Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Missouri to rescue Chafee's ass in a primary, even though he was always a long-shot to retain the seat. And I'm sure no decision of that magnitude was made without Rove's direction.

It was such great strategic thinking that helped us win the Senate. 2-3 weeks may not seem like a lot, but two months out from an election, they abandoned the territory we needed to win and hold to take the Senate. Of those seats, we won all but Tennessee, and we knocked off Chafee for good measure.

Liddy Dole for NRSC chair in 2008! I'm in for $100 if she sticks around.

Race tracker wiki: RI-Sen

As edgery noted, today Bush said he was going to try to ram John Bolton's confirmation as U.N. Ambassador through the lame-duck Congress that is about to reconvene.  But rather than seek revenge on the Dems, Chafee said he's going to stick with his refusal to support Bolton, which in all likelihood will kill Bolton's confirmation prospects. More below the fold.

Below the fold is a recap, with the results added

Crossposted from SmokeyMonkey.org.

I mailed my ballot, so my voting has been done for a week.  I have today nothing but to watch interviews and returns.  On MSNBC, they are providing all day coverage.  I have watched interviews with Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN), Rick Santorum (R-PA), and now Arlen Specter (R-PA) is on as I write.  I am thankful that they are talking more to candidates than offering their own views or those of their "political experts" who are largely idiots.

I'm looking forward to a number of races.  I'm going to talk about a few below and why I'm interested.  Do not expect this to be expert political analysis.  It is simply my opinions as I watch the show, beer in one hand, ham sandwich in the other (not while I'm typing, obviously).

They are even quoting some internal players in both the senate seats.

Does any body know what is goiong on the ground?

I hope and pray that African Americans are not falling for the Oreo in MD senate

AND

Democrats and Independents are not falling for nice guy image of the wingnut Chafee.

Years of DKos lurking have finally blossomed into activism!  And it feels good.  Real good.  I grew up in RI and when to the Univ. of MD, so I got a bunch more calls to make.  Unfortunately my friend in VA apparently isn't registered.  And I got the voicemail of my friend in MO.  But I gotta lotta friends.  So, back to the phone.

Also, if Whitehouse wins I call the credit.