Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Rove Confident GOP Will Retain House and Senate

The Architect remains, to all outward appearances, serene and confident about the upcoming midterm elections. So confident, in fact, that the Washington Post described the attitude of Rove and President Bush as "inexplicably confident".

Rove explains that the weakness of Democrats on security issues will lead to their downfall at the ballot box. Money quote from the Washington Times:
"It is useful to remind people what [Democrats] said and what they do. I think they have given us here, especially in the last couple of weeks, a potent set of votes to talk about. You had 90 percent of House Democrats voting against the terrorist-surveillance program, nearly three-quarters of Senate Democrats and 80 percent of House Democrats voting against the terrorist-interrogation act. Something is fundamentally flawed."
But the Washington Post, and others, are wondering if Rove and Bush know something that the rest of us don't.

For instance, what if this story, or something almost as significant, like the capture or death of Zawahiri, is about to be confirmed?

Update: Maybe this is the answer. Jim Geraghty, who literally wrote the book, has serious doubts about the validity of recent polls:
Finally, King over with SCSU Scholars is looking at a poll that had Patty Wetterling up 48-40 over Michele Bachmann in the Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District Race. He notes that poll's sample was 58 percent women. It's not uncommon to have more women voters than men voters, but it's usually closer to 51-49. Also, in a district that supported Bush, 57 to 42 percent, the sample was Republican 30 percent, Democrat 34 percent, and Independent 23 percent.

That's the kind of poll that emits an odor.
Update II: From the comments; why Dem control of the House would be a disaster, and why jihadis want so very much for it to happen:
We'll take the house, but it will be just this side of meaningless. The only satisfaction will be the hearings that will start. We spent 140 hours during Clinton checking into if they used the White House invitee list for fundraising, while less than 50 hours was spent on Halliburton. That will change.
Peter in Hastings | 10.18.06 - 2:51 pm | #