Did the DNC/MSM Do Enough?

Remains to be seen, but even the Gray Lady seems to be hedging her bets:

For a combination of reasons — increasingly bullish prognostications by independent handicappers, galloping optimism by Democratic leaders and bloggers, and polls that promise a Democratic blowout — expectations for the party have soared into the stratosphere. Democrats are widely expected to take the House, and by a significant margin, and perhaps the Senate as well, while capturing a majority of governorships and legislatures.

These expectations may well be overheated. Polls over the weekend suggested that the contest was tightening, and some prognosticators on Monday were scaling back their predictions, if ever so slightly. (Charlie Cook, the analyst who is one of Washington’s chief setters of expectations, said in an e-mail message on Monday that he was dropping the words “possibly more” from his House prediction of “20-35, possibly more.”)

AJ Strata's scenario may be too rosy:

So folks don’t need to wade through my three big posts below: Reps easily hold senate taking at most a two seat loss. Reps will also hold the house with Dems picking up a maximum of 9 seats. It get’s better from there if the GOP has a good turnout.

But, Jim Geraghty's anonymous Republican Jedi master, whom Geraghty calls "Obi Wan Kenobi," is beginning to see a Red groundswell:

Obi Wan continued laying out the case – the fact that DeWine is within 6, and Kyl is up 12 or so suggests that this late surge for the GOP is deep and broad, affecting races nationwide, even with very different candidates.

This is a big test for Geraghty, whose book, Voting to Kill, posits that the effects of 9/11 were not temporary, and will affect American voting patterns for years to come.

Geraghty gets support from an odd place. In a poll conducted November 2-5, James Carville's own "Democracy Project" joins other national generic ballot polls in finding that the "blue wave" has crested and started to recede. It also shows that the perceived gap in which party can best handle national security is vast. Republicans lead by 18 points, 50 to 32.