non-ecumenical ramblings

Haven't had much reason to blog recently. No Friday Night Wine or for that matter Friday Night Pelligrino even.

For politics, the upcoming election will of course have thousands (tens of thousands?) of postings. Have stated before (sorry on labour day i don't link) that I don't believe the Dems will take either branch of Congress & will stand by that today. They'll basically recover the ground they lost in the Senate in '04 and narrow the GOP lead in the House, but there just aren't enough competitive races and $$$ floating around for the Dems to win the needed 16 House and 6 Senate seats. For a hard number, will go with the Senate being 51 GOP, 48 Dems & 1 independent (Lieberman's lead has been ephemeral and Lamont will win by about the same ratio as he won before. Santorum has never been able to cut Casey's lead below 5% and I don't expect that to change. Talent's war chest looks like it will make the difference in Missouri.).

The House is harder to follow if you're not a pol or pollster, but the blogging caesar (who had the temerity to ask for $$$ for the umpteen hours he's put into his web page - have toyed with bidding $25 and see if he'd accept it) has had pretty static number of the Dems +8 for about a month. By the end of this month - a fortnight after the final glut of primaries - the polls should be solid enough to make a pretty close to final prediction. Will go out on a non-limb and state that the Dems will pick up 12 seats to get them within spitting range, but not over the top.