There is no doubt of significant tightening. So what to do about it?

[troublemaker]

There is no doubt whatsoever that the national generic poll has tightened a great deal this week-end. It is dramatic and real. I makes little sense to blame the polls. (The sampling "errors" in party representation are the same effects we saw in 2004. In the old days people stated their party affiliation as how they were actually registered. Today people seem to self-represent their affiliation based on their mood on the day of the poll.)

The non-rhetorical question is this: Is this a broad effect or are the national Republican gains concentrated in ultra-red districts? I don't care if some RW nut in Oklahoma wins by 80% instead of 70%.

The tightening is caused by:

----- Natural factors common to all races. The electorate was "over-bought" on change and is suffering a form of pre-sale buyer's remorse. Certain recent numbers (like Charlie Cook's 61-35 among likely voters) were unsustainable and were bound to fade some.
----- Dirty campaigning. Robo-calls, push-polls, etc.. Add to that flat out lying on talk radio. Half this country has recently heard that the NYT atomic secrets story said that Iraq was only a year away from the bomb in 2002. Even Condi Rice said that on the Laura Ingram show!
----- John Kerry. There is no doubt that the Kerry flap stripped away some very loose supporters and upped RW base interest a lot. That accounts for probably 6-8 points in recent polls--a tiny three point swing is a six point change in the difference. (That doesn't mean anything is Kerry's *fault* This isn't about fault, just about where we are) Keep in mind that part of the reason the TV news allowed the Kerry thing to happen was because we were doing so well. They were bored with the "Dems win" storyline and wanted some controversy and a horse race. And they got it.

The good news is that individual races are all over the place and don't show a clear momentum shift. So the Republican surge may well be very lumpy, with giant gains one place and no gains in another place. The other good news is that the Kerry effect might be transient--something that peaked last Thursday and that we are coming out of.

This has gone from a likely rout to a coin toss with Democrats favored to narrowly take the House. Very close and very scary. It could STILL be a rout or it could be a disaster. It depends whether we bounce or the Republicans bounce in the last 48 hours. It could go either way.

So what do we take away from that? That every vote and action counts for more than we thought it did yesterday.

In addition to all the formal GOTV we should all be doing there's another method for Monday, which is to be a walking political ad all day long. Not strident, but just a real person frightened by the way our country is going. Say you're standing in line somewhere near someone who looks like a likely voter. Just say, out of nowhere, things like "If the Republicans don't lose tomorrow I fear my children will die in Iraq someday. Do you ever feel like that?" (In this environment "Republicans losing" is better PR than "Democrats winning." People who like Democrats are already pretty safe.) If someone mentions the Saddam verdict, say "It's great they found him guilty, but is it worth ten thousand young Americans coming home as amputees, paralyzed, brain damaged? Jesus... it doesn't seem right." That kind of haunting real-world encounter is powerful to people and much harder to tune out than formal campaigning.