For what it's worth, all of the math, from polling to early voting numbers, strongly favors Merkley. His fate is fairly tied to Obama's: If by the time Oregon results come out, national polls have proven to be fairly accurate and we all but know Obama's our next president, expect Merkley to win fairly easily (3-10%). If the election's still in doubt, and especially if a place like Virginia (and to a lesser extent, OH/FL) has been called for McCain, Smith becomes much more likely to eek his way into reelection.

As it is, I put Merkley as better than an 80% favorite to be put into the senate by the Obama tide.

"Eek" says it all.

I, too, expect Obama's 'coattails' to stretch far down the ballots, and newbie voters who have jumped through the first-time hoops to be able to mark a single-candidate vote, once they have ballot in hand might be surprised to discover there are dozens more votes they can mark ... in places where they have no sensibility of the choice, even in simple terms such as D. or R., left or right.

And there they re-iterate "whatever Obama is having, or is." Which is 'Democrat' ... whatever that means, whatever the definition of 'is' is.

A secondary Merkley-assist could come from a (smaller) group of voters whose single-minded intent is voting anti-incumbent anywhere they find one. (There is mixed 'blessing' in this, though, as I know a one-time Smith-voter whose retaliatory anti-incumbent aim got cast for Brownlow ... "whoever he is," she said.)

My expectation thought surely must not be original. So why has it NOT been mentioned (much) in massmind media, unless they suppress it in order to purposely pose all the help for McCain that they can? Smaller-minded than the "horserace mentality" in which their 'election news' is framed, is then within that, isolating singular attention on a 'lead horse.' Inasmuch as it's a 'horserace,' (although it's not actually that, whatsoever), it is a 'race' between two 'herds' of 'horses.' IF media presented that wider view, TVworshippers could see that one herd is much more extensive with millions more followers, and see that not only the lead horse wins -- the whole herd wins.

So Tensk, what do think will happen?

In Oregon? I expect the vote tallies to match the 'exit polling' and to match the polls. I don't know what the polls are, an 8-point spread, I hear. I guess: Merkley 52 Smith 41 Other 7

Today, GoonGord went to his go-away guy, LIARS. After 20 minutes of cuddling together under the quilt of LIARS fact-suppression -- hey! get a room, you two ... off the air -- by way of saying good-bye, Gord choked up and cried, trying to say, "... listeners to LIARS, I really need your vote, it is really really important ...." It made me think they, too, see The Word of the polls, and the prophets, "written on the subway walls, tenement halls."

The very next LIARS caller dissed the programming, and said he was ex-Smith and had voted for Merkley because GoonGord "didn't act like a true conservative." I suppose that meant he judged by the senator's record in Washington, (although it hasn't appeared nor been mentioned in the re-election campaign ads); but maybe he simply meant big conservatives don't cry.

In other States? Without Vote-by-Mail, or some other style of all paper ballots, I expect the GOPfascist ballot burning to shave Obama's win from a 15-point spread down to a 5-point, 52 - 47. Obama voters are like hurricane Katrina waters: flooding under the GOP voting-barriers, over the GOP voting-barriers, and pouring through every tooth-gap in the GOP ballot-shredders. More than rightwing criminals can corrupt away all of. Besides, the W-decal SUVs are too afraid and too dejected to even show up, get out of the car, and vote.

Anyway, down-ballot everywhere I expect Democrats Democrats Democrats and Democrats over the top with Obama. ('Hungadunga, Hungadunga, Hungadunga, & McCormick' -- Groucho Marx's attorneys ... he left out a Hungadunga.)

Republican losers lips are saying LeftSocialism government brings no bi-partisanship, "doesn't reach across the aisle." But I expect they are too going to reach across the aisle ... with subpoenas and handcuffs.

Tensk,
I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Whatever you're smoking... I want some.

Y'know, if I may just offer some voodoo for thought. Planetary bellwether watching.

Saturn has reached opposition with Uranus, like the minute hand and the hour hand at 12:30. In (over-)simplified synonyms, Saturn means 'conventional,' 'tradition,' 'status quo' -- Saturn the ringed planet: confined, held in, parsimonious, anal retentive. Uranus means 'revolution,' 'shock,' 'sudden change,' 'eccentric' or 'odd' -- Uranus the only planet that rolls along its orbit on its equator, pointing its axial poles at the Sun.

What we understand from this is cultural change happens. At these times of exact opposition, Saturn o-o Uranus.

Nov. 4, 2008 | Feb. 5, '09 | Sept. 15, '09 | April 27, '10 | July 26, '10 (the most at the last, crescendo forte during Aug. and Sept. '10; death of 'patronage' and 'patrimony' then, homicides of establishment chiefs, CEOs, leading-figures, headliners).

April 1, 1965 | * Aug. 28, '65 | Feb. 24, '66 | Nov. 8, '66 | Jan. 6, '67.
(* the fullest-force period, 4 weeks June-to-July '65)

Oct. 1, 1918 | Jan. 25, '19 | Aug. 13, '19 | April 26, '20 | June 7, '20 (with 'aftermath' for approx. Sept. - Oct. '20 ... the time of the Teapot Dome (oil-reserves scandal) preliminaries, Harding's election, then he gets lethally food-poisoned on his train back from Alaska ....)

Three Saturn - Uranus oppositions in the last 100 years. Each one 'blurs' its effects over a 2- or 3-year duration, with specific vivid events that exhibit the 'general mood' on certain days during the interval. 'Hands of a clock' move smoothly in one forward direction; planets move forth-and-back, '2 steps forward and 1 step back' each year, and so they pass each other -- one going forward, one backing up -- then reverse motion and pass each other again, and reverse and again, etc.

Now, anyone can play this Interpretation Game. Just look up each date and find the (historic) news then which exactly matches the news on the next or another date listed.

Here's my takes:
* 1918-20 was the Russian Bolshevik revolution to civil war.
* 1965-67 was the hippies to communal living.
* 2008-10 is the coming into Majority by a coalition of minority groups.

Or:
* socialism
* socialism
* socialism

I suppose an equally valid alternative take on the three passages is:
* 1918-20 World War I, League of Nations
* 1965-67 Vietnam War, Civil Rights Law
* 2008-10 Oil War, Water War, Global Warming War, new Neuremberg-type war crimes trials, new re-ratification of Geneva Conventions or Human Rights Accord, the International Court of Justice instituted.

Now your turn. How are these things each like the other one: 1918, 1965, 2008? (Plus+2 in each case.) Or try: 1919, 1966, 2009. And remember, the planets affect the whole Earth and all the peoples' societal cultures on it, so don't limit your historic trend-spotting to only data points in American history (news).

---
Anyway, speaking on a personal note, as what's called a 'sensitive' in this racket called 'rat-race living,' I have felt a growing stress in social affairs of these recent months. My joints have been stiff and popping, sure sign of barometric low-pressure; I know a storm is fixin' to blow. I forecast a frigid cold winter; people need blankets and heat way more than usual.

Others have felt the social fault-line stresses, too. Just saying ... election day is the moment of the Saturn-Uranus opposition, so the instability should lessen after that. But it strongly persists and replays for the next couple years. What I know is meditate, breathe, read, do manual labors or exercise. Bathe. Repeat.

What are Democrats like?

Look, they're humans. So their vices are always (only) money, sex, or power.

Their virtues are egalitarian sensibilities, beneficial for humankind. Like the Enlightenment, the empowerment of Science, the invention of democracy.

I can't think of an example Democrat. Mahatma Gandhi, I suppose. Ralph Nader, if you will allow, has walked the walk his whole life.

It's just as well to not think of a Democrat in person. Anyone self-serving who campaigns to be elected has Power vice issues anyway. Democrat is something like a state of mind. It's the practice of going by group consensus and the people's common sense. The difficulty is distributing the most information to the most people, so that the group's consensus is an informed one. That's the people's power: Information flow. That's how the electeds exploit or undermine power: Compartmentalizing information.

I expect this generation of Democrats talks and walks different from previous types, (even as recent as Clinton-type Democrats, whatever that is), due to the information distribution in 'the internets tubes' (to the electeds and from the electeds), two-way, as internet wasn't available even as recently as Clinton's 1990s.

So, for what we can expect, in our public government, in our private lives, it seems to me that we can design our expectations, among ourselves, and send a copy to the electeds and tell them this is what we expect, now they better enact it.

Ask not what Democrats do for us. Ask what we might decide better democracy does.

---
Or, define Democrat by negation: Democrats are what Republicans are not. And here's the history book of what Republicans are: The New Know-Nothings, by Larry Beinhart CommonDreams.org, November 2, 2008. -- People who, frightened of the way things are changing, want to change back to that white, Protestant place it was, oh, sometime back before 1840. America Firsters. Anti-immigrant. Anti-foreigner. Anti-elite. Anti-intelligence.

So, the way to know a Republican is their fear. The way to know a Democrat is their absence of fear. We know our personal politics by the same test -- Fear: Got any?