The 'blue wave'

In an article that's pretty uncharacteristic for Charlie Cook, he seems to have abandoned most of his usual qualifiers. As a professional poll-watcher, making bold predictions would be suicidal, sure, but this is about as close as I've seen him get in quite some time-- even considering his final caveat that "all this could change." It could, of course, but it feels pretty good in the meantime.

Election Day is three weeks from now, and unless something happens fast, this will be one of those once- or twice-in-a-generation elections when a party enjoys unbelievable gains or endures horrendous losses that prove to be the exceptions to Tip O'Neill's adage that "all politics is local." In midterm elections, Democrats last suffered such a defeat in 1994; for Republicans, it was 20 years before that in the Watergate election of 1974.

The direction, barring some unforeseen event, is clear. What is less clear is which specific seats will fall and how far inland this wave will go. (. . .)

While many attribute the Republican freefall to the scandal involving former Rep. Mark Foley and his e-mails to congressional pages, it really was no more than the straw that broke the camel's back. The seeds of Republicans' problems were planted long before publication of the congressman's e-mails to pages. The war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, other congressional scandals, federal budget spending and deficits, stem-cell research, Terri Schiavo and a multitude of other factors had been feeding the creation of an undertow for the GOP that goes back over a year. The "time for a change" dynamic that worked against Democrats in 1994 gradually came into place, fueled by all those factors mentioned above, and now it would probably take some huge event to alter its course.