Take to the boats, Repugs...

Paul Krugman at Welcome To Pottersville

The conventional wisdom says that the Democrats will take control of the House of Representatives next month, but only by a small margin. I've been looking at the numbers, however, and I believe this conventional wisdom is almost all wrong.

Here's what's happening: a huge Democratic storm surge is heading toward a high Republican levee. It's still possible that the surge won't overtop the levee - that is, the Democrats could fail by a small margin to take control of Congress. But if the surge does go over the top, the flooding will almost surely reach well inland - that is, if the Democrats win, they'll probably win big.

The storm may yet weaken. The Iowa Electronic Markets, in which people bet real money on election outcomes, still give Republicans a roughly 40 percent chance of keeping control of both houses of Congress. If that happens, will it mean that Republican control is permanent after all?

No. Bear in mind that the G.O.P. isn't in trouble because of a string of bad luck. The problems that have caused Americans to turn on the party, from the disaster in Iraq to the botched response to Katrina, from the failed attempt to privatize Social Security to the sudden realization by many voters that the self-proclaimed champions of moral values are hypocrites, are deeply rooted in the whole nature of Republican governance. So even if this surge doesn't overtop the levee, there will be another surge soon.

But the best guess is that the permanent Republican majority will end in a little over three weeks.

The first 'comment':

From Krugman's lips to the Flying Spaghetti Monster's ears...

Hopefully, Mr. Krugman's words are not just the ravings of a wild-eyed economist...