I received a notice from the Shadowy Left Wing Blogging Conspiracy today that I was contractually obligated to post something on the mid-term election, so here goes.

Even though I believe the Democrats are the most awe-inspiring election-losing machine the world has ever seen (I mean, they're an unstoppable juggernaut of incompetency), I am still going to predict that they'll take the House. Let's go with a margin of seven seats. (The conventional wisdom seems to be 15-20 seats, so I'm taking into account the ability of the Dems to undercut expectations at every turn.)

In the Senate, though, the Republicans are going to hold on. I'll say two seats, or three, depending on how you count Lieberman, who appears headed for victory as the standard-bearer of the Lieberman Party (motto: "My seat in the Senate is too important to leave in the hands of the voters."). It would be agonizingly dramatic if the Dems lost the Senate because of Lieberman, but I don't think it'll be that close.

So, instead of a situation where Congress acts as a rubber-stamp for Bush policies (except when Bush used his one and only veto to protect the innocent stem cells), we'll have a Congress paralyzed into passing hopelessly compromised legislation under duress.

In this scenario, Democrats will be urged to cave to Republican demands in the name of "bipartisanship." (They will do so.) Democrats will make no such demands of Republicans. (Not that the Republicans would do it, anyway.)

Then, in the 2008 election, everything bad will be laid at the feet of the Democratic House.

I suspect I'm going to get another message from the Conspiracy soon.