Nancy Pelosi: Yeah, I'm Pretty Confident Our Chances of Taking Back the House are Better Than 50/50

A couple of missed chances -- for example, in one California district, two Republicans finished in the "Top Two" in their goofy system, and thus the Democrats have literally no hope of winning the election there.

The Hill goes on to say it "projects" the Democrats winning 10-15 seats. Not enough to take the House, but a win, of sorts.

But... why?

Rasmussen has had the Republicans with a consistent, and now large, lead in the Congressional generic ballot.

It's currently 45-38. And you have to go back aways to find the Democrats ahead.

Republicans have consistently held a modest advantage over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot since June 2009. During 2012, support for Democrats on the generic ballot has ranged from 36% to 41%. Republicans have stayed between 40% and 46% in that same time period.

Maybe the Democrats are expecting some good economic news? Well, maybe they are, but the Fed doesn't seem to be.

The U.S. central bank will most likely ease monetary policy when it meets this week as recent data point to a worsening labor market and the crisis in Europe intensifies, Goldman Sachs said.

The Federal Open Market Committee will likely say it would buy assets such as mortgage-backed securities and U.S. Treasurys when it meets for a two-day meeting starting Tuesday, Jan Hatzius, the investment bank’s Chief U.S. Economist said in a report on Monday.

“We would be quite surprised if we saw no easing this week,” Hatzius wrote in the report.

This sort of intervention is of course undertaken when the economy is expected to deteriorate. (So far, these interventions have not produced good growth, of course.)

I'm not sure what on earth the Hill is basing its predictions on, apart from hope, and the built-in desire to "predict" something that looks like a regression to the mean.

But that's not a real regression to the mean.

It also helps to know what the "mean" actually is. They keep seeming to imagine the "mean" -- the baseline -- in politics is Democratic rule, so any Republican victory should be short-lived, soon "corrected."

posted by Ace at 02:07 PM

| Access Comments