Shifting Winds?

Perhaps the wish is father to the thought, but Al Hunt writes gleefully that the Democrats believe they have a "lock" on the House, and might well take the Senate, too.

On the other side, the American Thinker's Richard Baehr speculates that Rahm Emmanuel may be growing increasingly worried -- and that he has, in fact, been urging closer coordination between the 527's and Democratic candidates.

As is usually the case, Michael Barone has an acute analysis, noting that the winds may have shifted slightly in the Republicans' direction in recent days, given the UK terror threat and the apparent embrace of the far left by some elements of the Democratic Party.

The fact is that it's simply too soon for either side to know with any assurance how this autumn's races will ultimately shape up, because factors no one can predict -- much less control -- are going to be decisive. In particular, the course of the war on terror will be key; if evidence of other, new threats emerge, voters may well be reluctant to trust Democrats even if they're otherwise annoyed with Republicans. In a related vein, if Iraq seems to be stablizing, albeit slowly, that helps Republicans -- but if it doesn't, that may strengthen the Democrats' hands. Likewise, another catastrophe like Katrina would help Democrats, especially if it could again be manipulated to "show" Republican inefficiency (don't make the mistake of believing that all those MSM Katrina retrospectives are merely nonpartisan commemorations).

Given the fact that, now more than ever, the most decisive matters are those least within the control of politicians generally, there's no way around the conclusion that -- despite Democrats' fear of a Rove "October surprise" (as noted by Hunt in the piece linked above) -- no one knows what events will be most important, or which way they will cut . . . at least not yet.