It looks like a whole lot of people have had enough

If the election were tomorrow, the Democrats would pick up 35 seats in the House and at least 4 seats in the Senate, possibly the 6 they need to have a majority, and with it, cloture.

The political climate today is worse for the incumbent majority than it was in 1994 when the Republicans took over. Independent political researcher Stuart Rothenberg predicts "a Democratic wave" on November 7.

Charlie Cook, publisher of The Cook Political Report, was more specific. He predicted this weekend that Republicans are most likely to see a net loss of 20 to 35 seats in the House, and with them their majority in the lower chamber.

In the Senate, according to Cook, Republicans were poised to lose at least four, but possibly five or six seats.

The list of most endangered Republican senators included Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Conrad Burns of Montana.

They could easily be joined by Jim Talent of Missouri and George Allen of Virginia, who are fighting for their political lives in very tight races, analysts said.

These poll numbers had Bush on the campaign trail, but one has to wonder about the length of his coattails when his approval rating is mired in the thirties. He "spiked" upward to 37% approval after consistently polling about 33% for several weeks running. But really, anything Bush can accomplish for the party looks like it will be too little, too late.

The economy, once the Republican parties ace-in-the-hole, Americans favor Democrats to manage things better by a 47 percent to 34 percent margin. Likewise, they have fallen out of favor as the part best able to deal with the threat of terrorism, having seen their strong lead turn into a statistical tie of 40 percent to 39 percent.

But the most stinging rebuke of all: By a 12 percent margin, Americans now trust Democrats rather than Republicans to handle Iraq. The Newsweek poll found 45percent of Americans trust Democrats on the prosecution of the war, versus 33 percent who favor the Republicans.

On broad policy issues, 53 percent of likely voters said they favored Democrats, to 39 percent Republican.

Victory is within reach, folks. In fact, at this point, it's ours to lose. We have nine days to put Claire McCaskill and Jim Webb over the top in Missouri and Virginia. Nancy Boyda has nine days to close the narrow, within-the-margin-of-error gap and unseat Jim Ryun in the Kansas-02. Nine days for Sara Jo Shettles to continue building her base to unseat Sam Graves in the Missouri-06.

This is our year. A whole lot of news was dumped in the Friday news cycle. If that was just the beginning, and this week gets worse for the Republicans, we get the Senate too. Hell, we may even have a majority of Governors Mansions.