This Election Hasn't Even Started

More than five months out, election speculation is just political masturbation. Nobody who votes actually pays attention to the November election until after Labor Day. The dem/repug divide can swing 20 points a good dozen times over the summer, all over issues people won't even remember come Halloween.

But the poll-driven daily pendulum swings are getting out of hand.

Dems Losing Every Swing District! one day; Repugs Won't Take Back Senate! the next.

I read every contradictory one of them, and I have yet to be shaken out of a completely baseless conviction I've had since March: Democrats are not only going to keep both houses of Congress, they're going to increase their majorities.

Here's my totally un-scientific reasoning: 90 percent of every election is based on the economy. If people believe the economy is doing well, they vote for their familiar incumbents. If people feel economically insecure, they vote for challengers. If the economy is just so-so, then that wild card 10 percent can determine the results.

A lot of the conventional wisdom that assumes the Democrats will lose seats in November is based on the traditional mid-term losses for the president's party, and especially on the 54-seat landslide that gave republicans the House in 1994.

Here's why that conventional wisdom doesn't apply in 2010: First, 2002 disproved the midterm loss theory. Smirky-Darth twisted 9/11, lying and manipulating their asses off to not just avoid repug losses in Congress, but actually increase the number of repug seats and take the Senate away from the Democrats. So if you're willing to fight dirty, you can win.

In 1994, the economy was not yet the record-breaker that would re-elect Clinton in 1996, but it was far better than the recession that defeated H.W. in 1992. So why didn't voters reward the president's party? Because the economy wasn't strong enough to overcome a 22-month record of failure and disappointment: healthcare reform, DADT, Somalia. Even the "success" of welfare reform hurt Clinton because it was seen as a repug victory, which it was.

People saw Clinton and the Democrats as losers, and voted accordingly.

In 2010, President Obama has an unbroken record of huge, monster successes (with the enormous caveat of the Gulf Oil spill, which may be that 10 percent deciding factor.) And republicans have an unbroken record of shooting themselves in the head time after time after time since the 2008 election.

The question is how well President Obama and Democratic candidates promote their own record of success and the repugs' record of failure and obstruction.

And yes, that means "looking backward" and "pointing fingers" at the Smirky/Darth administration for gutting regulation and enabling the Gulf catastrophe.

Whether they can do that remains to be seen, but for the moment I'm going to assume that at minimum they will prevent it from becoming the reason for people to vote against them.

But the real key to all of it is, as always, the economy. And the only way to create an economy that will make people vote Democratic is to step on the throats of every repug and Blue Dog in the Senate and pass a trillion-dollar jobs bill. Right now.

If they can do that, then here is my prediction:

At worst, Democrats will retain their 39-seat majority in the House and 9-seat majority in the Senate. Plenty of seats will change hands, but the final count will remain the same.

I actually think Democrats will increase their Senate majority by at least one seat and their House majority by at least five seats.

But Democrats have to start NOW debunking the we're-going-to-lose assumption every time it appears. Talk like winners, walk like winners, swagger with the confidence of winners, pass legislation like winners and winners we shall be.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....