I am afraid that today

I am afraid that today will be remembered as the day when the midterm electoral tide turned decisively in the Democrats’ favor. Lautenberg should be a shoo-in to defeat Forrester; news coverage of Torricelli will no longer be an albatross; the Democrats’ Congressional leadership has taken a major step toward getting Iraq off the table as an election issue; the stock market continues to slide; and the economy shows no signs of recovery. As noted here previously, generic Congressional preference polls turned sharply toward the Democrats two weeks ago. Over the next month they will pull out all the stops, and it is much easier to imagine last-minute developments that will hurt the Republicans–setbacks in the war, further erosion of the economy–than the Democrats. I hope I’m wrong, but the picture appears to be darkening.