Good News for GOP: Paul Krugman Sees Potential Tidal Wave of Democrats.
Good news for Republicans - Paul Krugmanpredicts (Times Select $ required) the Democrats will take the House of Reprsentatives in a rout in Friday's"Will the Levee Break?"
Krugman, an economist who ostensibly writes about that subject for the paper, puts on his political expert hat and "looks at the numbers" with his no-doubt discerning eye: "The conventional wisdom says that the Democrats will take control of the House of Representatives next month, but only by a small margin. I've been looking at the numbers, however, and I believe this conventional wisdom is almost all wrong.
"Here's what's happening: a huge Democratic storm surge is heading toward a high Republican levee. It's still possible that the surge won't overtop the levee - that is, the Democrats could fail by a small margin to take control of Congress. But if the surge does go over the top, the flooding will almost surely reach well inland - that is, if the Democrats win, they'll probably win big."
[...]
"If the actual vote is anything like what the polls now suggest, we're talking about the Democrats holding a larger majority in the House than the Republicans have held at any point since their 1994 takeover.
"So if the Democrats win, they'll probably have a substantial majority. Whether they'll be able to keep that majority is another question. But be prepared to wake up less than four weeks from now and learn that everything you've been told about American politics - liberalism is dead, whoever controls the South controls Washington, only Republicans know 'the way to win' - is wrong. (Are we seeing the birth of a new New Deal coalition, in which the solid Northeast takes the place of the solid South?)"
In case Krugman sounds convincing, remember what he wrote on October 22, 2004, two weeks before the Bush-Kerry vote: "Projections assuming that undecided voters will break for the challenger in typical proportions give Mr. Kerry more than 300 electoral votes."
