I’m less impressed by Clay Shirky’s wisdom than are some others.

Looking at nothing but the same numbers everyone else is looking at, it strikes me that a 60-seat swing in the House is the most likely outcome but that 70 seats is firmly within the realm of the possible. And that if Republicans have a good day, where things break right for them, 80 seats (and beyond) are possible. Maybe this is a crazy reading. You will have your own thoughts, I’m sure.

We can all lay down predictions tomorrow, when I’ll put up a crystal ball thread.

Jim Treacher pulls up this fantastic old SNL ad, with the great Sam Waterston:

Since yesterday I’ve been thinking a little more about what the reaction to the election results will be next Wednesday. As a rough guide, I suspect the story will be played somewhere along these lines:

35 – 40 seats – Threat Level Green: All is well for Obama and the Dems, full speed ahead.

40 – 50 seats – Threat Level Blue: Spun as Obama overperforming expectations, waved off as “just like 1994,” no big, etc.

51 – 58 seats – Threat Level Yellow: The country threw a temper-tantrum, people are ungrateful, if only Obama had been more aggressive/more progressive/less bi-partisan, things might have been different.

59 – 68 seats – Threat Level Orange: Republicans are dangerous, America is a scary place, man the barricades because the GOPacalypse is nigh. If we don’t reelect Obama in 2012, brownshirts will roam the countryside murdering and pillaging and disbanding the Department of Education.

69+ seats – Threat Level Red: Can Obama save his presidency? Is it possible for a Democrat to mount a serious primary challenge?

Hey, it turns out that the great Tom Junod (look up his amazing Esquire piece on porn from about 12 years ago–he can flat-out write) is also sad about how terrible America is becoming.

The pages of history will show that anti-anti-Palinism was a powerful force in American politics during the late 2000’s. So powerful, in fact, that it spread to encompass politicians who weren’t even Sarah Palin.

In case you missed it, yesterday Gawker published a story (you’ll get no link from me) about a guy who claimed to have hooked up with O’Donnell a few years back on Halloween night. It was an anonymous, first-person account in which the fellow lewdly and uncharitably revealed all sorts of (purported) particulars and O’Donnell and attempted to make her look like a slut/weirdo/harpy/etc. The piece had neither news value, nor entertainment value. It was mean-spirited and ugly in the extreme. Gawker paid for it. (I mean this literally–they gave the cretin “low four figures” to tell this tale; about what they paid for the iPhone 4.)

The story makes this mild Ben McGrath hit piece on Nick Denton look not mean enough by a factor of 1,000.

In the intervening 24 hours, the Village Voice and the Smoking Gun combined to identify the anonymous party, whose name is Dustin Dominiak. May his name live forever in Google so that any woman who ever considers dating him can easily find out exactly what sort of man he is.

Anyway, the entire episode is deeply unpleasant, except for this one graph, from the Village Voice’s account of how they tracked Dustin Dominiak down:

Finally, we got ahold of Ms. Jackson, Christine O’Donnell’s very nice and pleasant-to-talk-to aunt. She had never heard of “the Gawker,” but did have very nice things to say about her niece, and noted what an ugly campaign it was and would tell us on the record that all the nasty things said about her niece were “false.” She also confirmed that Brad and Brent were indeed once tenants, and that she had yet to read the story, but not much else to say. We left our contact information with her and await any further details from her in the event she ends up reading another nasty thing about her niece.

As Allahpundit notes, this story has united much of the lefty blogosphere behind O’Donnell. Which tells you how strong a force anti-anti-Palinism can be. As of today, the RCP average had O’Donnell -18 in her race. I’ll be curious to see if she finishes closer than that.

From Toby Harnden:

Byron York wonders here whether Bill Clinton wants Democrats to win next Tuesday. That may be going too far but he is certainly onto something when he suggests that (the) Clinton(s) has/have (politically speaking, they’re inseparable) a double agenda right now.

It was one thing for lefty pundits to look silly a few weeks ago arguing that Things Might Not Be That Bad. After all, they had to rally the base and convince voters that the Democratic ship wasn’t sunk yet.

But to be making that case five days before the election? Either Errol Louis is plugged into some really deep statistical analysis–and will look like the smartest guy in American on Wednesday morning–or he’s such a partisan that he doesn’t mind taking one for the team in what will probably be the final rally-the-base column of the cycle.

My guess is the latter. But if Donks lose fewer than 50 seats on Tuesday, I’ll tip my hat to Louis.

(I don’t know where Vegas has the line, but it should probably be somewhere around 60 seats in the House and 8 in the Senate. Right now I’d take the over on the House and stay away from the Senate. More prognosticating next week.)

All of that said, one of the more interesting questions right now is, How big a loss is figured into the expectations cake at this point?

One of the problems with all of the columns like Louis’ is that they probably serve to tamp down GOP expectations as much as they help with Dem voter perceptions. I wonder how the media and/or Dem establishment and/or Obama White House will view the various numbers on the Defcon scale. Are expectations such as a 50-seat swing is baked into the cake already? Or would 50 seats cause all of the impact-warning sensors on Air Force One to start sounding? How about 60 seats?

I assume that if the number goes higher than 65, then there’s no way for anyone to downplay the results.