As promised, I’m going to venture a guess at what’s happening. Some thoughts, in no particular order.

* Two weeks ago, the CW seemed to have 50-ish seats as the best bet.

* Last week, the CW seemed to believe that 60 seats was the most likely GOP pickup.

* Looking around, I believe that as of Sunday night, 70 is the new 60.

* The major reason for this shift was Gallup’s release of its final generic ballot numbers. As my buddy Jay Cost explains, the final GOP generic lead in 1994 was +6.4 and they wound up with a net of 54 seats. Gallup’s final number this time is GOP +15. The RCP average is only GOP +9.4. If you drew a straight-line, this would put the Republican pickup today somewhere in the range of net +79 and +126.

* I doubt that this straight-line projection is much help, but then again nobody knows because we’ve never seen numbers like this in the modern era.

* Also of some note is the gerrymandering of districts along racial lines. This practice produces a reliable number of minority House members, but at the cost of somewhat overstating the electoral throw-weight of Democrats in national polls. The astounding difference between Obama’s approval ratings among racial groups suggests that the polls we look at today may understate how well Republicans will perform.

At the end of the day, who knows what this all means. Predictions are just a parlor game and we’ll know soon enough. But since parlor games are fun, I’ll throw out a guess: Republicans pick up a net of +80.

That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if they finished at +65 or +70. And I also wouldn’t be totally shocked if they finished +90. Ninety seats seems totally within the realm of the possible, if not the likely. (I would be very surprised if the pickup was sub-60.)

Update: I’m still not sure what number would shake Democrats into worrying about Obama in 2012 (meaning, pushing for a primary challenge or for him to not run for reelection). I suspect that if such a number exists, it’s likely to be very, very high. And in any case, it’s unlikely Dems will reach for the eject button on Obama, however much they might like to.

However, if a Democrat was so inclined to punch out of Obamaworld, there’s an easy line to take: That Obama has already accomplished so much for the country that the most important thing left now is to consolidate those gains and to make sure Those Evil Republicans don’t repeal them. In fact, Obama’s contributions are so immense that they’re more important than the man himself, even!

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.

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?

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.