Is that a cloud on yon horizon?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/pruden.htm
Against the prospective new tsunami of great expectations comes the voice of Wall Street money, saying, "Hey, wait a minute." Writes Jim McTague in Barron's, the Dow Jones financial weekly: "Jubilant Democrats should reconsider their order for confetti and noisemakers ... Our analysis, based on a race-by-race examination of campaign-finance data, suggests that the GOP will hang on to both chambers, at least nominally. We expect the Republican majority in the House to fall by eight seats, to 224 of the chamber's 435 [seats]. At the very worst, our analysis suggests, the party's loss could be as large as 14 seats, leaving a one-vote majority ... In the Senate, with 100 seats, we see the GOP winding up with 52, down three. We ... based our predictions ... on which candidate had the largest campaign war chest, a sign of superior grassroots support. We ignore the polls."
The Barron's analysis is, as you might expect a Wall Street analysis to be, based on cold, hard cash: No sentiment, please, we're all capitalists here. Cash in the stretch not only buys the television commercials -- the meaner the better -- everyone says he hates, but reflects the confidence of the checkbook.
Barron's employed the money test in both 2000 and 2004, and, bucking conventional media wisdom (always a good thing to do), correctly predicted the Republican gains in both years. In the 34 years since 1972, an eternity in politics, the candidate with the most money has won more than 90 percent of the time -- 98 percent, in fact, in the most recent elections. The best of the pollsters can only dream of such results.
Interesting. Take also into account that plenty of Dem money comes from PACs like the National Trial Lawyers' Association and the voter to dollar ratio of all that money in Dem war chests goes even lower.