RUSH: Dick Morris has an interesting column today, New York Post. "The latest polls show something very strange and quite encouraging is happening: The Republican base seems to be coming back home." Now, my contention is that the Republican base never left, but that's for another moment later on in the program. Morris continues. "This trend, only vaguely and dimly emerging from a variety of polls, suggests that a trend may be afoot that would deny the Democrats control of the House and the Senate. With two weeks to go, anything can happen, but it is beginning to look possible that the Democratic surge in the midterm elections may fall short of control in either House."
Now, if you happen to be watching cable news today, this is not the message you will get, particularly on PMSNBC where they are running their telethon again today, the telethon to cure the Republican majority. David Gregory kicked it off today, all day long the MSNBC cable network is doing everything it can to secure and find the cure for the dreaded disease known as the Republican majority. We have audio sound bites from that. But other than on -- well, CNN, they're going nuts over the polls that they think they have. Here's the evidence Dick Morris cites. "Pollsters Scott Rasmussen and John Zogby both show Republican Bob Corker gaining on Democratic Rep. Harold Ford Jr. in Tennessee, a must-win Senate seat for the Democrats. Zogby has Corker ahead by seven, while Rasmussen still shows a Ford edge of two points." There's another poll out today that shows Corker ahead by two.
So in two of the three polls I've seen, Corker is up. Interestingly, one of the themes of the campaign has now become temperament. Corker had a press conference where he was to discuss a bunch of things, and Ford showed up and demanded to talk about some other things, and it looked like a meltdown to people who were there. That's the way it would appear. I mean, any time you have the challenger storming a press conference of his opponent, it looks like a desperation move, and that's how the race in Tennessee is beginning to appear to people. "Zogby reports a 'turnaround' in New Jersey's Senate race with the GOP candidate Tom Kean taking the lead, a conclusion shared by some other public polls. Even though Sen. Jim Talent in Missouri is still under the magic 50 percent threshold for an incumbent, Rasmussen has him one point ahead and Zogby puts him three up. But unless he crests 50 percent, he'll probably still lose.
"In Virginia, Republican embattled incumbent Sen. George Allen has now moved over the 50 percent threshold in his internal polls. (He'd been at 48 percent.) Nationally, Zogby reports that the generic Democratic edge is down to four points, having been as high as nine two weeks ago. None of these data indicates that the Republicans are out of trouble yet, but Democrats must win one of these three races: Ford in Tennessee, Menendez in New Jersey or Webb in Virginia. If not, they'll fall at least one seat short of controlling the Senate even if they succeed in knocking off all five vulnerable GOP incumbents in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Missouri." Morris says that the Republican fortunes are brightening because the GOP base "may have fast forwarded to the prospect of a Democratic victory and recoiled." Well, we'll address this as the program unfolds. If the base left, why is it all of a sudden back? My thinking is it doesn't -- the base is the most informed political base in America, is the Republican base, the conservative base. They're not this flighty. They've known for a long time what Democrat control of various institutions would mean, particularly at this point in time. But whatever, polling data indicates that -- and I predicted this. I told you this last week. I mentioned this to you yesterday. As we get closer to the election, these polls are going to narrow because the pollsters are going to need credibility when the election is over. They can't afford for the last series of polls to show Democrats winning 40 seats and the Republicans holding control. They can't afford for the polls to show Democrats winning 20 seats and Republicans maintaining control by two or three. They just can't afford that. So it's quite understandable to me that these polls now would begin to contract.
