ripe for the pickin'

New York, Pennslvannia, Connecticut and California should be where the democrats' bid for a majority in the House is either found or crushed. NY has two blow outs at the state level that should discourage GOP voters from the polls (Hillary and Elliot), this formula helped Mellisa Bean in 2004 with Barrack Obama crushing Alan Keyes. Same goes for Penn possbily if the Santorum-Casey race continues to be a snoozer...although the Swann-Rendell race should keep GOPers interested. Connecticut, should Joe Lieberman prevail, would also face snoozers of statewide elections. California will be a hard fought battle for the governorship. E-bay millioniare versus planet hollywood millioniare.

Also going for the democrats this year is all the scandals. It seems almost every member of the California GOP delegation is tied to some sort of scandal, whether it be Doolittle and his wife's 15% cut of every donation, Pombo's ties to Cunningham's bribers, Dier's rumors of homosexuality, there are too many to name. But NY GOP just got itself a big headache:

Sweeney showed up drunk to a frat party near, but not in his district. The one good note: "It was reported that one student approached the Congressman with drug paraphernalia and asked to take a picture. The Congressman refused." When fratboys say you are openly-drunk, I take that as an expert witness testifying.

It will be interesting to see whether the Democrats' "Northeast Strategy" plus all the scandal fall out from Duke-stir will help them take back the House.

Here's to hoping.