This is really the Rahm Emanuel vs Glenn Beck contest.

Results here locally at the Watertown daily.

With just over 3,000 votes tallied, Rahm is ahead of Glenn:

Bill Owens-- 50.8%
Doug Hoffman-- 45.5%
Dede Scozzafava-- 3.7%

Update [2009-11-3 21:55:37 by Jerome Armstrong]:
Now at 10,000 votes casted, and Rahm has pulled into a 10% lead over Glenn:

Bill Owens-- 53.2%
Doug Hoffman-- 43.2%
Dede Scozzafava-- 3.6%

If this holds up, there will be gnashing of Michelle Malkin teeth on the conservative blogs tonight.

Update [2009-11-3 22:0:18 by Jerome Armstrong]: Haha, it's turning into a route of centrist proportions in the Catskills tonight, with about 18,000 votes in:

Bill Owens-- 57.1%
Doug Hoffman-- 37.5%
Dede Scozzafava-- 5.4%

This is also the ACORN vs Movement Conservatives contest, we are told: “There are reports that they’re bringing in the troops and they’re bringing in ACORN,” said Hoffman." ACORN is kicking it and taking names, with 25K votes in:

Bill Owens-- 56.4%
Doug Hoffman-- 5.2%
Dede Scozzafava-- 38.4%

Update [2009-11-3 22:20:17 by Jerome Armstrong]: Oh yea, who could forget, it's round II of Biden vs Palin too in NY-23rd. Go Joe, 40K votes in:
Bill Owens-- 53.6%
Dede Scozzafava-- 4.8%
Doug Hoffman-- 41.6%

I just read that the NY Mayoral race is tight; woulda coulda shoulda for Dems if we barely lose to Bloomberg there.With 63% of the vote in, the Democrat Thompson is behind by 8,000 votes.

Update [2009-11-3 22:34:33 by Jerome Armstrong]:The latest, and it all depends on Owens to keep away a trifecta win tonight, with 205 of 606 Precincts Reporting - 34% of the vote and about 50k votes in:

Bill Owens-- 51%
Doug Hoffman-- 5%
Dede Scozzafava-- 44%

Update [2009-11-3 22:44:20 by Jerome Armstrong]:Still tightening, but Owens looks like he will pull it out, and that Scozzafava's tally maybe be the spoiler. 377 of 606 Precincts Reporting - 62% from 90K votes:

Bill Owens-- 49%
Doug Hoffman-- 5%
Dede Scozzafava-- 45%

Update [2009-11-3 22:49:30 by Jerome Armstrong]: Owens is comfortably ahead, but there were voting problems in NY-23rd today, and I read that multiple locations would be late in being counted, so this will likely extend into tomorrow, and not show up as an (assuming) Owens victory till then. As such, its not going to be in the lead story.

Otherwise known as a Prediction Thread for the elections tomorrow.

Jonathan posted some toss-up numbers out of NJ earlier; PPP is telling us to not bother:

Virginia:
Bob McDonnell leads Creigh Deeds 56-42
Bill Bolling leads Judy Wagner 54-41
Ken Cuccinelli leads Steve Shannon a 55-39

Maine:
Question 1 is winning 51-47 to reverse the state's law legalizing same sex marriage.

New Jersey:
Chris Christie leads Jon Corzine 47-41, with Chris Daggett at 11

NY-23rd:
Bill Hoffman holds a 54-38 advantage over Doug Owens.

Given that PPP was more accurate than 538 or RCP in 2008, I don't really get the point of saying they are wrong. Hopefully the late break goes our way, but if not, why are we going to get swept? Gallup spells it out.

Democrats went from a 50-44 ID advantage in July to a 46-44 advantage currently. This is significantly off the norm of the past couple of cycles (give or take a few on a +10% advantage), and when it gets down to about even, its all about the turnout, and there's two significant notes:

First, it looks like millions of Democratic voters in these select races are either not going to vote, or vote for 3rd party candidates.

Secondly, and related, Republicans are not going to win on their own merits-- they are going to win by default. Regardless, I'm sure they'll take the win.

Anyone differ with their prediction from PPP? Here's your moment.

Policy reform-- who thought it was a good idea to wait till after the election to try and close the deal on healthcare reform? Without a doubt, this will give the Lieberman's all the talking points they need. We could be strong-enough along the public option path to make it happen still, but a election-night sweep like the above would nuke our chances at big progressive climate bill changes, pro-immigration reform, and a pro-labor bill.

Obama's centrism-- we will be seeing this in full form soon. He will pass the bills/laws/reform (in name) he promised. They will not be shake-up & progressive, but pro-stasis and incremental, with Republicans on board. I just don't see the Obama administration taking away a less '09 lesson that they need to be more progressive.

2010-- too soon to tell. The economy, whether we double-dip or not into a recession, and/if the dollar holds up or falls, and the jobless claims go down, are going to be the decider.

I'm hoping Corzine pulls it out in NJ to avoid the sweep tomorrow night, and that the Phillies can win three in a row too.

There are a couple of conservative polls out in recent days for the NY-23rd contest, and they are finding movement in the NY-23rd contest, so take their latest poll fwiw here:

I've seen in a couple of places, that Markos is getting 'credit' for backing Scoffafava, and they (Beck for example) are using that for their rallying cry, which is good for a laugh. Still, I think we want to see Owens win this race, by capturing those undecided voters. Yea, I've read he's not the greatest Democrat, but at this point, a Hoffman victory would not be a good thing because...

This seems sorta like 2005 and 2006 was for the netroots of online progressives during the Hackett and Lamont races. We narrowly lost the OH-2nd special election, but it energized the movement, as did the win by Lamont over Lieberman. I could see a couple of ways the NY-23rd plays out in which it has the same sort of enabling effect:

Owens wins with Hoffman in second-- This would embolden the conservatives, as they would be throwing sticks and stones at the DC-GOP over having lost the race due to Scozzafava playing the role of spoiler. It'll get really nasty if Scozzafava starts airing negative ads against Hoffman (which would be funded in part by the GOP).

Hoffman wins over Owens-- Palin hits the jackpot-- why does everything have to be seen through implications for Palin? I don't think she is ever going to run for office again. She doesn't have the temperament nor the skills to handle a national race, and she's likely done with the provincial politics of Alaska. She's gonna make a ton of money and is going to push her weight within the GOP. Really, its the Thompson's (Jerri esp.), not Palin, that seems to have been the early adopter.

Owens wins with Scozzafava in second-- The ideal conclusion. Here, Hoffman isn't able to take the frontrunner position without making a goof, or some past mistake of his is outed, and/or the undecideds go back to Scozzafava and Hoffman fades. This seemed like more than likely a week ago, but not so much now. With the DCCC targeting Hoffman, we know he's the real opposition. Hoffman has some pro's on his team, so I don't think he'll slip.

Anyone see some hope with Owens? I emailed a friend from the Dean campaign who lived in the CD (across the river from Burlington), and he thought Scozzafava was the ideal fit for the CD-- that there were only a couple of Dems there that were "heavyweights" and Owens wasn't one of them. There's next to nothing in terms of dem infrastructure in the CD, and very little history of voting Dem at the CD level. True, Obama did win 52% of the CD, but the undecideds are going to need a reason to go for Owens.

There's two angles on what this means for the GOP. First, as far as the NE goes, they have become even more regionally isolated if Owens manages to win. Second, even with a Hoffman victory, it comes at the expense of the GOP being exclusively a "conservative" party. Where's the coalition in that sort of national party? There's no big tent, but instead 3rd party fractures.

It also has big implications for the '12 GOP presidential primary. I can't imagine that Gingrich wanted to make this his issue, but he's leaked out that he wants to run for President at the same time he's throwing down the gauntlet against what's been his natural allies in the past. What's he thinking? Pawlenty is such a toolkit-- he's basically going to follow the lead of Palin everytime.

It's not shaping up to be a big D night a week from now, that's for sure, especially in Virginia (ugh). But whatever, its one CD and the GOP is as big a national mess as ever.

This is a big story, about a Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain who wrote that he no longer knows why his nation is fighting in Afghanistan, and so has resigned. The WaPost has his four page letter up on its website:

Who knew that Reid could go rouge too?

What I want to know is, what happened to the Obama pledge to air what went down around the table over the debate over healthcare reform?  Remember, "on C-SPAN" he said? Instead, the only power-play he's done is to do a round of blanket TV a few weeks ago. Obama lost the "Movement" for change of the process with healthcare reform.

I agree with the commenter that said this is the road to cloture:

As for the Republicans, their lack of voice in the debate is more likely do to having their intra-party war that's ongoing in the NY 23rd. I gotta blog more about that one, we Dems (am talking about the team here and not the progressive agenda) might actually win that one.

Jon Walker on FDL:

Not unrelated, there are very few people whom are actually pleased with what the Obama administration has done to date, as the latest Harris poll points out. The percentage of those ranking Obama as "Excellent" has dropped from 18 percent to 10 percent (here on MyDD that may equate to a drop below 50%). The Obama negatives have risen across the board, with Independents at 60-40 negative over positive now.

These numbers are more bleak for Congress. The negative ranking of 84% is only surpassed in one month (Oct '08) of their four years of tracking. There was a bit of a rise this summer in the "right track" numbers, peaking in August at 46% saying "right direction" but that is now just 39% again.

Simply put, the Democrats are not fulfilling the agenda they promised. Its important to point out this failure too, as otherwise, you'll have revisionists make up stuff like this:

"You know, if you economize and don't buy new airplanes or long-range jets, or that sort of thing, you can get by on a billion or two."  Ted Turner.  He's got to be snarking, right?  The article also notes that he's given $750M of a planned $1B to the UN.

Arianna over at Huffington Post has this 'quote' from Biden:

Also, bonus. Markos is pretty pissed off, "f**** liars" is a new one!  Here at MyDD, I get TR's for pointing out that a commenter was making up lies that I once supported an escalation of the military conflict in Afghanistan (utter BS), yet over at DKos, Markos gets to call out the Senate Majority Leader's office staff on the fp-- such double standards!