So here we are, with only one more week to make and to hear the prog­nos­ti­ca­tions and fore­casts. I have a four-​​part essay ques­tion for com­menters. Feel free to address any or all of the parts. I’ll give some of my thoughts to get the ball rolling.

  1. What would you view as the worst likely out­come? What are both the short-​​term and long-​​term impli­ca­tions of that?
  2. What would you view as the best likely out­come? Again, what would the effects of that be, for the nation, over the next few years and beyond?
  3. What do you see as the most likely out­come? Pre­sum­ably, it would like some­where between the best and the worst – unless you believe that the worst (or the best) is truly about to happen.
  4. Finally – go for fan­tasy. Set aside what is likely. Engage in total spec­u­la­tion. What would you truly want, if all the stars lined up prop­erly? What is your sci­ence fic­tion utopia? Where would that lead the coun­try and the world?

Clearly, what you see depends on where you stand, so con­cepts like worst and best are going to be rel­a­tive. The “likely” ques­tions are ask­ing about real­is­tic out­come, not sim­ply imag­i­nary ones (ex: The Other Guys win 100% of the seats! That’s not gonna hap­pen.) In other words, out of the things that actu­ally have a shot at com­ing true, what would be the worst /​ best /​ most likely out­come from your point of view

Keep this in mind — the lat­est AP poll showed nearly a third of likely vot­ers say they might change their minds in the final week. This means, quite lit­er­ally, that any­thing at all can hap­pen. Con­trary to any­thing you’ve heard, the die has not yet been cast.

I don’t believe the Repub­li­cans have a real­is­tic shot at win­ning the Sen­ate, not in best or worst. The do have a chance to pick up a large num­ber of Gov­er­nor­ships, per­haps as many as 80 House seats, and a goodly (badly?) num­ber of seats in var­i­ous State leg­is­la­tures. On the low end, I’d say maybe five seats in the Sen­ate, maybe 25 or 30 in the House. On the high side, like I said, maybe as many as 80 in the House, maybe seven in the Sen­ate. Most likely, the Repub­li­cans have a good shot at tak­ing the House, but I don’t think they’ll have a large major­ity — maybe they’ll end up with per­haps 225 seats.

I haven’t looked at the Gov­er­nor or State leg­is­la­ture seats enough to have much of an opin­ion there. Maybe some com­menters will have some data for us. I am con­vinced Min­nesota is about to have a Demo­c­ra­tic Governor.

Win­ning the House — espe­cially if it’s by a wide mar­gin — will embolden the Repub­li­cans, par­tic­u­larly the rad­i­cal base (i.e., the Tea Party). Short term, if Repub­li­cans get a major­ity there by what­ever mar­gin, it would mean total stag­na­tion at the Fed­eral level. The econ­omy would suf­fer markedly. A lot of the agenda that Democ­rats were elected on in 2008 will lan­guish. There will be end­less inves­ti­ga­tions and com­mit­tee hear­ings in the House, and maybe even some­one try­ing to invent arti­cles of impeach­ment, just on gen­eral principle.

As we get closer to 2012, I’d expect the pub­lic to become increas­ingly dis­il­lu­sioned at a do-​​nothing Con­gress. I’d expect them to begin see­ing more of the results of the 111th Con­gress from before the Repub­li­can takeover of the House. I’d expect them to start becom­ing hor­ri­fied at the obstruc­tion­ism and rad­i­cal nas­ti­ness that the newly-​​elected far-​​right leg­is­la­tors will bring to our polit­i­cal con­ver­sa­tion. I’d expect a back­lash against all that in 2012.

If the Democ­rats main­tain a major­ity in the House, I’d expect to see the Sen­ate change its fil­i­buster rules. There wouldn’t be much point in doing so if the Repub­li­cans take the House, since very lit­tle accept­able leg­is­la­tion will be com­ing from the House any­way, and the Sen­ate will be unlikely to take that step if they don’t see good rea­son for it. Now, a smart polit­i­cal oper­a­tive might do it any­way, so the pub­lic can see the sort of leg­is­la­tion the Democ­rats would pass if they could. But that’s pretty risky, and since chang­ing the fil­i­buster rules opens the Democ­rats to some nasty Repub­li­can spin, I don’t expect them to be that brave.

State leg­is­la­tures may be a very long-​​lasting issue. Who­ever wins a large num­ber of Gov­er­nor­ships and State seats, par­tic­u­larly in swing states, will have an enor­mous impact on the com­po­si­tion of Con­gress for the next decade. Less atten­tion has been given this issue than it deserves. Worst case, the Repub­li­cans pick up sev­eral unde­served seats in 2012 because of redis­trict­ing. Best case, the Democ­rats do.

One of the rea­sons why con­trol of the Sen­ate is so impor­tant is that there could be one, maybe even two, more vacan­cies on the Supreme Court in the next two years. With a Repub­li­can Sen­ate, I shud­der to think of the dif­fi­cul­ties of get­ting any­one con­firmed. The Repub­li­cans are already hold­ing up over a hun­dred judi­ciary appoint­ments. I would not put it past Tea Party Sen­a­tors to sim­ply refuse to allow even hear­ings on an Obama SCOTUS nom­i­na­tion, regard­less of who he puts for­ward. But with a slim major­ity, SCOTUS nom­i­nees may be allowed to come up for a vote. And if not, this could be the death of the filibuster.

I’ll save my sci-​​fi fan­tasy, and some really long-​​term spec­u­la­tion, for another arti­cle. In the mean­time — share your best and worst, your most likely and per­haps some wild speculation.