Dodgers Win and Sam Wang is back

++The Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 4-3 and take the National League West. Clayton Kershaw pitching on a few days rest went six innings and bearded Brian Wilson picked up the win. Juan Uribe hit the eighth inning homer to put the Dodgers into the championship between the winner of the Cards-Pirates serious. Go, Magic Johnson!

++Sam Wang from Princeton has re-emerged with election.princeton.edu.today to show that if the 2014 election were held today, the Democrats would win the House with a 30 seat gain. He doubts it but the internal figures seem to run against the historical precedents that the President's party loses bi-elections in the second-term. Wang says he didn't go with the worse case scenario for the GOP, which shows they would lose 50 seats in the House. But, what the early data is showing is that this could shape up to be a wave election. What is interesting is that Wang factors in gerrymandering and says the Democrats must get a +8 in generic polling to win back the House. He saying they are in that range now.

++PPP, the most reliable pollster in 2012,conducted individual race polls pitting Republicans in key districts against a generic Democrat. The Democrats win enough seats to take back the House.

++Over the last several days, there has been some truly wonderful writing about the meeting of the current stalemate in Congress. Tim Egan of the New York Times eviscerated the Republicans. Paul Krugman on his blog "Conscience of a Liberal" wrote several pieces on the inanity of the GOP positions on both the CR and the debt ceiling. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post weighed in on how Obamacare is here to stay. Steve Benen has re-appeared to show how the votes are there for a clean bill. Josh Marshall has waken from his slumber and been generating sophisticated analyses of the political situation. Josh's most disturbing post was yesterday's analysis of why President Obama will not invoke the 14th Amendment and why the Republicans can not bring themselves to vote for raising the debt ceiling. Sean Wilentz from Princeton re-emerges to write an op-ed in today's New York Times why President Obama must invoke the 14th Amendment because that is historically what it is intended to do--protect the credit of the United States. The Business Wire had a short piece on what Jack Lew has to do--choose which of three laws he will break to save the credit of the United States. And yes, there really is a debt ceiling law--it was passed in 1917. There is another op-ed in the Washington Post about why this law needs to be changed. Colbert King wrote two days ago an op-ed in the Washington Post about how the GOP is now a Neo-Confederate party.  And Chris Hedges wrote on Truthout how the religious right has taken over the GOP and how their ideology pushes the United States toward the policies that enrich the plutocracy and advocate an empire based on their hare-brained religious beliefs. Let hundreds of writers bloom. The times seem to be propelling a greater richness of writing.

++The GOP has been hopeless with their spins. The longer the shutdown continues the worse it is getting for the GOP. Yesterday's polls in the Post show over 70% of the country disapprove of the GOP's handling of this crisis. While President Obama took a ding for Syria, he has improved five points in various polls. The number approving the GOP is at 27%,which a blogger noted was the same number Alan Keyes got running against Barack Obama for the Senate. He termed this the index of craziness.

++Rachel Maddow did a service last night showing how a majority in the House really do back a clean CR. Nancy Pelosi enlisted Democrats and Republicans to sign a letter committing themselves to voting for a clean CR. The number hit 217 but yesterday a few more Republicans signed up and two lagging Democrats were added.

++The new excuse John Boehner uses is that the Senate can't pass a clean debt ceiling bill. Hapless Harry Reid took up the gauntlet and now is preparing for such a vote. The trick is whether the GOP will filibuster it and whether the Democrats can break the filibuster. But it would pass the Senate if Republicans allowed it. Republican Senators like Kirk from Illinois, McCain from Arizona, Collins from Maine are among those who have said they would support it.

++Meanwhile,tea baggers and other on the extreme right are arguing it's no problem if we default on our debt. What they don't realize is that legally it is a very hard to prioritize paying bills and it doesn't work out that politically important bills get paid first. This morning Gallup poll said confidence in the American economy is the lowest since 2008 when Lehman's went under. Even the billionaires are screaming and China is calling for their money back.

++On the Washington Post poll,I said the shutdown would last until December 17th when the debt ceiling is breached. Pressure is mounting on Boehner to settle but the tea baggers have him hostage. President Obama yesterday gave him a face-saving gesture by saving he would accept a limited debt ceiling raise and a clean short-term CR. Then they could negotiate. 

++Meanwhile in the glitch-ridden launch of Obamacare, over 10 million people have hit the websites. Andrew Sullivan writes this morning about how Kathleen Sebelius isn't an effective promoter of Obamacare with her appearances on Stephen Colbert and Rachel Maddow. The proof is in the pudding--January 1 marks the date about its success.

++It has been fascinating to watch the GOP scramble for photo-ops to dramatize their commitment to government. Here in the Beltway, it is not the Head Start kids or the cancelling of welfare or the end of "Meals of Wheels" that captures the headlines. It is that you can drive down the Shanadoah   Skyline for your fall foliage tour or that War Memorials are blocked. Yesterday, Rep. Sessions, a Teabagger,took a chain and locked up the Iwo Jima memorial and then brought bolt-cutters and dramatically cut the chains. It made a photo-op but with people yelling that he locked it up. The GOP is finding out that closing government is tougher than Teabaggers think.  And the spin hasn't worked. Maybe it will be everyday this goes on ,the more Americans are alienated.

++If anything comes out of this, it will be an appreciation of government.

++Lastly, the shutdown hasn't helped the "Cooch". Blue Virginia this morning has printed polling data that the Democrats will sweep the state elections next month. With a month to go, the Cooch trails Terry McAuliffe by ten.