THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE CAPITALISTS IS UP!

A ROUNDUP OF ELECTION PREDICTIONS, at TCS Daily.

WASHINGTON POST: “Soldiers in Iraq say pullout would have devastating results.”

Iraqis seem to be saying the same things.

A LAST LOOK AT INSTA-READERS’ OPINIONS: I’ve run this question twice before, but here’s a last pre-election look. How do you think things will turn out tomorrow?

UPDATE: With over 4200 responses, it’s holding pretty steady at 62% thinking the GOP keeps both, 34% Dems win one house, and only 4% thinking the Dems sweep both. This is much more favorable to the Republicans than the polls, the pundits, or the futures markets. Or my opinion, for that matter. Who’s right? We’ll know soon.

DUMBEST. TV SHOW. EVER. Last night I caught a few minutes of “The Celebrity Paranormal Project” on VH1. Celebrities festooned with Ghostbusters-type gear, wandering around allegedly haunted places. Picabo Street as a medium. Jeez.

However, I can report that Mariel Hemingway remains very hot. She deserves better. But then, so do we. . . .

A RAHM EMANUEL / ELIZABETH DOLE FACEOFF: With video. Tim Russert’s interruption is annoying, and I agree that he had an agenda.

LOADS OF ELECTION INFORMATION at ElectionProjection.com.

WALTER SHAPIRO:

Just when partisan Democrats were finally allowing themselves to revel in the expectation that they would sweep the House and maybe win the six seats needed for control of the Senate, two national polls released Sunday seemed to sound the first ominous notes from the theme music from “Jaws.”

Both polls showed the gap between Democrats and Republicans dramatically narrowing when likely voters were asked which party they intended to support for Congress. The Washington Post-ABC News poll had te Democrats leading by a 51-to-45-percent margin on the generic ballot question. A new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press had the Democrats ahead among likely voters by 47 to 43 percent. Two weeks ago the margin was 50 to 39 percent. And both surveys put George W. Bush’s approval rating above 40 percent, a rare high-water mark for the beleaguered president.

I don’t know how much confidence to put in the polls — not much is my guess — but to the extent that they’ve been wrong in the last couple of elections, they’ve been wrong in a way that understates, rather than overstates, the Republicans’ chances.

Meanwhile, this poll from USA Today shows Ford 46, Corker 49, which is pretty much a dead heat.

Shapiro concludes: “The truth is that — with unreliable or nonexistent polling in most House districts — virtually everyone in politics is flying blind as we enter into the desperate hours before Election Day.” And he also adds: “Democratic activists may not be able to emotionally survive another election night like 2004, which for many began with gleeful expectation that John Kerry would be president and ended with desperate plans to enter an ashram in Nepal. The level of despair if the Republicans manage to hang onto both houses of Congress could only be described by a Sophocles or an Aeschylus.” That probably won’t happen, but who knows?

Well, that’s why we have elections — to find out what voters want, not to ratify the guesses of pollsters.

UPDATE: For what it’s worth, I’m told that the Ford/Corker internals show a much closer race than the public polls, which is certainly how it seems to me.

HMM. IF THE DEMOCRATS WIN BACK CONGRESS, will it be because they dropped gun control as an issue?

Election season is indeed in full bloom. Yet I can’t help but notice that something is conspicuously absent from this year’s festivities: Charlton Heston.

It is almost impossible to fathom, but it seems that gun control has seen its last days as a big-ticket issue for elections. This is in no way to suggest that the issue has fallen out of favor with the Republicans’ largely gun-toting constituency. It merely reflects the fact that the Democrats have moved on to issues that actually mean something.

Well, Bill Clinton has said that gun control cost the Democrats control of Congress back in 1994, so it might make sense that getting away from the issue might help them get it back.

On the other hand, if the Democrats don’t sweep the Congress, Newsweek makes clear that it will be all John Kerry’s fault.

And speaking of Kerry, if you missed it this weekend be sure to check out this post by Austin Bay.