He's missed placing a strong candidate in some promising districts and some of his hand-picked candidates just plain miss. So despite an opposition looking like a late-round loser -- what with a rubber-legged White House wandering in circles, and managing to act both punch-drunk and punched-out all at the same time -- and more to the point, an elephant House team with more members earmarked for the felons-fiends-and-fools department then either party has fielded down there since Little Big Horn -- despite that, the Washpost would like us to believe the experts still rate the donks' House takeover odds at slightly south of 50/50.
What makes me think this is planted donkey hype -- lower expectations, keep it looking like a squeeeker -- a strategem to keep the electorate in line? A walkover mentality would breed actual thought, actual what-is-to-be-done type thought. Better it appear a very tight horse race between spinners and poll vaulters -- inside players -- a cramped piece of chamber music, not the bold expectation-raising opening chords of a nation rising in righteous anger.