OK, here are my predictions in the leading elections, including what might result from today’s events. Enjoy.

Dems take the house by fewer than five seats. However, due to various challenges and legal wrangling, the final results are not fully known until the week before Christmas. The Foley seat is retained by the Republicans as is DeLay’s, but the Dems challenge the write-in results in Texas and the whole thing goes to Federal Court in Houston.

In the Delay district election, Dems claim that write-in ballots for Shelly Sekula-Gibs (ie Shelley Sekula-Gibbs) do not display adequate “voter intent” and should be thrown out. Republicans claim that Democrats’ refusal to allow her name to be placed on the ballot (even though there were four months to do so), refusal to allow proper write-in instructions to appear on the ballot, refusal to allow instructions on how to write-in a candidate in the voting booth, refusal to allow simplified methods for typing of her name, and intimidation of volunteers attempting to help voters with the spelling of her name constitutes Republican voter “disenfangisement”.

The Houston Chronicle reports that Republicans are acting like thugs, and Matt Lauer asks Laura Bush, appearing on the Today Show to promote her “Reading is Fun Initiative”, if Texas Republicans aren’t pushing the nation into a state of fear not dissimilar to Kristallnacht.

Republicans hold the Senate, but by only two seats. Allen wins in Virginia, but his presidential aspirations are effectively ended. Corker wins in Tennessee, is the toast of the Republican Senate, and becomes Dick Cheney’s new hunting buddy. Kean loses in New Jersey and goes back to his equestrian interests and a year later is seen in the mall in Parsippany promoting his book, “My Three Months in the Public Eye”, which peaks at 48,693 on the Amazon best seller list. Conrad Burns loses in Montana, his health quickly declines and he dies within a year. Chaffee loses in Rhode Island, immediately announces that he is really a Democrat and a homosexual American and, after an appearance on Oprah, moves to Brunei with his large male German Shepherd named Charlemagne.

Talent wins a squeaker in Missouri, but the victory is challenged by the Dems. During the resulting imbroglio, ACORN becomes the most commonly used term on Fox News for the year 2006 proving, according to James Carville, that Roger Ailes is a racist. After two weeks of legal wrangling, where the Republicans display the ballots of 5,236 fictional St Louis based Democrat voters with names like Connie Lingus and IP Freely, and after the Dems produce the friend of a guy who knew a black man who heard that a policeman was thinking about parking his police cruiser so that people walking to the polls might have to step off the curb, a Carter-appointed judge’s ruling against Talent is overturned by the Missouri Supreme Court and the re-elected senator renews his lease at the Watergate apartment complex for another six years.

Michael Steele beats Ben Cardin in the biggest upset in the election cycle to become the first black senator from the south since reconstruction. But because Dems say that Maryland isn’t really “the south”, the only story about Steele to appear in the Baltimore Sun is on page A-16. Meanwhile, an aide to Ben Cardin, the same aide who was busted for drunken driving last week (not reported in any newspaper, despite the interesting and amusing fact that his father got busted for drunk driving while attempting to pick him up from jail), publicly calls Steele the Republicans’ new “house nigga”, a quote that cannot be found by a Google News search, though it tops the Technorati search page every day for the following two weeks.

Rick Santorum loses in PA by “only” five points and, as a result, becomes the darling of the political right. He moves back to Pittsburgh, his wife has four more children in the next two years, he makes a couple of million bucks on the lecture circuit speaking at mega-churches, and in 2008 he is nominated by president-elect Romney as HHS Secretary — a move that is seen by Dems as the beginning of the end of federally funded, “confidential” abortions for girls fourteen and under and a clear indication that the end of women’s “reproductive rights” is imminent.

Arnold wins re-election in Caleefornia and immediately a group of Hollywood moguls sets up a PAC to alter the constitution so that he can run for the presidency. The constitutional amendment passes, but he remains a dark horse candidate, due to his “flexible” politics. Eventually he is picked by Romney for VP in an effort to “run the table” and include Caleefornia in the win column.

The Romney-Arnold ticket has enough star power to compete with Hillary!, who makes several key blunders during the campaign, including one where she “cannot recall” if she is now from New York, Arkansas, Illinois or Washington DC. But the kiss of death for the Hillary! campaign comes when covert Republican activists lure Bill Clinton into a private “men’s” club in Minneapolis where he is photographed getting a naked lap dance from a stripper named Kandy Kunard, leading millions of unmarried single women to have nightmares about … [vulgarity deleted]. As a result of their perceived psychological damage, single women between 18 and 34 flock to the Romney-Arnold ticket, or as the cover of Time refers to them, “Team Hunk”.

And finally, Nancy Pelosi is elected by her peers as Speaker of the House. During her first session, trying to establish her bona fides as a serious leader for the august body, she nominates Alcee Hastings as Chairman of the Intelligence committee. Under his leadership, hearings ensue as to whether “Bush Lied and People Died.” After eighteen months of torturous, televised hearings, it is determined that Bush did in fact lie, but due to a last minute cloakroom deal with Republicans, the committee also finds that no one died as a result.

But meanwhile Republican operatives unearth the fact that Alcee Hastings not only took over $100,000 in bribes during the 1980′s, but he is now quietly feeding state secrets to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan who uses the information to facilitate high technology arms sales to Somali Islamic leaders. The New York Times reports that these are “legitimate international business transactions”, while the Bush Administration claims that they have the “intelligence” to conclude that the shipments include ignition switches that can be used in small, mobile nuclear devices.

Two weeks later a small, portable nuclear bomb containing said ignition switches is found by an alert janitor in the basement of Grand Central station. Without much thought, but with the best of intentions, he kicks the device and, fortunately, it is disabled, saving millions from certain death. Despite the joy and relief of appreciative New Yorkers, a troubling detail of the event begins to dominate the 24/7 coverage of the hero janitor.

It seems, according journalists doggedly pursuing the storyline, had the elderly gentleman been earning a “living wage”, he might well have been wearing OSHA approved steel toed footwear… and avoided significant damage to his right big toe.

And so those are my predictions of the elections and the likely result of your submitting what NPR calls “your hard earned vote”. See you in ’08!

Perhaps the best analysis I have seen of the Connecticut elections is by Genghis Conn at the Connecticut Local Politics blog. I agree with most of his picks. Click here to read his take. Here are my brief elaborations on the above:

• Jodi Rell is basically a caretaker governor — neither bold nor assertive. But she is steady, pragmatic and will be a check on a Democratic-controlled legislature. If DeStefano wins, he’ll have no way to pay for his ambitious programs and “reform” property taxes at the same time. With DeStefano and the Democrats in control, watch your wallet.

• As much as I detest Joe Lieberman (and I really can’t stand the guy), it would be very difficult to walk into my town hall and vote for Ned Lamont. He reminds me a little of the first President Bush, claiming to have built a successful business from scratch when we all know they both had a trunkload of daddy’s cash to get them started. Lamont wants universal healthcare coverage (who doesn’t?) but, like DeStefano, he doesn’t really say how he will pay for it. Schlesinger supports a three-state solution for Iraq, which strikes me as a sensible solution to the mess Lieberman and his ilk have gotten us into. Lamont doesn’t seem to have much of a plan. Schlesinger has some character issues (can you say “Foxwoods’?), but so do the others. The bottom line is I agree with Schlessie more often than the other two, so he gets my vote, regardless of whether he has a chance to win.

• Nancy Johnson has done a lot good things for her district over the years, but, as her opponent state Sen. Chris Murphy points out relentlessly, she has become part of the problem in Washington. In interviews with Johnson and her spokesman, I have tried in vain to get an explanation for the provision in the Medicare Part D, the new seniors’ prescription drug law co-authored by Johnson, that specifically prohibits the federal government from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices. She will not admit she made a mistake in voting for the resolution authorizing Bush to go into Iraq and dismisses questions along those lines. Thanks for your past service, Nancy, but it’s someone else’s turn.

• Andrew Roraback is one of those rare public officials who can unite people. In that sense, he is much like former Salisbury First Selectman Val Bernardoni — capable, accessible, pragmatic, consensus-building and talented. I must admit I know next to nothing about Andrew’s challenger, Matthew Brennan. But I’m not sure it matters anyway. By the way, wouldn’t it be great if our current president had some of the same qualities Roraback and Bernardoni possess (a real “uniter, not a divider”)? Unfortunately, Val is retired. But Andrew, I think you should set your sights a little higher (and I’m not talking about probate judge).

• I have known Roberta Willis for a few years and like her personally very much. She lives in my town and in many ways has her finger on the pulse of the far Northwest Corner of the state. But I can’t vote for a public official based on whether I like her. My decision to vote for Roberta’s opponent boils down to this: it’s been my observation over the years that when it’s a close call between a bigger government and higher taxes or controlling the size of government and holding the line of taxes, Roberta invariably chooses the former. I think it’s clear Nancy Sieller would have a somewhat different approach.

• And finally (speaking of probate judge), “Vote Vail!”

One final thought: The Dems will take the House of Representatives by a margin of 17 seats. But they will fall just short of taking the Senate, since races in Tennessee, Montana, Virginia, Rhode Island and Missouri have tightened up considerably.