No, I don't. Too many of you have been playing suckers to the Conventional Wisdom in too many ways this midterm. The CW has the admirable track record of accuracy of a coin toss, but it does get you into all the right cocktail parties. And if you are wrong, no one can really say you're a fool, because you have the cover of the crowd of others who were wrong with you.

Texas-22, the DeLay seat, ranked as the #1 "lock" Democratic takeover of a Republican House seat by virtually every analyst, pundit, and reporter, not to mention liberal commenters on this site, is now a toss-up, according to Matt Daily of Reuters:

A few weeks ago, Democrats thought they had the dream race in suburban Houston -- no opponent's name on the ballot and the last incumbent, former House Republican leader Tom DeLay, under indictment.

Even though the district had been held by Republicans for years, political analysts predicted an easy win for Democrat Nick Lampson in his party's efforts to take over control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

But with Tuesday's election just days away, Republicans now have high hopes of keeping the seat. A poll taken in late October showed just over a third of the voters planned to cast ballots for Lampson, while an equal amount said they would write in the name of someone else.

Republican Shelley Sekula-Gibbs was getting most of the planned write-in votes, causing those same pundits, who a month ago predicted Lampson might get 60 percent of the vote, to change the race to a tossup.

"It's still a Republican district. Even harder than selling a write-in, is selling a Democrat in this district," John Zogby, who conducted the poll, told the Houston Chronicle.

Read the whole thing at the link above. Zogby might have gained some credibility if he had been willing to go against the grain and say that when everyone would have scoffed at it.

Now - and this is the important point - IF the very top, most dead-on certain etched-in-stone lock Democratic takeover seat according to the "experts" is now a "toss-up" four days before the election, WHERE does that put all the seats they ranked as LESS CERTAIN Democratic takeovers?

My late mother used to say, "It's wonderful to know many things, but the most important thing is to know what you do NOT know." Mom could have given most of these pundits a few lessons.

For those on our side who spend more time deciding which districts and states to "write off," I repeat my previous advice: "Cowboy up!" No one ever won by quitting before the final whistle.

But to those in those "lost" races - in Texas, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere - who have ignored the naysayers and prophets of doom telling them they cannot win, and soldiered on with dogged determination with the knowledge that, no matter how long the odds against them, their cause is just: I salute you.