Last Minute Predictions

Time magazine's Joe Klein previews the elections.

Tavis: What's your sense, hours away from the polls opening, of what's gonna happen on the House side first, on the Senate side second?

Joe Klein: Well, I am not one of those who sees this as a blow-out election, in part because there aren't that many seats up for grabs on the House side. I think the Democrats will probably be able to take control of the House narrowly, and that's gonna raise some real questions. This is gonna be showtime for the Democrats, and how they do in running that institution for the next couple of years is gonna determine how they're perceived in the presidential election in 2008 to a great degree.

I think it's gonna be very hard for the Democrats to take the Senate, although even if they come just a couple of votes short, you're gonna have a situation where moderates will be in control of the United States Senate, as opposed to radicals of either side. You have a number of moderate Republican senators who will vote on issues like immigration with the Democrats.

Tavis: There's an old line that we've used a thousand times called, "ready and waiting. Here I am, ready and waiting." Clearly, the Democrats have been waiting. I guess the question is, are they ready?

Klein: Well, there are some very difficult decisions that Nancy Pelosi's gonna have to make in the House. The most important of which may be who gets to chair the House Intelligence Committee. The ranking member has been this California Congresswoman Jane Harmon, who is extremely well-respected in the intelligence community. However, there is a Black Caucus issue that's come up.

The Black Caucus really wants to see Alcee Hastings, the congressman from Florida who formerly was a federal judge who was impeached and convicted for bribery. I think that if Pelosi chooses Hastings, it's gonna send a very questionable message about how serious Democrats are about really important issues like national defense and intelligence. There is a Latino third-ranking member, Sylvester Reyes, from Texas, who also may be in this equation, as well. There are other decisions like that Pelosi has to make.

Tavis: Are there better answers? And if there are, I'd love to hear them. Maybe you know something I don't know, which would not surprise me. But are there better answers that Democrats have to this Iraq quagmire than Republicans have? And everybody at this point concedes we're in a mess there. Are their answers any better? In other words, should we really expect to see a change in Iraq policy just because the Democrats take over the House?

Klein: There was gonna be a change in Iraq policy no matter what happened, because we've reached the point of near collapse there. The question is, what do we do? I think Jim Baker, who is the co-chair of this commission with Lee Hamilton, may come up with some answers. For one thing, the Democratic answers couldn't be any worse than what this administration has been doing.

I think that the Democrats are gonna push for the president and our diplomats to start talking to Syria and Iran to bring Iraq's neighbors together and make it clear to them that if this place descends into chaos, as seems likely at this moment, it's not gonna be good for any of you guys.

Tavis: Let me ask a question that I'm not sure is altogether baseless. It is a question that nobody in these hours before Election Day seems to be asking. What if Karl Rove hasn't lost his mojo? What if the Republican machine on Election Day turns out voters in a way that, certainly in recent history, they've been able to do in a way that Democrats have not been able to do? In other words, what if Republicans do retain control of the House, marginally, if they retain control of the Senate, marginally, what's that scenario look like for you?

Klein: Well, I'm a flaming moderate, Tavis. I'm not of the left or the right.

Tavis: That sounds oxymoronic. A flaming moderate.

Klein: Yeah. No, I think that in many ways, the most progressive and radical answers to the problems that we're facing come from the center. And deal with the problems of special interests on both the left and the right. Those are the problems that we have. But if the Republicans win this, I think first of all there are gonna be Democrats flying out of buildings, I think, (laugh) in Washington.

You're gonna see suicides. If the Democrats can't win this year, I don't know that they can win at all. And it raises a really essential question about what the Democratic Party is gonna stand for in the future. I think that what you're gonna have here most likely is the Republicans asking themselves that question. I've been doing this for a long time, and for a long time, I've been reporting the Democrats in disarray story. But I think that what we've seen this fall is Republicans in disarray.

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