Biden Plays the Odds in November

Are you a betting Democrat?

If so, Vice President Biden has some unsolicited and contrarian advice on the party's midterm political prospects.

"I'm here to tell you that on November 3rd, the day after this coming election, there will be in Washington, D.C. a Democratic majority in the House and a Democratic majority in the Senate," Biden said in a speech during the final day of the Democratic National Committee's mid-session conference in St. Louis. "That will be the case. If it were not illegal, I'd make book on it."

This aggressive political analysis about Democratic chances this November runs counter to independent appraisals.

This week, the widely respected Cook Political Report revised upward its estimate of likely Republican gains in the House-- projecting between 35 and 45. Republicans need to win 39 Democratically held seats to win back the House majority they lost in the 2006 election.

"It's a good thing Joe Biden isn't a betting man," said Ken Spain, Communications Director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. "Otherwise, he'd been a little light in the wallet after he promised the unemployment rate wouldn't exceed eight percent. Middle class Americans have been sorely disappointed by the Vice President's prognostications, which is why voters will send Democrats a very serious message in November. Bet on it."

The Democrats' ten seat majority in the Senate, once thought to be safe, now also appears to be in jeopardy. The Cook Report said 18 Senate seats are likely to switch, lean toward a party switch or are tossups. The Rothenberg Report says 15 Senate races fall into these categories. Neither Cook nor Rothenberg currently project a GOP-held Senate seat as likely or leaning toward Democrats.

Asked about Biden's speech, White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton said he hadn't seen it, but that descriptions of it sounded "great.""The president's view is that the election will give the American people a choice about what direction they want to move," Burton said. "Of course, the president agrees with notion that, given the choice, the American people are going to want to move forward."

Biden's bold prediction also conflicts with the far more sour - and equally unsolicited - prediction in July of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs that Democrats could lose the House. After criticism from party operative and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Gibbs said he was talking only about mathematical possibilities - not political probabilities.

The official White House prediction now is Democrats will hold their majorities, albeit with far smaller margins than they enjoy now.

Throughout his three day, five stop fundraising trip across the country this week, President Obama tried to fire up his political base by declaring Republicans were betting voters would fall victim to "amnesia" this fall and give power back to the party that set America off course and drove the economy into a "ditch."

Today, Biden said the party's rank-and-file will do the vital work needed to keep Democrats in power and preserve Obama's ability to govern with a working majority.

"It's in large part because of all of you," Biden said.