I realize that the entire universe of political commentary is going to be focused on the national stories tonight, but since I already posted my national election "picks" yesterday, today instead of adding to the maelstrom of punditry over "what the election means," I'd like to turn to a local issue out here in the state of California, because I think its importance will largely go unremarked by the media (at least outside of the state). It doesn't really have national implications, I admit, because of California's almost-unique laws, but I still feel it is worthy of at least some attention.

There are (as always) quite a number of propositions on California's ballot this year. The one the national media will report on tonight is Proposition 19, which may legalize marijuana for recreational purposes for all adults in the state and set up a battle royale with the federal government over the issue. There is a second ballot initiative (Proposition 23) which would roll back California's progressive environmental law, which is being sponsored by oil companies and other polluters. But neither of these is the issue I'd like to talk about here.

Proposition 25, as I said, will likely have no national implications (as 19 and 23 do). But that doesn't mean it isn't important. What Proposition 25 will do, if it passes, is to change our state laws regarding how budgets are voted on in our legislature. Already, I can feel readers' eyelids drooping, as it sounds like a pretty wonky subject, for which I apologize.

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We're down to the wire with the midterm elections, so it's time to put all the cards on the table and pick the winners of tomorrow's Senate races.

So far, I've shied away from taking a stand on the House races, mostly because keeping track of 435 races is beyond my humble abilities, but I'll even throw a marker down for this one since Election Day is tomorrow. Democrats pick up five Republican-held seats, but Republicans pick up a enormous wave of seats and win the House majority. Final score: 236 Republicans, 199 Democrats.

Since the last time we took an overview of the Senate races, things have tightened up in many of these contests. Mostly, this has been bad news for Democrats, although there are some states firming up in the "D" column. But in our somewhat-arbitrary categories (Safe Republican, Lean Republican, Too Close To Call, Lean Democratic, and Safe Democratic), of the six states who jumped categories this time around, five of them moved towards the Republicans.

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It's that time of year again... the time when we pre-empt our usual Friday Talking Points column here and instead gather 'round the virtual campfire and shove a metaphorical flashlight under our chin, and proceed to tell two tales of horror guaranteed to make your blood run like ice water in the veins, no matter which side of the political divide you hail from.

That's right, it's Hallowe'en season again! Actually, to be scrupulously honest, it's the eve before the eve before All Hallows' Eve, so I guess technically we are celebrating Hallowe'en'en'en tonight, but I will not further use this term because (1.) it is silly, and (2.) it caused my spell checker to have a nervous breakdown.

Both of tonight's bone-shaking scariness hinge somewhat [Cue: Creaking hinge] on the state of Delaware, so here is a gratuitous Delaware jack-o-lantern I carved for the occasion:

This marks the second state-themed pumpkin I've carved over the years (the other one was Ohio (as in "The Night Of The Diebold Zombies"), and I'd like to thank the political gods for giving me state subjects which are fairly easy to carve into a pumpkin. I shudder to think how tough it would be if Maryland or West Virginia were the focus of the political spotlight right now. I'm still recovering from carving the contiguous outline of America last year, if truth be told.

But enough of this nonsense! Let's get on with the scary nonsense, shall we? This year we have two nightmarish scenarios to recount, one from the Left and one from the Right. So, close your eyes and picture us with scary flashlight-under-the-chin lighting, and read on... if you dare!

[Cue: Shrieking and chain rattling, and ominous insane pipe organ music fading in the wind....]

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[Program Notes: This article is going to attempt to pull together two completely unrelated observations via a cheap literary device, just to warn everyone in advance. This is what writers do when they have two things they want to talk about, but only one article in which to speak. We're going to be on a pretty locked-in schedule here for the next few columns, so this is the last chance I'll have for almost a week to just blather about the random thoughts that flit through my fevered brain (that would be GIANTS fever, of course). Ahem. Where was I? Oh, right, just wanted to sketch out the next week for everyone. Tomorrow, Friday Talking Points will be pre-empted by our annual Hallowe'en column, with two nightmares to send shivers down everyone's spines. Monday should be Obama Poll Watch day, but because it is the last day before the election, I will be running the last of the Senate Midterm Elections Overview columns, with my final picks for all the Senate races. Tuesday is Election Day, so there will likely be something or another to talk about, and then Wednesday it'll be a slightly-belated Obama Poll Watch day. Whew! If that isn't enough for CW.com fans (who seem to have adopted the term "Weigantians," which I will use henceforth), I will also be appearing on tomorrow morning's Shock And Awesome podcast with the incomparable T.J. And The Tux, broadcast from New York City's East Village Radio. Tune in around 11:00 East Coast time to hear it (the show starts at 10:00, but I'll be interviewed in the final hour), or download it later and listen at your leisure. Enough of all this shameless self-promotion, though, let's get on with the actual column, shall we?]

Incivility seems to be running fairly high in the country right now, what with heads being crushed under boots by political supporters and whatnot. But the incivility which has me scratching my head has nothing to do with politics. Instead, I've been asking a question which (so far) has remained unanswered, so I toss it out today in the hopes that a sports whiz knows the answer: Why do professional baseball players not shake hands with the other team after the game?

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When ex-actor Ronald Reagan won the presidency for the first time, I became convinced that American politics had become indistinguishable from show business. Nothing that has happened in the intervening years has caused me to change my mind on the subject. But the phenomenon of television personalities throwing their own pseudo-political "rallies" on the National Mall in Washington certainly breaks new ground in both the political arena and the entertainment world, I have to admit.

I'm speaking, of course, about the upcoming "rallies" on the Mall thrown by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, as a response to the "rally" thrown by Glenn Beck earlier this year. I began thinking about the subject a few weeks ago, when a friend of mine asked if I would be travelling to D.C. for Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity" or Colbert's "Rally to Restore Fear" (now combined into one giant "rally"... to restore "sane fear," or perhaps "fearful sanity," one assumes). Well, no. No, I won't. Sorry about that.

Now, I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, so to speak. I certainly don't want to annoy the fans of Stewart and Colbert, who are legion. I guess (to be scrupulously honest) that I don't mind annoying the Beck fans, but they already seem pretty annoyed -- so it'd be hard to even measure any effect my humble column would have on their level of annoyance, I suspect. But someone's got to point out the fact that these "rallies" are nothing more than glorified commercials for television shows. Beck and Stewart and Colbert are entertainers, not politicians or even activists.

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Sheriff Joe Arpaio, of Arizona, recently made the news. In his own words: "I just got done welcoming Sarah Palin to our County [sic]. Had a nice chat and gave her a pair of pink underwear." This marks a turning point in the American political scene, where pink underwear has been rehabilitated, so to speak, within the Republican Party.

Now, I should probably be writing about the election or some other weighty subject, but this news item... well... tickled me pink. [OK, sorry about that. I'll stop now.] Because I remember the historic origins of pink underwear as a political symbol in the Republican Party, which I thought was worth sharing in an effort to provide a lighthearted moment in the midst of the election fracas.

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I hate to say it, but we all might have to get used to saying "Speaker Boehner" pretty soon. But what is this going to mean -- for Republicans, for Democrats, for President Barack Obama, and for the country at large? At this point, these questions are worth examination, because while Democrats may yet avert disaster in the midterms, denying the real possibility of a Republican House next year is now little better than wishful thinking, or (even worse) intentionally burying our collective heads in the sand.

I should start by saying that a Republican takeover of the House is by no means a foregone conclusion. Democrats might indeed stage an upset "victory" (in other words, not losing as much as has been prophesied) and retain a slim margin under Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But at this point, it seems more likely -- from looking at the polls -- that Republicans are going to pick up the net 39 seats that they need to grab power in the lower house of Congress.

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I'm going to (mostly) resist the urge to take advantage of this column's volume number in order to write a really gross column. Numerically, and inventory-wise, a "gross" is (of course) one dozen dozen. Twelve squared.

But to dwell on this cheap pun would be unseemly, even though there's plenty of "gross" material out there with which to do so, it being less than two weeks before an election. Even unrelated to the election season, there are several items to choose from (Clarence Thomas' wife calling up Anita Hill to magnanimously allow Hill to apologize to her and her husband would probably lead the pack in this category -- followed soon after by the news of Clarence's girlfriend shopping around a book she's writing which pretty much confirms Hill's account of things... seriously, what decade is this?).

Instead of such sophomoric humor, we're going to move right along to the awards portion of the program. One program note before we do so, though -- this column will not appear next week, due to the way the calendar worked out this year. In its place will be our yearly Hallowe'en column, where we expose a frightening (but, hopefully, not too gross) nightmare scenario for Democrats and Republicans. So join us here next week for that, and two weeks from today this column will resume its normal format.

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President Obama, of late, has been doing quite a bit of soul-searching over his first two years in office. It is odd for this to be made public just before an election, instead of just after one, but it does show, at the very least, that Obama is starting to learn some important lessons from his performance so far. Of course, it can be argued that it may be too late for Obama to have learned these lessons, but then he still does have over half of his term to serve -- so I say better late than never, personally. And (without a shred of evidence to make such a claim) I would also say that the fact that Obama's realization that he has room for improvement comes almost immediately after Rahm Emanuel left the White House is, indeed, no coincidence.

President Obama gave his navel-gazing interview to the New York Times Magazine, where he looks both forward and back. He has also spoken elsewhere this week on a similar theme. And one of the biggest areas for improvement he identifies is on his ability to communicate better why he thinks his agenda is the best one for America to the public.

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Since we seem to be smack in the middle of "debate season," it's worth taking another look at the state of the Senate midterm races. Also, because it has been three weeks since we last took a look at the Senate's political landscape. Since that time, both Republicans and Democrats have seen some movement in their direction, but a large number of states remain simply too close to call, with less than two weeks to go before the election.

Over in the House, it is looking more and more like the Republicans are going to be in control next year. It is still possible for the Democrats to squeak out an upset here, but to do so they'd pretty much have to run the tables of all the races in which they even have a chance. And, if you believe the mainstream media, the momentum is not exactly headed in this direction. But there are so many individual House races that it is almost impossible to keep track of them all, so I leave that sort of thing for the professional poll-watchers.

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