For Democrats, Even a Gain May Feel Like a Failure  —  In most midterm elections, an out-of-power party picking up, say, 14 seats in the House and five seats in the Senate could call it a pretty good night.  —  But for Democrats in 2006, that showing would mean coming up one seat shy of taking control of both the Senate and the House.

Exit-Poll Secrecy Measures Aim to Plug Leaks to Blogs  —  Two-by-two, polling specialists from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News and the Associated Press will go into rooms in New York and Washington shortly before noon Tuesday.  Their cellphones and BlackBerrys will be confiscated …

"Absolutely True:" Rather Continues to Defend 60 Minutes TANG Story  —  Just moments ago on North Carolina's Morning News with Jack Boston on Raleigh-based News-Talk 680 WPTF, former CBS anchor Dan Rather defended the infamous 60 Minutes story using forged documents to attack President Bush's service …

Pelosi's Platform  —  HOW THE DEMOCRATS COULD GOVERN IF THEY WIN THE HOUSE.  —  What will a Democratic House of Representatives under Speaker Nancy Pelosi be like?  The Republicans have been painting an unattractive portrait of Democrats roasting young children on a spit in the Capitol rotunda and whatnot.

It's a Candidate Calling.  Again.  —  Republicans Deny Subterfuge as Phone Barrages Anger Voters  —  This year's heavy volume of automated political phone calls has infuriated countless voters and triggered sharp complaints from Democrats, who say the Republican Party has crossed the line …

New York Plans to Make Gender Personal Choice  —  Separating anatomy from what it means to be a man or a woman, New York City is moving forward with a plan to let people alter the sex on their birth certificate even if they have not had sex-change surgery.  —  Under the rule being considered …

FBI looking into possible Va. voter intimidation  —  Officials probing reports of phone calls allegedly intended to confuse voters … The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the possibility of voter intimidation in the U.S. Senate race between Sen. George Allen, a Republican …

Following the Election Returns  —  An hour-by-hour guide to tonight's results.  —  This year the networks say they are guarding their exit poll results as if they were crown jewels.  The results will be delivered to a "quarantine room," access to which will be granted to only two staffers …

Election season is bad time for slip of the quip  —  My face time with John Kerry has been brief but choice.  In 2003, I was at a campaign event in New Hampshire chatting with two old coots in plaid.  The senator approached and stopped in front of us.  The etiquette in primary season …

AP Exclusive: Election chief concerned about voter confusion  —  JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Secretary of State Robin Carnahan raised concerns about potential voter confusion in Tuesday's elections, citing her own experience casting an absentee ballot as an indication that some poll workers may wrongly …

HOW THEY STOLE THE MID-TERM ELECTION  —  Here's how the 2006 mid-term election was stolen.  —  Note the past tense.  And I'm not kidding.  —  And shoot me for saying this, but it won't be stolen by jerking with the touch-screen machines (though they'll do their nasty part).

Olbermann: Where are the checks, balances?  —  Bush has been 'making it up' for too long, and the people have let him … MSNBC TV  —  We are, as every generation, inseparable from our own time.  —  Thus is our perspective, inevitably that of the explorer looking into the wrong end of the telescope.

Ortega Set To Reclaim Nicaraguan Presidency  —  Daniel Ortega, the former Marxist president and nemesis of President Ronald Reagan, appears to have won back Nicaragua's top job.  —  With 62 percent of precincts reporting, Ortega was comfortably leading the field of five presidential contenders …

LIVE FROM BNN: A PREVIEW  —  John Hinderaker has dubbed CNN the Broken News Network in homage to its "Broken Government" series of Democratic Party talking points it has run this election season.  Mrs. Cheney's crushing indictment of CNN in her interview with Wolf Blitzer rightly included …

Democrats Stuck in the '60s  —  "You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well.  If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."  —  Those two sentences, spoken by John Kerry last week, tell a lot about the mindset of many …

The Race Between the Right Wing and the Right Thing ...a message from Michael Moore  —  Tomorrow night, those who sent 2,800 of our soldiers to their deaths — all because of a lie the president concocted — will find out if America chooses to reward them — or remove them.

Cut and run?  Let's retire that phrase  —  Advocating withdrawal from Iraq is hardly dishonorable.  —  With tomorrow's election, we hope one loopy phrase can be stomped back in the can of political sleaze from which it escaped.  The phrase?  "Cut and run."

Voting machine problems bedevil multiple states  —  Election machine glitches caused delays and jangled nerves in at least three states today as voters began turning out for midterm elections that could set the tone for the last two years of President Bush's term in office.