One of the sharpest political blogs in the 2004 was NRO's The Kerry Spot, maintained by Jim Geraghty. He found many of Kerry's missteps and misstatements and brought them to public attention first. Since then, he spent some time out of the country and writing his new book, but he's back posting regularly now as the election nears.

For those who choose not to wallow in the gloom and doom being spread about by the fMSM and some conservatives (notably Glenn Reynolds, and John Hawkins in his post linked by Lorie Byrd below), a calm and rational look at the status of the House races puts this year's election in a somewhat different perspective. That's what Geraghty does at TKS:

Okay, let's look hard at all of the polling in the competitive House districts. Because I'm seeing some really divergent results in House races where more than one poll has been conducted recently. (In quite a few districts, only one pollster has measured voters' preferences.)

If the bad ones are accurate, then yes, Republicans will be crawling out onto the ledge the morning of November 8. But if the better ones are accurate, forget talk of a Democratic landslide. And if the better poll results are accurate, and the GOP ground game can give their candidates a push worth a couple of percentage points, then Democrats are currently dumping Gatorade on Coach Nancy Pelosi in the third quarter.

Let's get started. All results are from going down the compiled list at pollster.com.

• In Joel Hefley's old seat, Colorado 5, polls taken a week apart show either a tie or Republican Doug Lamborn up by 17.
• In Bob Beauprez's old seat, Colorado 7, polls taken a week apart show either a tie or Democrat Ed Perlmutter up by 6.
• In Rob Simmons' seat in Connecticut 2, polls taken late last month indicate that Simmons is either up 3 (ominous!) or up 14 (cruising time!).
• In Christopher Shays' Connecticut 4 seat, Republican Chris Shays is either down 5 or up 5 in two polls taken over the same period.
• In Nancy Johnson's Connecticut 5 seat, Johnson is either up 6 or down 5.
• In Katherine Harris' old Florida 13 seat, Republican Vern Buchanan is either within the margin of error, or down 12.
• In the Florida 16 seat of that sicko, Democrat Tim Mahoney is either up 13 (insurmountable) or up 7 (surmountable).
• In Henry Hyde's old seat, Illinois 6, Democrat Tammy Duckworth is either in a tie with Republican Peter Roksam or up 5.

Read the rest at the link above. The list goes on, and the analysis is sound.

There will be plenty of time after the election to cry in your beer and to find someone to blame, if necessary.