How big will Democratic victory be?

The elections are now less than a month away, and rational observers are pretty well agreed that the Democrats are going to win. The big question is, by how much? The Republicans have known all along that this was likely to be a Democratic year. The GOP has held the White House for 8 years, and controlled Congress as well for 6 of those 8. In a two-party system like ours, the logic seems inescapable: "It's time for a change." Only a really robust economic outlook could have altered this picture and given the Republicans a serious chance of victory. But instead, a government report has just announced that U.S. employers across a wide spectrum of industries eliminated 159,000 jobs in September - the biggest monthly job decline in 5 years. The