Via the Standard, every few months The Hill runs a story along these lines and every time they do things look a little worse. Cheer up, though: None of the five conservatives on the Supreme Court should be retiring anytime soon, and except for health care, any sweeping policy initiatives likely to be signed by President Obama would also be signed by President McCain, cough, cough. Bring on the golden age!

A flood of recent polls supports Democratic arguments that the party will win a larger majority in the Senate in the next election.

Democrats have now polled ahead or within the margin of error in 11 Republican-held seats, as polls conducted in recent weeks show openings in second-tier targets including Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina and Texas…

Democrats have also polled ahead in at least some of the polling in Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia, polling substantial leads in the latter three. They have also been within the margin of error in Minnesota and Oregon.

Though it hasn’t polled close yet, the party is also banking on Rep. Tom Allen (Maine) closing the gap in his race against Sen. Susan Collins (R).

On second thought, defunding the war would count as a rather sharp policy difference between Presidents Obama and McCain, huh? Maybe we should stop thinking about 60 as the magic number and start thinking about the two-thirds majority it would take to override a McCain veto. We’re bound to end up with at least 34 hawkish Republicans, aren’t we? Aren’t we?