A Word of Caution

Like so many others, I am praying for a Scott Brown victory and am incredibly heartened by the many accounts of support for him from unexpected sources.

But I think it's important to remember that this is a blue state with a very powerful, well-oiled machine. The Democrats, from President Obama on down, are aware of what a Brown victory means for them and their agenda, and they are going to be willing to do (almost) anything to defeat him. And experts I trust (like Dan Schnur) remain

actually somewhat pessimistic about the possibility of Brown pulling off an upset.

Obviously, no one knows what will happen, but overconfidence in these last few days will accomplish only two things: A sense of complacency that may deter once red-hot voters from actually getting to the polls and an opportunity, in the wake of a narrow Coakley victory, for the Dems to "spin" her win as a validation of the Obama agenda.

Really, it's far from impossible that Coakley's people could find every stray Democrat vote around and drag their voters to the polls. Democratic partisans like Ed Schultz have admitted they'd be willing to cheat in order to keep the seat in Democrat hands (nice guy for the Dems to try to recruit themselves for the Senate, isn't he?). It's far from over. But there's solid reason for hope, and as Hugh Hewitt once put it in the title of a book, "If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat."