MICHAEL J. FOX RESPONDS

Actor Michael J. Fox is responding to the allegation that he played up his Parkinson's disease for a Democratic political campaign commercial. In an interview with Katie Couric, Fox says that he wasn't off his medication when he shot the commercials. In fact he says he was too medicated. Fair enough, but that's not really the point.

Michael J. Fox is a talented actor with a terrible disease. People like the guy and if you took a poll, you'd probably find his approval rating close to 100 percent. But Michael J. Fox chose to step into the political arena. And when you do that in this country, you had better be prepared to be challenged. There is no pass.

It's the same thing with Cindy Sheehan. She's a sympathetic figure...her son was killed in Iraq. Hopefully, most of us will never know the pain of losing a child like that...it's terrible. But when she chose to step into politics...to start attacking the president politically in a public way, then all of that goes away. She's now entering the public debate.

By the way, did you know embryonic stem cell research isn't banned by the federal government? Just thought you should know.

OUR NEW 700 MILE FENCE

The president is all set to sign today the bill authorizing the construction of a 700-mile border fence with Mexico. This would be an absolutely fabulous idea....if our border with Mexico were 700 miles long. The only problem: it isn't. It's almost 2,000 miles long. Oops! Looks like somebody fell a bit short in the arithmetic department. The $1.2 billion bill is seen as a "down payment" on the fence. Great...a fence that's too short still isn't fully paid for....this gets better all the time.

Republicans could have not only retained their majorities in the House and Senate, but expanded them this year. All they had to do was come out months ago in favor of getting tough on the illegal alien invasion. Some of them have, but the stumbling block isn't in Congress, it's at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. President Bush simply supports amnesty for illegal aliens...the so-called guest worker program....and does not support doing anything at all with the 12 million illegals already here.

So this fence is just another do-nothing initiative that will not stop invasion from Mexico in the least. It's not enough. As long as there are places where illegals can just walk right on in, they will. As long as they know nothing will happen to them once they get here, they will continue to take the risk.

How about a fence along the entire border? And a real fence...a manned one with gun turrets and stuff. You could even mine it. Illegal immigration problem solved. North Korea and South Korea have had a pretty good border fence for 50 years.

By the way .. have you heard that China is busy laying down a barbed wire fence along its entire border with North Korea? Let's send some observers over there to see how they're doing it.

REPUBLICANS MIGHT GET A BREAK

Dick Morris has a new column out that might give some Republicans hope today. In it, he is predicting that the mid-term election is back to the toss-up stage and the GOP might actually have a chance. Morris was the one who was predicting George Bush would be re-elected in 2004 when everybody else called it for The Poodle, so people should listen.

It turns out the conservative base may have awakened from a nightmare where they see Nancy Pelosi pounding the Speaker's gavel. Not a pleasant thought. What is the evidence of this? Democrats have sputtered in several key states...particularly Senate races. It's now looking more and more like it will not be possible for Democrats to take control of the Senate from the GOP. If anything, they might be able to get it to 50-50, but even that is still a Republican edge with Cheney as the Senate president to do tie-breaker votes.

So could it happen? Could it be that the media has it all wrong.....the Democrats have it all wrong...and suddenly the Republican base will go vote in two weeks, just like they always have? Maybe. It's always been the case that no matter what the polls say, particularly national polls, it all comes down to 1.) who votes on Election Day and 2.) whether or not people take out the sins of Iraq on their local Congressman.

So Republicans might have an opening here. They'll probably screw it up somehow though. After all, there's still two weeks left. But if they hold on, Nancy Pelosi had better hope she saved her receipt from all those drapes she's been buying for the Speaker's office.

PAUL KRUGMAN: CONTRARY INDICATOR

By Michelle Malkin ·

Paul Greenberg has a hilarious syndicated column out today about Paul Krugman's ridiculous record of prognostication:

It started out as a gag here on the editorial page of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and soon became a superstition:

Every time the stock market took a little dip, we'd reprint one of Paul Krugman's dour columns from the New York Jaundiced Times about the imminent doom of the American economy.

Almost immediately the market would bounce back and then some. It worked every time.

But we may have overdone it of late. By now the Dow Jones has started to cross into 12,000 territory. A few more Krugman columns explaining how the economy has cooled off and the thing could overheat.

We reprinted one of his columns last Thursday morning and, sure enough, by the end of the day, the Dow ended the day over 12,000 for the first time. AN HISTORIC HIGH! and all that jazz.

Well, sure. The Krugman touch never fails.

The more Professor Eeyore says the economy is going to hell, the more heavenly it gets. Can it be just a coincidence? The Dow seems to surge whenever it sees "Paul Krugman" in a by-line. It must be a kind of Pavlovian reaction by now.

Can Krugman work his magic on the midterms? Greenberg wryly concludes:

If there's any hope at all for the once Grand Old Party in these midterm elections, and there may not be, it's that Paul Krugman can do for it what he's consistently done for the stock market.

Cross your fingers.

***

For what it's worth, Dick Morris at Vote.com says the election is back to a "toss-up:"

he latest polls show something very strange and quite encouraging is happening: The Republican base seems to be coming back home. This trend, only vaguely and dimly emerging from a variety of polls, suggests that a trend may be afoot that would deny the Democrats control of the House and the Senate.

With two weeks to go, anything can happen, but it is beginning to look poss- ible that the Democratic surge in the midterm elections may fall short of control in either House.

Here's the evidence:

* Pollsters Scott Rasmussen and John Zogby both show Republican Bob Corker gaining on Democratic Rep. Harold Ford Jr. in Tennessee, a must-win Senate seat for the Democrats. Zogby has Corker ahead by seven, while Rasmussen still shows a Ford edge of two points.

* Zogby reports a "turnaround" in New Jersey's Senate race with the GOP candidate Tom Kean taking the lead, a conclusion shared by some other public polls.

* Even though Sen. Jim Talent in Missouri is still under the magic 50 percent threshold for an incumbent, Rasmussen has him one point ahead and Zogby puts him three up. But unless he crests 50 percent, he'll probably still lose.

* Even though he is a lost cause, both Rasmussen and Zogby show Montana's Republican Sen. Conrad Burns cutting the gap and moving up.

* In Virginia, Republican embattled incumbent Sen. George Allen has now moved over the 50 percent threshold in his internal polls. (He'd been at 48 percent.)

Nationally, Zogby reports that the generic Democratic edge is down to four points, having been as high as nine two weeks ago.

***

One last bit of news: Consumer confidence holds at '06 high...

Consumer confidence holds steady at its highest level of the year, staying well above its 2006 low reached less than two months ago.

The latest ABC News/Washington Post Consumer Comfort Index stands at -7 on its scale of +100 to -100, unchanged from last week to match its best of the year. The index is up eight points since mid-September, and 12 points since matching its worst level of the year on Aug. 27. Gas prices have dropped 64 cents in that time.

WORD ASSOCIATION: "I SAY 'DEMOCRAT.' YOU SAY...."

By Michelle Malkin

Here's a bit of a report by Candy Crowley at the Jihadist Sniper News Network putting people to a Democrat word association test (here's the link, but you don't need to click):

On the cusp of an election that could overturn the Republican majority on Capitol Hill, I jokingly asked a senior Democratic aide whether he had ordered new business cards to reflect majority status.

"Don't underestimate our ability to blow it," he said.

There is a reason Democrats are on edge. They have lost so many elections where it seemed they were running with the wind, the phenomenon is known in political circles as Democrats "embracing their inner-defeatest."

Herewith the proof: Democrats have been the minority on Capitol Hill for most of the past 12 years.

When George W. Bush leaves office in January 2009, Democrats will have occupied the Oval Office just 12 of the previous 40 years.

In the past two election cycles, Al Gore and John Kerry lost the entire South and most of the Midwest and West.

As part of our election series "Broken Government," CNN asked self-identified Democrats around Miami, Chicago and Los Angeles how they view their party. It was word association, "I say Democrat, You say --." Not scientific, but instructive.

Here is some of what we heard:

• "Disorganized"
• "Afraid to take a stand"
• "Not giving us anything better to look at"
• "A little soft"

Wanna play? Feel free to chime in.

You already know what my word is.

BLEAK HOUSE

Republicans deserve to lose, but what happens if Democrats win?

BY PETE DU PONT
Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Two weeks from tonight America is going to be different--first politically and then substantively--for Democrats will likely take control of the House, and move public policy in very liberal directions.

Major polling organizations--the Cook and Rothenberg Political Reports and Congressional Quarterly--have been estimating that the Democrats will make a 16- to 18-seat gain in the House, where they need just 15 to take control. But the number of projected Democratic victories may be climbing: Sunday's New York Times analysis--entitled "Hope on the Left"--projects a gain as large as 30 seats.

In the Senate the Democrats have a tougher task--they need to win six Republican seats to take control. A look at the eight closely contested races suggest that incumbent Republican George Allen in Virginia and Democrat Bob Menendez in New Jersey are likely to be re-elected, so the Democrats would have to win all six of the remaining seats. The polls show four likely gains--defeating Republicans Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania, Lincoln Chaffee in Rhode Island, Conrad Burns in Montana, and Mike DeWine in Ohio. In the last two races Republican incumbent Jim Talent in Missouri seems likely to win a very close race and the open seat in Tennessee is too close to call.

If the Democrats do take the House, what changes might be made in America's public policies?

First, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has promised that election of a Democratic House would insure "a rollback of the [Bush] tax cuts." Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, who would be chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, would make sure no tax cut extension bill would ever get to the floor. He voted against the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and the bill that later extended the tax cuts until 2010 (as did all but seven of the 205 Democratic House members). In September Mr. Rangel said that he "cannot think of one" Bush tax cut he would agree to renew.

Investors Business Daily recently pointed out that since the Bush tax cuts took effect in 2003, "the economy has added $1.26 trillion in real output, $14.4 trillion in net wealth and 5.8 million new jobs." But that progress doesn't seem to matter to the liberals, whose primary goal is to raise income tax rates. "Taxing the rich" will be the leading economic argument of a 2007 Democratic House, and a rollback tax bill of some kind will reach the floor.

Second, President Bush will not be able to re-energize his effort for individually owned Social Security accounts, for "preventing the privatization of social security" is in the Democratic National Committee's "6-Point Plan for 2006." Democrats don't trust people to own or invest their own retirement funds--better to let a wise government do that, for as socialist Noam Chomsky says, "putting people in charge of their own assets breaks down the solidarity that comes from doing something together." And since Congress gets to spend Social Security tax receipts that aren't needed to pay benefits, letting people invest their payments in their own retirement accounts would be a costly revenue reduction that the new, bigger-spending Congress won't allow to happen.

"Reducing dependence on foreign oil" is a good Democratic goal, and there are a number of ways to accomplish it. Building more nuclear power plants is one. Offshore drilling for oil and natural gas is another. Oil reserves in the Outer Continental Shelf and Alaska could replace foreign oil imports for 25 years, and there is a known 19-year OCS supply of natural gas.

But liberal Democrats are opposed to all of these solutions. Hillary Clinton is opposed to the construction of nuclear plants and offshore drilling. Every Democratic senator on the Environment and Public Works Committee voted against allowing the building of new oil refineries on closed military bases. When the House voted 232-187 in June to allow and encourage OCS oil and natural-gas drilling, 155 of 195 Democrats voted to block it. The Democratic alternative is to eliminate the $18 billion the oil companies now get in various business tax deductions and thereby impose a higher income tax on them.

As for the war in Iraq, Mr. Rangel observed that "You've got to be able to pay for the war, don't you?" In other words, end it by simply defunding it. Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania calls for "immediate redeployment of U.S. troops" and intends to run for majority leader if the Democrats take control of the House. Ninety percent of House Democrats opposed the terrorist surveillance program, and 80% voted against the recent terrorist interrogation legislation.

Finally, when we see what the new leaders of a Democratic House are likely to do, their views are--well--very different from most Americans. Rep Henry Waxman of California would become the Government Reform Committee chairman, and believes domestic terrorist surveillance is "illegal." He would use his subpoena power to launch investigations to try and limit the president's anti-terrorism powers.

Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, who would become chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has talked about subpoenaing "Bush administration officials to answer questions and face the consequences for their abuses of power." In other words, impeachment.

Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi has indicated she would like to put Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida in charge of the House Intelligence Committee. As a federal judge, he was impeached in the House by a 413-3 vote, and removed from the bench by the Senate for bribery, corruption, and perjury. Rep. Hastings would lead the oversight of America's antiterrorism policies.

Most Americans have not yet thought much about this agenda, or the leaders who will set it. But they are tired of the Republican congressional performance. The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows 16% of Americans approve of congressional performance while 75% disapprove.

No wonder: Republicans gave line-item veto power to the Democratic president in the 1990s, but refused to give it to the current Republican president. They haven't made the Bush tax cuts permanent. They wouldn't bring individual ownership of Social Security retirement accounts to a vote. They haven't done anything on health care. And they have raised federal spending by $750 billion since 2001 and for fiscal 2006 approved 10,000 earmarks costing $29 billion. Conservative principles seem to have faded away, and ethical principles have weakened--names like DeLay, Ney, and Foley make the point.

It is possible President Bush and Karl Rove can stem the anti-Republican political tide. But more likely on Nov. 7 American voters will send the Congress a strong disapproval message by voting out the current Republican majority. In politics as in other jobs, there is a price to pay for poor performance.

Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. His column appears once a month.