CARLSON:   Welcome back. With a mere six days to go until the mid-term elections, the political newsletter "Hotline" is reading the polls and predicting a 49 to 48 Senate split in the favor of the Democrats, plus independent James Jeffords of Vermont. Plus, two races that are too close to call. Joining us to make possibly career-ending predictions on those races, Democratic Pollster Mark Mellman and his Republican counterpart Ed Goeas. 
CARVILLE:   Ed, 2000 revealed a divided country, almost 50/50. 
GOEAS:   Absolutely. 
CARVILLE:   Do you expect at the end of these congressional races that it's going to still be about as divided as it was then? 
GOEAS:   Not in the House. I think the House, the Republicans are going to keep control of the House. In fact, we may even gain a couple of seats in this election. 
CARVILLE:   But that would be two seats out of... 
GOEAS:   I think in terms of the Senate, the Senate you have basically three seats for the Republicans: New Hampshire, Arkansas and Colorado, that are within the margin of error. You have four seats, barring the discussion that we just ended in Minnesota, you have four seats for the Democrats that are within the margin of error. You have South Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri and now Georgia. I think anyone that tries to predict what's going to happen in any of those seven seats, at this point, is just too close to call. 
CARVILLE:   And you don't account for the fact that both North Carolina and Texas are also in the margin of error? 
GOEAS:   Actually they're not. If you look at the four open seats, Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, in all four of those cases the Republican is outside the margin of error and actually gaining. 
CARLSON:   Mark Mellman, one thing we can say with certainty is this election will not be like other midterms. The president's first midterm historically is terrible for his own party. Ronald Reagan -- yes, average of 27 seats in the last 60 years. Reagan lost 25 in '82. Clinton lost -- you know the numbers. That's not going to happen now at all. No matter what happens, the Republicans are not going to lose a lot of seats. And this is a bad, bad thing for the Democrats, isn't it? 
MELLMAN:   Look, the good and important thing for the Democrats who want to keep control of the United States Senate, they have a great chance of taking back the United States House of Representatives. The reality is there are very few competitive races this year and very few competitive races because of political redistricting. It goes on in both parties in every states. There just aren't many competitive races anymore. Iowa has a nonpartisan redistricting board. There's more competitive races and House races in Iowa than there are in California, Texas and Illinois combined. 
CARLSON:   OK. I agree with you. But statewide -- I think you're right to some extent, but statewide races obviously not effected by redistricting New York. The candidate for governor, McAuliffe, is being killed in New York and is going to lose partly because of ads like this. This is President Clinton's new ad on behalf of Carl McAuliffe for governor in New York. It's the weirdest ad ever to run in this mid-term election. Here it is. Here's what he says. 
WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:   Somebody in power needs to be thinking about you every day, and Carl McAuliffe will think about you every single day. 
CARLSON:   Now, Mark Mellman, why would I want Carl McAuliffe to think about me every day? That makes me nervous when I see that. What is that about? 
MELLMAN:   If you are an everyday New Yorker, you want a governor that's going to be thinking about you every day. 
CARLSON:   What, is he like a stalker or something? What does that mean? Seriously, I don't get it. 
MELLMAN:   He's thinking about how to help you, how to make your life better. 
CARLSON:   It makes him sound like a creep. 
CARVILLE:   He really does hate politics. 
CARLSON:   I love politics, but that's way... 
CARVILLE:   Ed, quickly, how many Senate seats will the Republicans pick up? 
GOEAS:   I think we're going to end this election at a wash. 
CARVILLE:   A number. 
GOEAS:   At a wash. What do you say in the House?    In the House we're going to pick up seats? 
CARVILLE:   How many? 
GOEAS:   Six. 
MELLMAN:   House we're going to pick up two. 
CARLSON:   All right. Well, we have that on tape. So we're going to call you back.  OK. Grab another cocktail and meet us back here in a minute. We'll be drinking to the politics of sin with the man who gave Las Vegas martinis with the mayor and oh so much more. Later, the authors of a new book about "Saturday Night Live" attack this show. How will we respond? Stay tuned.
