"Pre-mortems," "Pre-criminations," and a sense of inevitability

Right now the Republican's main enemy in this election is the growing sense of inevitablity of their loss. Rove has been trying to stave off this belief with his statements and planted stories of overconfidence, but it's still growing.

By this reckoning, roughly a dozen GOP-controlled House seats are "gone, no ifs, ands or buts about it," said the strategist, who discussed internal party deliberations on the condition of anonymity.

A number of GOP operatives said privately yesterday that they now see minimum losses of perhaps 18 seats, with 25 to 30 a more likely outcome.

Other evidence: Notice the appearance of the words "pre-mortem" and "pre-criminations" among the Republicans. If that's not the language of a 5-11 team....

Also, conventional wisdom and "the smart money" seems to be following. Unbelievably, the Dems are now out-fundraising the Republicans.

(I certainly don't think this is a done deal, but it's now the running conventional wisdom.)