Don’t forget: “But most of America is white.” So it’s no big deal that the Jon Stewart–Stephen Colbert crowd was nearly all white. The Tea Partiers, on the other hand, are a bunch of racists.

Don’t hold your breath. Forty-seven percent of Democratic voters would like a primary challenger to Obama in 2012. The first sign of any serious challenge will be vilified and strangled in the crib.

Don’t expect comedians to be effective political organizers. Apparently, the Dems’ hopes were misplaced. “When Stewart turned serious near the end of the two-hour event, he called for calm in the public discourse but avoided any talk of the coming election and, to the likely dismay of Democratic operatives, he did not implore the surely left-leaning crowd to vote … ‘I’m really happy you guys are here, even if none of us are quite sure why,’ [Stewart] quipped.”

Don’t believe that the midterm elections’ impact will be limited to domestic policy. “[Rep. Tom] Price has ‘no doubt’ that the GOP will be allying with a number of Democrats on Iran, which he called ‘front and center’ on the party’s national security agenda as outlined in the ‘Pledge to America.’” Maybe Obama will figure out that conducting a robust national security policy is one of the few remaining ways to rescue his presidency.

Don’t underestimate the number of times you will hear the “R” word in the next week. Haley Barbour starts us out: “Well, there’s no question that this midterm election is a referendum on Obama’s policies. He talks about it, the public talks about it. The dominant issues in America are all of this spending, outrageous spending, sense of debt, skyrocketing deficits, joblessness. And what the American people are looking at and they’re saying, ‘The Obama policies aren’t working. They–we need new policies. We need a, we need an economic growth agenda.’ So it’s very clearly a referendum” (emphasis added). Or if you prefer: “They’re voting to, they’re voting to–they will vote, in my opinion, to repudiate these policies. If Republicans win, that’s what it will be, a repudiation of Obama’s policies” (emphasis added).

Don’t think you’ll find a better exemplar of the midterms than Florida. Bill Kristol on Fox News Sunday explains: “For Bill Clinton, with the blessing of the White House, to try and force [Kendirck Meek] out of the race one week out for this opportunistic governor of Florida who’s been a Republican, who’s embarrassed himself this year, who’s going to lose anyway, even if Meek got out of the race, I’m convinced, I think it’s pathetic. And I think it’s demoralizing for Democrats. Conversely, for conservatives like myself, seeing Marco Rubio as the face of the future of the Republican Party, as opposed to Charlie Crist, four years ago Charlie Crist was being heralded by the Republican establishment. He was the new governor of Florida, he was a VP possibility for John McCain. Everyone fought for his endorsement in 2008. The replacement of Charlie Crist by Marco Rubio for me is what’s so heartening about the future of the Republican Party.”

Don’t see much difference between the Democrats and the Republicans when it comes to midterm predictions. “Now, for Democratic consultants and campaign officials who have plotted and strategized for months to preserve the embattled House majority, there’s nothing left to do but sit and wait for the expected horrors of Election Day to unfold. There is nearly uniform consensus among Democratic campaign professionals that the House is gone — the only question, it seems, is how many seats they will lose. … A senior party consultant who was on the low end with his predictions said the party would lose between 40 and 50 seats. On the high end, one Democratic consultant said losses could number around 70 seats.”