I hate predictions. Refuse to make them. Journalists are never so stupid as when we make predictions--it implies an inside knowledge that we simply don't have (we're pretty good about reporting things that have already happened; less good at explaining them). But if think Matt Yglesias, who is so smart about so many things, may be pretty close to the mark here.

As for me, I'm going to be paying especially close attention to some of the Congressional candidates I met on my cross-country road trip--in particular, Kathy Dahlkemper in Pennsylvania. Among the Senate races, it'll be interesting to see how the Teasies do in places like Colorado, Wisconsin, Nevada and Alaska. I expect surprises, going both ways...some Dems who seem safe will be whacked, some who seem in peril will survive. (I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if Boxer lost in California and Reed won in Nevada...because, in the end, who knows?).

In the meantime, I expect 100% attendance at the polls among Swampland readers who are U.S. citizens. Hasta manana.

Picture by Larry Downing/Reuters. For more, check out our White House Photo Blog.

UPDATE: Barack Obama has corrected the record since this post was originally published. On the Michael Baisden radio show Monday afternoon, the president admitted to misspeaking: "And you know, it's interesting right now, there was a -- I had a conversation with a Hispanic radio outlet, Univision. . . ." the president said. "And I said, well, you can't punish your friends when  -- the folks who've been supporting it.  Now, I did also say if you're going to punish somebody, punish your enemies, and I probably should have used the word, 'opponents' instead of enemies.  Now the Republicans are saying that I'm calling them enemies.  What I'm saying is you're an opponent of this particular provision, comprehensive immigration reform, which is something very different."

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Last week, President Obama made a blunder. In a radio interview with Univision, he called Republicans "enemies." Here is the quote.

If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We're going to punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,' if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's going to be harder and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2.

The proper word here is "opponents." No doubt this was the word he meant to use. "Enemy" is, in fact, exactly the kind of rhetoric that Obama opposed both as a candidate and a president, the sort of militant escalation of the debate that he identifies with the worst parts of cable television. It was a small mistake, but it was compounded by his advisers who refused last week to admit that it was a mistake. Asked in a press briefing Thursday, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs refused to admit the president had blundered over a word.

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My professional conflicts aside, if you haven't read Newsweek recently, you should pick it up. Transition has, ironically, been good for the magazine. There seems to be more reporting, more interesting takes, a bit more of an excited, carefree attitude. Eve Conant had a great piece last week about Marijuana and the GOP. A couple weeks earlier, there was a piece about the religious politics of Vladamir Putin's latest puppet in Chechnya.  But I write not to praise, but because I just read the magazine's current cover story, The Newsweek Power 50.

This is a list, and everyone loves lists, but it is a list with a novel premise: That money equals power in politics. "In an oversaturated, hypercommodified media culture of 2010, the most influential political figures are generally the ones who make the most money peddling their perspectives," runs the thesis. Note the use of the word "generally," a pretty big qualification that gets left out of the pull quote in the layout of the magazine. But even with that hedge, the thesis is balderdash. Herewith is my own list explaining why:

1. Money is a poor approximation of power in just about any field. Don't believe me, tune into Game 5 of the World Series tonight. On opening day, the San Francisco Giants had a payroll of about $100 million, less than half of the New York Yankees. The Texas Rangers had a $55 million payroll, down about $13 million from 2009--the fourth lowest in Major League Baseball. Look at CEO pay: The top CEO earner over the five year period that ended in 2009 was Larry Ellison of Oracle, a smart guy with a good company who took in $944 million. But try to make an argument that he has more power in the industry than Apple's Steve Jobs, who took made about one third less in the same period. Lew Frankfort of Coach, the handbag company, ranks #7 over five years with $220 million. Good for him. But try and make the case that Frankfort has more power than Goldman Sach's Lloyd Blankfein ($137 million) or General Electric's Jeffrey Immelt ($71 million). So it goes.

2. Earning power in political entertainment is not the same thing as political influence. Over the last two years, there has been no hotter political punditry stock than Glenn Beck, who comes in #2 on the Newsweek list and usually gets between 2 million and 3 million viewers a night. That is a big number for cable television, but not a big number in politics. Barack Obama got 69 million votes in 2008. In 2006, California Senator Diane Feinstein was reelected with 5 million votes. But numbers only begin to tell this story. The vast political entertainment machine, which traffics in outrage on the left and the right, has proven that it can make money in all kinds of ways (radio, television, books, live shows) from niche audiences. But it has not proven that it can control the fate of the nation. Despite the protestations of Talk Radio, the Republican Party abandoned many of its core conservative values during the presidency of George W. Bush. Rush Limbaugh (#1 on the Newsweek list) had a bigger audience than Tom Delay, but Delay decided what happened in the U.S. House, not Limbaugh. So it will be the next time Republicans regain control of Congress and the White House.

3. The Newsweek list is arbitrary.

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So says former Florida Governor Jeb Bush to the WSJ:

"The only privilege that I was born with was to be a citizen of the greatest nation in human history," he tells a breakfast crowd of supporters at the Original Pancake House in Palm Beach Gardens. "What makes America great is that anyone from anywhere can accomplish anything." The Obama agenda puts this unique inheritance in jeopardy, he says. Yet he keeps it all upbeat, inclusive, and to many people who see him in person, Reagan-esque.

"He's the only guy I know on the scene today who makes grown men cry," says Jeb Bush. Mr. Rubio is a political protégé of the former Republican governor. They share a preference for (in Mr. Bush's words) "hopeful aspirationalism" to broaden the party's appeal. He adds, laughing, that the younger man is a "much better speaker than I am."

In our new issue, Von Drehle writes that Rubio's decision to challenge Charlie Crist for Senate was the true kickoff to the 2010 campaign and the volatile Tea Party politics that defined it.

Meanwhile, Nate Silver predicts at 93% chance of victory for Rubio in the state's tangled three-way Senate race.

I think Jon Stewart's final plea for sanity at Saturday's rally was among, well, the sanest statements of the political year. Keith Olbermann didn't like it. Message to Keith, in language he should understand:

You, sirrrr, have gotten a bit too full of yourself. You're not a charlatan like Glenn Beck, but you do go on...and on, in a crashingly inflated manner...with little of the irony and whimsy that used to make you fun to watch--the irony and whimsy instilled in both of us by our beloved high school English teacher, Arthur Naething.  You've become mockable, which is tragic. Lighten up, dude! As the man used to say, Go forth and spread beauty and light!

Update: Andrew Sullivan nails it , as commenter Oathdoover suggests.

Ted Sorensen, a speechwriter, strategist and adviser to President John F. Kennedy, died yesterday at 82. His nephew, Swampland's own Adam Sorensen, penned a moving remembrance that is well worth a read.