In a story that will appeal to lovers of irony and hypocrisy everywhere, and is perhaps illustrative on the micro-level of the attitudes that precipitated this historical wave, Chellie Pingree (ME-01) finds herself down by four to Dean Scontras.

As an aside, I had to look up the state abbreviation for Maine when I wrote that last sentence, because I have never had to use it while working in my day job for Peter Roskam in Congress. Maine has been pretty blue, and shockingly, nobody has reached out to collaborate on legislative issues. But today, Republicans are within the margin of error on both Congressional seats in Maine.

Back to Pingree. Pingree was President of Common Cause prior to being elected. During her first term in Congress she lobbied for a ban on private travel for Members of Congress.

Here are Pingree’s remarks at a Congressional hearing:

“Most Americans never have and never will fly on a chartered jet, much less a fancy corporate jet complete with wet bar and leather couches. So when members of Congress constantly fly around on corporate jets and pay only the cost of a commercial ticket, it contributes to the corrosive public perception that members of Congress are more like the fat cats of Wall Street than they are like the rest of us.”

Now that Pingree is dating hedge fund manager Donald Sussman, she apparently feels no shame in catching a ride on his jet. As a bonus, Sussman is under investigation by the SEC.

Oddly, a search of both sites reveals that neither Common Cause nor the ever-popular Committee For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) mention Pingree and Sussman.

This sort of arrogance, whether on the micro level like Pingree’s actions, or the macro level in forcing through numerous wildly unpopular bills in the 111th Congress, is the reason why the GOP is likely to take a record number of seats on Tuesday.

How many seats?

The GOP is leading outright in 54 Dem seats. We are tied or within a four point margin of error in 24 more Dem seats. The Dem candidate is under 50% in 89 Dem seats. Yes, more than a third of their caucus (counting open seats, to be fair) can’t muster a winning percentage in October.

Arguably, the best indicator of how many seats we’ll take is how many Dems are under 45% this close to the election. That number is 65.

I’m going publicly with 65 as my prediction for today. Go big or go home, I say.

The caveat on all this is that I have not really done a thorough job in putting this analysis together. I’m “only” monitoring 111 races. I simply have not been able to keep track of all the new races popping up on the radar screen. Perhaps you will forgive me.

Think how frustrating it must be on the Dem side right now. Dennis Cardoza in CA-20, for example, has spent more than a million bucks pummeling Mike Berryhill with negative ads, and Berryhill is closing ground. I was on the phone to Berryhill’s campaign manager last week, who said that even with all the negs being aired against him, Berryhill’s favs are going up. His theory is that the barrage of negative advertising has simply identified Berryhill as the guy to vote for to get rid of Cardoza.

In the closing moments of the campaign, the White House has gotten involved. Rob Hurt in VA-05, who I’m told has had more than 20,000 gross rating points of commercials ran against him in the past two weeks, saw Obama come in to his district last week. Glen Bolger, public opinion researcher extraordinaire, did a poll after the President’s rally and found that the result was mildly negative against Periello. Bolger reports “Just 11% of voters said Obama’s campaign stop made them more likely to vote for Perriello, while 22% said it made them less likely to vote for him.”

Let’s pretend we are Chris Van Hollen for a moment. Your money advantage isn’t working. Two years ago, your President got standing ovations for blowing his nose, and now can’t step foot in a Congressional district without knocking the candidate down five points or more. When everything you do seems to backfire, how do you spend the last of your money?

Looks to me like you split the baby. National Journal came out with a list of DCCC buys in the last week of the campaign, and while I don’t know how much it costs to buy 1000 GRPs of TV in every Congressional district in play, the ones I do know have a pretty anemic buy. Bob Dold is on the receiving end of about 600 points. Bobby Schilling, who has been hit with thousands of points, gets 650 or thereabouts. The buy against Charles Djou is in the same range. Grijalva gets $89k, a small buy most anywhere. The aforementioned Pingree gets about $8k.

My theory is that if you are Chris Van Hollen and have every Member of the Dem Caucus clamoring for money, and nothing is working anyway, you throw a little at everybody.

He should have given more to Pingree. Her hedge fund boyfriend will probably need a lobbyist, and Van Hollen may be looking to retire soon.