I'm not sure exactly what to say about this final presidential race analysis by Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei at the Republico -- er, The Politico. After chiding Republicans for losing control of the Senate primary nominating process and letting the Tea Party ensure they won't take control of the Senate back, they turn to Democrats.

Here is their primary criticism:

If President Barack Obama wins, he will be the popular choice of Hispanics, African-Americans, single women and highly educated urban whites. That’s what the polling has consistently shown in the final days of the campaign. It looks more likely than not that he will lose independents, and it’s possible he will get a lower percentage of white voters than George W. Bush got of Hispanic voters in 2000.

A broad mandate this is not.

What does that even mean? Josh Marshall:

Or to be more specific, Obama’s winning but not with the best votes. I mean really, if you can’t win with a broad cross-section of white people, can you really be said to represent the country? Really.

Brad DeLong invokes the 3/5ths rule: If elected by a majority who is not old white rich men, then it's only 3/5ths of a real majority.

It hasn't escaped me that Allen and VandeHei are older white men, so maybe they're just needing to feel relevant again.

Still, it's a bizarre thing to say, right?

Well, maybe not as bizarre as you might think. Go read this splendid long read by Alex Pareene on The Baffler about The Politico and other Villagers. It's quite an article, but you won't regret spending the time. Here's a taste.

It’s bracing to consider how many successful Web-baiting careers at Politico might be cut short if reporters there ever bothered to read Dreams from My Father. Fortunately, though, there’s little chance that such a reckoning with the truth will ever occur, thanks to the paper’s endlessly excitable business model, which conflates the work of journalism with an amnesiac’s bad acid trip. Much of Politico’s published output seems deliberately engineered to exasperate high-minded liberals who consider journalism an act of public service.

More to the point, Mitch, the GOP is primarily an obstructionist party, famous for the iron-clad rule that party interests always come before those of the country. Really, the best thing you can do for your party is to do what's best for all of us:

WASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell did not mince words on the outlook for the GOP during his address to the Republican National Committee's annual meeting on Thursday.

The "path forward" for the Republican Party is rocky.

"We're all concerned about the fact that the very wealthy and the very poor, the most and least educated, and a majority of minority voters, seem to have more or less stopped paying attention to us. And we should be concerned that, as a result of all this, the Republican Party seems to be slipping into a position of being more of a regional party than a national one," McConnell told the gathering.

"In politics, there's a name for a regional party: it's called a minority party. And I didn't sign up to be a member of a regional party . . . As Republicans, we know that common-sense conservative principles aren't regional. But I think we have to admit what our sales job has been poor. And in my view, that needs to change."

Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome! Here at the C&L Cabaret it's time for the Blog Roundup Revue! No use in sitting alone in your room by the PC -- in here, life is beautiful! Let your Master of Ceremonies, Steven at Die Meinung Muhle, show you. And we're obliging -- if you don't like the songs of Kander and Ebb, you can try this little ditty that's perfect for the War On Terror.

Black waters run deep, and Blackwater's waters run very deep and smelly indeed . Read all about it while this jolly song runs through your head.

Pretty soon it will be time to set ourt clocks back, but maybe instead we should set the Democratic Party leadership forward. And while we're at it, upgrade the party frontrunner to a more appealing model and engage in some serious class warfare .

It is so hot here at the C&L Cabaret that we constantly have to battle to keep the women from taking off all of their clothes. So stick around. Today, we may lose the battle -- whoops!

Nice documentary you have there, Mr. Burns, but we need a lot more.

HOLY CRAP: In our WIngerweek Roundup we find that the Big Guy In The Sky doesn't put out the way he used to for the GOP. And the Bible-bangers of this lovely little town are on their way to learning that anti-gay bigotry carries a hefty price tag .

BOOK NOOK: Science fiction master Norman Spinrad (Bug Jack Barron, The Iron Dream) has written a near-future novel about an Islamist terrorist and is having a spot of trouble finding a publisher. He's posted the first third of the novel online and gone on YouTube to explain his take on 9/11 and the War On Terra. And in more multimedia fund, here's Todd Gitlin talking about his new book, The Bulldozer and the Big Tent .

Well, that's all for this week, mein Herrs and Heroines. It's been a groove and a gas and I thank Mike for the opportunity to make you all rue the day you shelled out for DSL. The secret password and the keys to the cabaret are being turned over to Jamie for the coming week.

So, in closing, I'd like to leave you all with this positive inspiring message:

The holidays will be here before you know it, and books like this make wonderful gifts.

Auf wiedersehen.