As the battle for November continued to unfold this week, House Republicans unveiled their long-awaited, long-debated version of the 1994 classic Contract With America.  This one was called the Pledge to America.

In figuring out where to fall between cautious national GOP figures who basically would like to overturn the 2006 and 2008 elections and bring back the splendors of the Bush administration, and the elements of the conservative base, radicalized into the Tea Party Movement, who would like to turn back the clock quite a few decades further, the authors of the Pledge struck an interesting balance.  The Preamble and Forward of the document are full of fiery Tea Party rhetoric suggesting the illegitimacy of the Obama administration and the need for a radical restructuring of the federal government and the immediate abolition of deficits and debt.

But when the Pledge gets into is specifics, it immediately retreats into limited demands for total repeal of the Obama administration’s initiatives, along with a return to Bush tax and economic policies, and notably abandons the fiscal radicalism that so many Republican candidates this year are campaigning on.  There’s no balanced budget promise; no endorsement, even, of a constitutional Balanced Budget Amendment (now, as once before, boilerplate for GOP candidates); and certainly no mention of plans to take on major structural reforms, much less phase-outs, of Social Security and Medicare.

Indeed, the Pledge gives the impression that if the clock could be turned back to August of 2008, before the enactment of TARP, everything would be fine.  It will be most interesting to see how that approach squares with candidates and activists who think a return to 1933 is the only possible solution.

The Pledge does create a sort of whack-a-mole problem for Democrats seeking to exploit it.  Do they focus on the radical rhetoric that suggests a willingness to go after the basic New Deal/Great Society safety net?  Or do they focus on the details that suggest a more modest but equally vulnerable determination to bring back the policies that voters repudiated in 2006 and 2008?

In any event, the very existence of the Pledge offers some hope for Democrats struggling to make the midterm elections something other than a straight-up referendum on the status quo.  Under Republican governance, they will be able to argue, things could get worse, unless you really do pine for the salad days of 2006 or 1933.

The other big political development this week, which is still unfolding, is the decision by Senate Democrats against taking the lead on extending middle-class tax cuts and forcing Republicans to champion the extension of upper-class tax cuts, at least until after November.  There is still a chance the House will move first, but it’s unlikely given vocal Blue Dog opposition, and the decision is being widely derided as evidence of Democratic over-cautiousness, if not surrender, going into the midterms.  It’s an issue that will likely come up, however, in a lame duck congressional session after the elections, though with Republicans, who want to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent, holding a stronger hand.

There’s been some craziness in the polls this week, most notably a Quinnipiac survey showing the very off-the-wall Republican nominee for governor of New York, Carl Paladino, suddenly closing to double-digits against prohibitive Democratic front-runner Andrew Cuomo.   The Q-poll did not exactly reinforce its credibility by then releasing a survey showing another lowly-regarded Republican, Joe DioGuardi, trailing Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, by just six percent (Siena, meanwhile, had Cuomo up by 33percent and Gillibrand up by 26percent).

Most survey results this week were more conventional.  Mason-Dixon showed Democrat Alex Sink with a 47-40 lead over Republican Rick Scott among likely voters in Florida.  The respected Field Poll, also moving to a likely voter model, showed a dead heat between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman in the California gubernatorial race.  And a new national Pew poll showed an unusually large 10-point swing in the GOP’s favor between registered voters and likely voters—though interpretations of such results as reflecting an “enthusiasm gap” often ignore the structural reasons for a Republican advantage in midterm elections.

Finally, Google has come up with a very useful series of maps comparing some of the most credible handicappers’ projections of Senate, House, and gubernatorial elections.

With just six weeks left until Election Day, it’s getting to that time when the sheep can be separated from the goats.

There are some developments that have been long expected but have not yet materialized.  One is the tightening of the Pennsylvania Senate race, where Republican Pat Toomey, often considered far too conservative for this blue state, has had a sizable and steady lead over Democrat Joe Sestak.   Another is the traditional pre-election decline by once-competitive southern Democrats (this year’s exemplars are Texas’ Bill White and Georgia’s Roy Barnes).

Other recent developments were not expected, and may or may not be a sign of things to come.  The most obvious of these is the recent and (to Democrats) alarming surge of statewide Republican candidates in Ohio.  Another is the apparent and shocking leap of obscure Republican John Maese into the lead, in at least one poll, over Gov. Joe Manchin in West Virginia’s Senate special election.  Other possibilities include very recent recoveries of solid leads by Democratic senators Patti Murray of Washington and Barbara Boxer of California.

It’s also getting to that point where underdogs will need to make a move if they are going to have a shot at being competitive.  If Republican Linda McMahon of Connecticut is really going to challenge Richard Blumenthal, she might as well go ahead and spend the rest of her wrestling money now to find out if it’s possible.  And soon it will be time to stop talking about the “potential” of Republicans to upset theoretically vulnerable House Democrats like Dan Boren of Oklahoma or John Barrow of Georgia.  Surely upsets occur, but winning candidates usually have gained at least some momentum by October.

In other words, we’re now in the stage where political trends are now crystallizing into impending realities.  In the polls, this is reflected in the ongoing “switchover” from surveys of registered voters to those of likely voters.  The closer we get to November 2, the more it makes sense to pay special attention to polls that screen likely voters based on their subjective intention to participate rather than some arbitrary weighting of this or that group’s probable voting propensity; it’s more of a measurement and less of a prediction.

And as each day goes by, the Republican “wave” we have all been expecting may or may not appear, at least in the kind of intensity we are talking about.  The mental “thumb on the scales” we have all come to apply to the standing of Republican candidates this year should lighten as the more objective assessments pick up either the wave or its shortcomings.

Looking at the overall landscape, Republicans appear to be in better than average position to take over the House, but it’s all about the pitched battles in 20 or 30 districts that are very, very close.  (Overall, the Cook Political Report currently calls no less than 50 House races “toss-ups,” though 47 of those are currently Democratic-held).

In the Senate, the apparent loss of Delaware means that Republicans need to put West Virginia or Connecticut into play, but still must win all but one of the baker’s dozen of competitive races in the rest of the country in order to take control.  As has been the case all along, Democrats are relatively strong in some of the states where gubernatorial results could be key to major redistricting opportunities—Florida, Georgia, Texas—and relatively weak in others—Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois.

The two parties are relatively in balance from a financial point of view, with the DNC and its party committees having an unusual advantage, while as usual, Republicans will benefit disproportionately from “independent expenditures” (especially from the Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove’s American Crossroads).

But from here on in, it’s time to stop talking about what might be, and figure out what’s actually happening.