Today, the blogosphere has picked up on the "prognostication generation gap" story.

A Charlie Cook column got it all started:

As a general rule, election-watchers under the age of 40, regardless of their party or ideology, see the contest for control of the House as fairly close. ... Observers over age 40, meanwhile, tend to see a greater likelihood of sizable Republican losses. They think that the GOP could well lose more than 20 House seats and more than five Senate seats.

John Podhoretz over at NRO thinks this is because national landslides were more common in the old days. That's not a bad theory.

NewDonkey.com makes the point that young liberal bloggers are "reluctant to predict" Democrats will make major gains.

This generation gap has been especially notable if you read progressive prognosticators, such as Chris Bowers or Kos. These are people who by and large are completely obsessed with the hope that Democrats will retake Congress. This is largely what they live for. Yet they are very reluctant to predict that their Ahab will indeed slay their Great White Whale.

NewDonkey may be on to something regarding the liberal bloggers. But there is another reason for this phenomenon -- and it has more to do with the new media than it does merely with age (of course, there is a correlation) ...

Liberal bloggers are sort of journalists, but they are also activists. For this reason, even if they believe that the Dems will take the House, they also realize the negative political ramifications of "hyping" the Democrats chances.

It is axiomatic in politics that you should never "over-promise and under-achieve." In short, by predicting they will win the House, Democrats have over-promised As such, anything short of taking the House will be viewed as a failure. That's right; it's very possible the Dems will win several seats -- but that the night will be "spun" as a huge victory for the GOP (because they held the House).

The liberal bloggers understand this, that's why they are tempering their predictions. Smart liberal bloggers are playing the "expectations game." They want to downplay the hype about Dems taking the House -- so that they can claim victory (even if they just pick up a few seats.)

But unlike the liberal bloggers, traditional journalists (who tend to be older) are less concerned with this phenomenon.

Sure, many of them are liberally biased -- and this probably influences their prognostication (the way my love for the Redskins always causes me to predict they will win) -- but they stand to lose little if Dems fail to take the House.

I question whether or not there really is a phenomenon. I think the young bloggers are intentionally lowering expectations. Either way, I hope this adds to the debate ...