Corporatist Democrats have a sweet scam going. Even when they lose an election, they still win.

Kent Conrad, the long-serving North Dakota Senator and chair of the Senate Budget Committee, plans to announce his retirement today, according to Chris Cillizza. This seems like a pickup for Republicans, though potential Democratic candidate Earl Pomeroy would at least have a track record of winning statewide and positive name ID.

The number of contests close enough to watch continues to grow daily. Updates today on RI-01, CT-04, CT-05, IN-02, and NC-02.

There are several updates today thanks mainly to a new round of polling from The Hill newspaper. At the beginning of the week, I wrote of how remarkably competitive so many of these races remained so close to election day, and how many would break one way or another depending on the atmosphere this last week. With that in mind, the news is not good for Democrats.

The independent chief actuary of Social Security says predicts big benefit cuts for the middle class if privatization and indexing are part of Social Security reform.

For the second year in a row, there will be no COLA increase for Social Security recipients in 2011. This effects over 58 million retired and disabled Americans, and you would think that such information coming out so close to an election would be difficult news for the party in power. However, House Democrats are making lemonade out of it, vowing to vote in November on a $250, one-time benefit for Social Security recipients.

Raul Grijalva and Lynn Woolsey, the co-chairs of the Progressive Caucus, have sent a letter directly to Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the co-chairs of the President’s deficit commission. In it, they say in no uncertain terms that cuts to Social Security, including an increase in the retirement age, must be off the table.

Earl Pomeroy (D-ND), the chair of the Social Security Subcommittee on the House Ways and Means Committee, said that any benefit cuts to the program, including raising the retirement age, are “completely unacceptable” and should be taken off the table, contrasting many Democrats and even the House Majority Leader on the topic.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will address a rare public meeting of the Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission today and tell them that the best deficit reduction strategy at this time of mass unemployment would be job growth. Over 15 million Americans are out of work, and therefore the huge opportunity loss of economic and tax revenue creates a deficit that could easily bring down the debt over the long term.

I seem to remember an analogy during the health care debate from Tom Harkin, about the Affordable Care Act being a starter home. It wasn’t perfect, he said, but over time, Congress would add to that home, and fix it where it’s broken, and eventually create a fine stately mansion where the starter home once stood.

At least in the near term, there’s no way that’s happening.