Posted on 09/26/2002 6:59:50 PM PDT by GeneD
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — With six weeks to go, Republicans appear to hold a slight edge in this year's fight for control of the House, according to interviews with politicians and analysts around the country and examinations of local polls.
Republicans have about 10 more seats safely in their hands than the Democrats do. So even if they won fewer than half of the approximately 40 races that are truly competitive, they could still keep control of the House. That unusually small number of competitive districts means that the Democrats have fewer opportunities to achieve the net gain of seven seats they need to wrest control.
Beyond that, the Democrats have failed so far to realize their hopes of galvanizing voters nationally with domestic issues like the sluggish economy, Social Security or corporate corruption, perhaps because of the dominance of news about Iraq.
The Democrats' distress over that issue burst into the open on Wednesday when the Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle, rebuked President Bush, demanding an apology for a remark that Democrats complained had impugned their commitment to the nation's security.
While members of each party were admonishing the other to keep partisan politics out of discussions about a possible war, Iraq is emerging in polls as a critical issue. Although they are working carefully not to be seen as exploiting it, Republican leaders hope that President Bush's rising approval ratings will provide the coattails for their candidates that most recent presidents have lacked.
The campaign is by no means over. Enough seats are still in play so that the Democrats could recapture the speaker's chair they lost in 1994 for the first time in 40 years — and the sluggish economy looms over most of them.
Still, the Democrats would have to win two-thirds to three-fourths of those competitive seats to take control, a task compared to "filling an inside straight" by Charles Cook, editor of the influential, nonpartisan Cook Political Report. He recalled that the Democrats did just that in the Senate races in 2000, capturing almost all the closest races.
Another Washington analyst, Stuart Rothenberg, said, "If the election were held today, I think the Republicans would probably pick up a few seats." Only once since 1934 has a president's party gained House seats in a midterm election. The Democrats did in 1998.
This year's narrowed field emphasizes the importance of every race, and there are some districts where incumbents seem to have no better than an even chance of holding onto their seats. One is Minnesota's Second District, where Representative Bill Luther, a Democrat, is struggling to retain his seat against John Kline, a Republican whose campaign has brought President Bush and his father in to raise money. Another is Maryland's Eighth District, where the Republican incumbent, Constance A. Morella, faces State Senator Chris Van Hollen.
Almost all the campaign advertisements from both parties focus on domestic issues, ones that pollsters think will emphasize differences between candidates in particular districts.. As Representative Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, observed: "There is no one overriding issue. There is a matrix of issues."
So the focus is district by district. Republicans say that Mr. Luther is the most vulnerable Democrat not facing another incumbent. He and Mr. Kline are running against each other for the third straight election, and they greeted hundreds of voters last weekend in New Prague, a swing voter town settled by Czechs in the late 1800's (but pronounced `Praig") that was celebrating its — annual Dozinky (harvest) parade.
Mr. Luther beat Mr. Kline by 5,440 votes two years ago, but judicial redistricting has put him into a district slightly more Republican. President Bush carried the old district with 48 percent of the vote, as Mr. Luther won with 50 percent. The new district voted 51 percent for Mr. Bush.
Just as Republicans held onto the House two years ago with a firewall that enabled them to stem their net losses by winning some Democratic seats, they count on similar victories this fall to hold the House and perhaps increase their current 13-seat majority. (There are 223 Republicans, 209 Democrats, one independent who votes with Democrats, and two vacancies.)
So if imperiled Republicans like Mrs. Morella or Representatives Jim Leach of Iowa and Anne M. Northup of Kentucky lose, Republicans expect to compensate by defeating Democrats like Mr. Luther, Earl Pomeroy in North Dakota and Chet Edwards in Texas, while taking seats vacated by veteran Democrats in Indiana and Maine.
Mr. Davis, whose national Republican committee plans to spend $80 million helping candidates, argues that issues like Iraq, homeland security and defense spending are drowning out any Democratic efforts to make the economy or Social Security an effective issue and "give them a wind at their backs."
Consequently, he said, "If we break even in the tossups, we gain seats."
Representative Nita M. Lowey of New York, his Democratic counterpart, disagrees. "We're feeling very, very strong," she said, planning to spend $35 million. She said that Democrats could hold their own on issues like Iraq and still stress domestic issues.
"Candidates can walk and chew gum at the same time," Ms. Lowey said. "I don't know any campaign that isn't being fought over Social Security privatization, the failed economy, prescription drugs."
Those are certainly the issues Democrats are trying to stress, but they have not gained much traction so far in Minnesota' Second District. Mr. Kline said in an interview that he thought his 25-year career in the Marines might help him this time because of the Iraq situation. But his opposition to abortion may come to hurt him in a district that is still mostly the Twin Cities suburbs.
At the harvest parade in New Prague — part of the 60 percent of the district where neither candidate has run before — their messages were not political, just introductory: "Hi, Congressman Bill Luther, hope you've heard the name" or "Hello, I'm John Kline, running for Congress, I'd like to shake your hand."
There are certainly other races where issues are more in play. In Northern Maine, Michael Michaud, the Democrat, and Kevin Raye, the Republican, are both emphasizing the feeble local economy. In West Virginia, Democrats are blasting Representative Shelley Moore Capito over the idea of investing Social Security taxes in private accounts. In Indiana, Republicans accuse Jill Long Thompson of being a big spender when she served in the House in the 1990's.
But if race after race seems to depend on local circumstances and personalities, the single strand tying them together is the issue of control of the House.
Former President George H. W. Bush said at a Kline fund-raiser last Thursday that control of the House may depend on Minnesota, and it was very important to his son that Republicans hold on. He raised more than $100,000 at an event closed to the news media on White House orders. The current President Bush has helped, too, raising $100,000 on July 11 in Minneapolis.
In Maryland, Mr. Van Hollen makes party control central to his run against Mrs. Morella, an eight-term incumbent. After narrowly winning a hard-fought primary over Mark K. Shriver, Mr. Van Hollen urges suburban Washington voters not to be misled by her personal stands but to remember: "The first vote cast by Connie Morella is for the Tom DeLay Republican leadership. And it is a leadership which is working hand in hand with Ashcroft and the Bush administration to take this country in a direction which I think is very out of step with the direction the people of this community would like to see us go."
The Maryland and Minnesota contests have other similarities. Both incumbents have much more money in the bank than their rivals, and both have districts tilted against them by redistricting.
Mrs. Morella, who won in 2000 with 52 percent in a district where Al Gore got 60 percent, was a clear target of Maryland's Democrats, who made her district more unfriendly by adding black voters.
But the combative, 71-year-old Mrs. Morella takes the new boundaries as an energizing affront. She told a kickoff rally in Rockville that the big turnout meant: "We are sending the appropriate message to Chris Van Hollen and his powerful cronies in Annapolis who decided they were going to redistrict and gerrymander this district so that Morella would quit. Well, I'm not a quitter."
She portrays Mr. Van Hollen, a 43-year-old state legislator effective on issues ranging from the environment to gun control, as a future lackey of the House Democratic leadership, while she bucks her own party. "I have no fear about walking an independent path," she said.
Though both Mr. Luther and Mrs. Morella are vulnerable, it is always dangerous to underestimate incumbents. Mrs. Morella has been a Democratic target for years. Mr. Luther has been in Republican sights repeatedly — after he was one of only four Democrats to win a Republican seat against the tide of 1994.
At the parade in New Prague, people seemed to be taking stickers from each candidate in about equal numbers. Carrie Stevens said she was for Mr. Luther, explaining "They gave us more stickers." But she looked about 12.
If lil' tommy and dickie's behavior is any indication they are in a heap of trouble.
Whatta Clymer...MUD
One has to understand media-ese. When Democrats are going down in defeat, Democrats "Face a Challenging race." When Republicans are going down in defeat thy "Face Massive Rejection at the polls."
When democrats are going to win, they are appear to be areceiving overwhelming support at the polls. When Republcians are going to win they hold a slight edge at the polls.
Those who go to sleep with itchy clymers -- wake up with stinky fingers.
Outside of the biased pages of the Times, both Cook (who is an honest Republican) and Rothenberg (who is an honest Democrat) have agreed that only 20 House seats are now in play. Clymer says it is twice that number, but note he doesn't say how he defines that. Cook and Rothenberg are both precise on that point. If the race is not "within a predicted margin of 5%" it is not in play.
If Cook and Rothenberg are correct and there are only 20 seats in play, the Democrats would have to take 70% of those to take back the House by a scant margin of one seat. No one, even Adam Clymer, believes that can happen. So, Clymer has to lie by omission, and leave out a critical fact, to cling to the possibility that the Democrats will take the House.
espite the fact that this is published by the (bow and scrape) New York Times, this is a sloppy article. And I think it is deliberately sloppy, rather than accidentally so.
I stand by my prediction, repeatedly put in writing, that the Republicans will hold the House and gain 5-7 seats. Foran article containing many more facts than Adam Clymer could dare include, hit the first link below, and be sure to look at the corrected, one-page graph.
Congressman Billybob
Click for "Til Death Do Us Part."
Poor Stu. LOL.
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