Kennedy and Steele are good recruitments. But, they have lost key recruits in "red states" where we'd think they'd be strongest. West Virginia the most noticeable.
Senator Dole has not been doing a good job overall, and it looks at this point enthusiasm by the base better be high to compensate for second tier candidates in conservative leaning states.
Otherwise the risk exists that a "Salazar" narrowly wins by a misleading conservative campaign.
Not to mention Nebraska, North Dakota and especially Florida (among others).
Basically, I think the only Republican shot is in Minnesota.
I might add New Jersey as slight possibility with Kean (certainly better than Steele), if Corzine does something cronyistic like appointing Menendez to the Senate seat.
Otherwise, the Republican recruitment efforts have been pretty awful.
Democrats have done excellent recruiting in Missouri, Pennsylvania (obviously).
They have been so-so in Rhode Island (Langevin and Kennedy would have been top-tier), Montana (Tester and Morrison are good, but I don't think it's as close as 2000), and Ohio (Ryan was easily top-tier, Brown is too liberal and Hackett I don't believe can do well in a full campaign).
Suffice it to say, I think the Democrats could win 3-4 seats under the best of circumstances, but if their recruiting had been better, they could win 3-4 seats even without the best of circumstances and take back the Senate in the best of circumstances.
It's even worse than that, because Kennedy basically recruited himself. He's been aiming for the Senate since before Liddy Dole took up the NRSC.