The Note: Organize, Organize, Organize . . .

— -- WASHINGTON, Nov. 2

The Thursday before the Tuesday of Election Day is when honest campaign pollsters who have decent relationships with their candidate clients begin to warn them that things are looking tough.

These discussions often are held in conjunction with decisions about closing advertising and other voter communication messages. In most of these instances, the question on the table is how negative on the opposition (and on which topics) the campaign should be in the final days in order to pull out a win.

The Senate battlefield is in some flux today.

Democrats are still counting on beating incumbents in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and (to some extent) Rhode Island.

The big battlegrounds remain Missouri, Tennessee, and Virginia. Both parties claim to be leading in Tennessee and Virginia, and everyone agrees that Missouri is non-proverbially too close to call.

The flux comes from Montana (where Bob Novak, George Bush, and Dick Cheney perceive Republican incumbent Burns as narrowing the race), and Arizona, where Democrats are hoping a national wave might allow them to beat incumbent Kyl with a last-minute infusion of dough.

In the House, both sides have some good news. For Republicans, a handful of their embattled incumbents have climbed from too-far-down-to-win to back-in-contention, including some with biggish names (by House standards). For the Democrats, the playing field continues to expand in both Blue and Red areas, and is now above fifty and maybe above sixty.

More important analytically is the extraordinary number of seats where both parties agree the races are within the margin of error -- a phenomenal thirty or more. That is far more than anyone thought likely just a few months ago, and, obviously, not good news for the majority party, since all but three or four of those seats are Republican-held.

If you are a Rovian Optimist, you would count as few as six GOP seats lost for sure. If you were a Rahmian Cautionist, you would put the number at around twelve. A more objective look gets you closer to the second number but with a fairly small plus-or-minus.

Either way, it would be pretty amazing if more than half of the close races went to the party whose congressional wing, president, ethics, SecDef, and war all get very low marks from voters. And, make no mistake, the President's party is playing a lot of defense, including a POTUS stop in Nebraska this weekend, to save the seat in the third district, about which the DCCC helpfully points out:

— In 1992, Bill Clinton came in third place in the congressional district (achieving only 23% of the vote).
— In 1996, Clinton increased his standing but still lost the district to Bob Dole 59% to 29%.
— President George W. Bush received 71% then 75% in the district.
— Republicans have held this seat for 48 years.

Armed with these facts and others, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and First Lady Laura Bush are all out in force on the campaign trail today.

At 1:20 pm ET in Billings, MT, President Bush attends a Montana Victory 2006 rally to help boost embattled Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) in his tough reelection fight against Democrat Jon Tester.

President Bush then travels to a Nevada Victory 2006 rally in Elko, NV at 4:40 pm ET. Elko is home to the battle for Nevada's second congressional district, a seat being vacated by Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-NV) who is running for governor in the Silver State. The President then flies to Springfield, MO where he will remain overnight in advance of some campaigning for Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO) tomorrow.

Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to attend the Idaho Victory Rally in Hayden, ID at 8:30 pm ET.

First Lady Laura Bush keeps up her rapid campaign season pace. Mrs. Bush delivers remarks at a Michigan Victory 2006 event at in Battle Creek, MI at 10:55 am ET. Then she speaks at an Illinois Victory 2006 rally at 12:10 pm ET in Schaumberg, IL. She continues to Waterloo, IA to address the crowd at an Iowa Victory 2006 rally at 3:40 pm ET. Mrs. Bush's final stop of the day is at a California Victory 2006 event in Rocklin, CA at 9:15 pm ET.

Sen. John Kerry has no public schedule at this writing, giving him plenty of time to read the Boston Globe's extensive coverage of his life.

Sen. Chuck Schumer holds a pen and pad briefing at the DSCC in Washington, DC at 1:45 pm ET to discuss what he believes is the expanding Senate battleground. You can likely expect some talk about Democratic polling showing Jim Pederson with a slim lead over Jon Kyl in a poll of early voters. Roughly 30 percent of the Arizona electorate has already voted. If Democrats win this seat, it would likely be net gain number seven, rather than replacing one of the others on which they are counting.

Former President Bill Clinton is making a well-timed stop in Arizona today where he rallies with Democratic senatorial candidate Jim Pederson in Tempe, AZ at 5:30 pm ET and Tucson, AZ at 8:30 pm ET.

Sen. George Allen (R-VA) attends an "Issues, Ideas, Records" event at the Wyndham Hotel in Roanoke, VA at 10:30 am ET then heads to a closed press meet and greet at the Phillip Morris Manufacturing Center in Richmond at 3:00 pm ET. Immediately following the meet and greet, Mr. Allen holds a media availability at 3:30 pm ET.

Senatorial candidate Jim Webb (D-VA) hosts a reception at 6:00 pm ET in Arlington, VA with Michael J. Fox and Gen. Wes Clark. Earlier in the day, Michael J. Fox holds a campaign event with Rep. Ben Cardin (D-MD) at 2:30 pm ET in Chevy Chase, MD.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) campaigns with Jim Webb at the Virginia Union University in Richmond, VA at 12:30 pm ET. Sen. Obama also attends an event for Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) in Hoboken, NJ at 5:15 pm ET.

Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Jack Reed (D-RI) hold a press conference call at noon ET to discuss military and security issues in Iraq.

NEW YORK TIMES/CBS NEWS:
Adam Nagourney and Megan Thee of the New York Times write up the latest NYT/CBS poll that shows Americans seem to believe a Democratic controlled Congress will cause the troops to come home more quickly from Iraq than if the Republicans maintained the majority. LINK

"Nearly 75 percent of respondents, including 67 percent of Republicans and 92 percent of Democrats, said they expected that Americans troops would be taken out of Iraq more swiftly under a Democratic-led Congress."

Nagourney and Thee boil the election down to one dominant issue: Iraq.

President Bush's wire interviews:
"With less than a week before the election, President Bush sought to rally Republican voters on Wednesday with a vigorous defense of the war in Iraq and a vow to keep Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in office until the end of Mr. Bush's term," writes John Broder of the New York Times. LINK

Was the POTUS statement a gaffe? A pitch to the base? A pitch to the center that likes Texas say-what-I-mean-and-mean-what-I-say straight talk? Or simply the truth, without regard to politics?

We will likely read the answer in Dan Bartlett's memoirs.

Steve Holland reports for Reuters that in an interview with wire service reporters, President Bush said that he expected Donald Rumsfeld to continue on as defense secretary after the mid-terms, despite (mostly Democratic) demands that he step down. Bush said of Rumsfeld, "He's handled all three at the same time (Afghanistan, Iraq, and the military at home). And I'm pleased with the progress we're making." LINK

The AP's Terrence Hunt reports that, in that same Wednesday interview, Bush continued to display confidence that Republicans will retain control of the House saying, "I don't believe it's over until everybody votes. . . And I believe that people are concerned about the amount of taxes they pay, and I know many people are concerned about whether or not this country is secure against attack." In the interview, Bush also said that he had not received any more troop requests and that generals in Iraq are ok with the 144,000 troops deployed in Iraq. LINK

GOP agenda:
House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) tried to buck up his members yesterday reminding them of the good ole' days of 1994 and why he believes the GOP majority in the House is not in jeopardy on Tuesday.

"The American people put us in the majority in 1994 partly because they were tired of business as usual in Washington, and they wanted change. But they also saw that we stood for something. . . something they agreed with. In my mind, that's the key difference between the Republicans of 1994 and the Democrats of 2006: the Republicans of 1994 stood for something beyond simply change. The Democrats of 2006 don't," wrote Boehner.

Boehner goes on to list the GOP accomplishments since then. His second bullet point? "A balanced federal budget that led to the first budget surplus in a generation."

Howard Fineman of Newsweek looks for the positive in the White House and GOP strategy, "It's as if they don't think it's worth trying to make their case," writes Fineman. He also cites Bush and Rove's "Halloween strategy: scare the hell out of the GOP base to get them to the polls to forestall the Apocalypse." However, the strategy doesn't have as good a chance to work when "you own negatives are sky high." LINK

Democratic agenda:
Josh Gerstein of the New York Sun reports on President Clinton's outlook on the midterms, "For so long their strategy of turning us from three-dimensional human beings into two-dimensional cartoons worked for them, that they ran that old dog out of the chute one time too many." The analogy continued as he "could just see the Republicans licking their chops when Nancy got to be our leader. They love to make all those speeches about San Francisco Democrats. It's part of the shtick you know. It's part of their 'be very afraid' shtick." LINK