Both Parties Looking for Hope

Nov. 5, 2006 — -- The last weekend of almost any national campaign presents a complicated task for those trying to anticipate (read: "predict") the outcome. There are always enough public and private polls for both sides to seize on, in individual races and nationally, to suggest they will win on Election Day.

Republicans this weekend, as they have all year, acknowledge that they have the wind in their face heading into the midterms, with George W. Bush in his sixth year in office (almost always a bad election for the president's party) and the perceived lack of progress in the Iraq souring many Americans on unified Republican leadership.

Even as some Republican strategists have grown gloomy in the last few weeks, President Bush and his chief political strategist, Karl Rove, have projected consistent optimism that their party will find a way to keep majority control of Congress, even as they lose some of the 15 seats Democrats need to take the House and the six required to switch the Senate.

With the polls set to open early Tuesday morning, several Republican strategists have begun to express more optimism this weekend, echoing the long-standing White House argument that a combination of incumbency, a strong closing message on terrorism and taxes, and the party's superior mechanical get-out-the-vote effort would save significantly more GOP seats than most pundits are predicting.

Two new national polls released Sunday -- one from ABC News (LINK) and one by Pew Research Center for the People and the Press -- showed Democrats' lead nationally on voter preference in the congressional races to have shrunk to single digits.

In addition, Republicans were heartened by some state polls showing their candidates hanging in there to be competitive on Election Day, and by what they said were the indications that their vaunted "72-hour program" for turning out voters with a steady series of contacts, with supporters in person and via different technological means, was kicking into gear. That operation was crucial to surprising Republican victories in 2002 and in Bush's own re-election in 2004. And in many targeted races this year, Democrats might not be able to match it.

At the same time, Democrats were taking solace from another group of polls in key House and Senate races showing their candidates in the lead, in some cases by wide margins.

Even most Republican strategists concede that that there are at least 12 House seats they are almost certain to lose, giving Democrats a lot options to pick up the last three seats they would need for the majority among the 25-or-so additional House races that both sides agree are too close to call. And the Iraq war remains unpopular and the dominant issue of the campaign.

Taking the Senate has always been a long shot for the Democrats, but they remain in a better position to take control of that chamber than they have at any other time in 2006. And just taking control of the House would give Democrats significantly more political influence in Washington than they have had for the last six years.

In almost any decently run, competitive campaign, energy and excitement builds at the end. The crowds get bigger, the events more elaborate, the visiting dignitaries more prominent. To a person, political operatives from both parties call in (or e-mail from) the road, expressing optimism that the tide is turning their way and momentum is on their side.

Of course, there could well be a mixed verdict after Tuesday's elections, with the House going to the Democrats and the Republicans keeping control of the Senate. But chances are, only one party will be exhibiting energy and excitement after the results are in. And it will be up to the other party to figure out why their side lost, and what they can do about it in the last two years of the George W. Bush era.

And four of the people who will have the most to say about that debate will be Bush himself, the Democrats' prospective House Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Sen. Hillary Clinton, R-N.Y., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the latter two their parties' presidential frontrunners. All four of them will have their short-term fate determined after Tuesday, and all four will play a key role in determining the fate of their parties and the nation.