Democrat Chances in 2006

It wasn't supposed to be this way. When the 2006 Congressional race began in earnest this January, Democrats were riding high. Karl Rove, architect of Republican victories in 2000, 2002, and 2004 was facing an indictment; Tom DeLay was facing internal trouble in his bid to stay Majority leader of the House; the Duke Cunningham story had just broke, leaving Republicans even further embattled on ethics issues; President Bush's poll numbers were preparing to take a sharp dive. If you talked to a Democrat in the early months of this year, the optimism was near boundless; the party would take back the House, get close in the Senate, and be poised to take over the White House in 2008.

Ummm...hold on. Over the past few weeks the conventional wisdom that the environment was ripe for huge Democratic gains has been falling by the wayside. Yes, Tom DeLay is gone, but he slipped away quietly, and replacement John Boehner has been scandal free since taking over. The President's poll numbers, while still horrifyingly low, are beginning to rebound. Democratic attempts to paint Republicans as the party of corruption suffered a severe setback with news of Congressman William Jefferson's alleged shenanigans, and that gift just keeps on giving. Last week, Brian Bilbray succesfully held on to the Cunningham's southern California House seat, stunning Democrats and making Republicans giddy. And now, today, Karl Rove found out that he will not be indicted in the Valerie Plame mess.

What's going on here, exactly?

Well, to begin with, notice that of the things listed above that have gone right for Republicans, the Dems could exert real control on only one of them (the California special election). And therein lies a tremendous amount of the problem. The Democrats were relying on the Republicans and the political climate to win the 2006 election for them. A combination of Republican's putting their house (pun intended) in order, bad luck, and foolhearty planning has left the Democrats at the mercy of the very forces they were counting on.

Elections are a dynamic, drawn-out process. Things change, sometimes drastically. It is far, far smarter to do what you can to control the news, rather than sitting back and waiting for the other side to self-destruct. The Democrats are beginning to learn that lesson now. Or at least, they should be. While Nancy Pelosi has appeared to catch on, she is facing obstruction from Rahm Emmanuel and Chuck Schumer, the heads of the DCCC and DSCC, respectively, who both are continuing to push for Democrats to emphasize Republican corruption rather than Democratic plans and ideas.

Sadly for the Dems, I think the Schumer/Emmanuel wing is going to win this fight. By the time they switch gears, it will be much to late. The result will be a difficult to stomach (for Democrats, anyway) moral defeat in the 2006 elections. They may gain a few seats in the House, but I don't think they'll win the number necessary to take over the body and make Nancy Pelosi the first female Speaker. They will be lucky to hold on where they're at in the Senate. And perhaps worst, they will fail to gain any traction for the 2008 election.

This is reversible. If Democrats wise up and start to put together a legitimate platform, begin to generate some legitimate ideas, they can take advantage of a political climate that still favors them. But time is rapidly running out for that approach to work.