FINGERS CROSSED, BUT EYES OPEN :

No Democratic tide (Michael Barone, August 13, 2002, Jewish World Review)

In a column in the July 18, 1994, issue of U.S. News, I wrote that there was a serious possibility that Republicans would capture control of the House in November. It was, so far as I know, the first article in the national press that foresaw that year's Republican victory. The article cited five non-scandal-plagued Democratic incumbents who trailed Republican challengers in media or partisan polls. It's unusual for incumbents to trail in polls and a sign that a party is in trouble when competent incumbents are behind.

Today, amid much talk-cheerful talk by Democrats, pessimistic talk by Republicans-that issues of corporate wrongdoing are going to help the Democrats, there is no evidence, at least yet, of any such tide. Except for districts where incumbents have been forced to run against each other by redistricting, the number of House incumbents trailing challengers in publicly announced polls is zero. The closest thing is a Republican poll showing Minnesota's Democratic Rep. Bill Luther ahead 35 to 34. But Luther underperformed in 1998 and 2000, and is running in a mostly new district.

Five senators have trailed in publicly announced polls, but there is no partisan trend; they include Democrats Tim Johnson (S.D.) , Paul Wellstone (Minn.), Jean Carnahan (Mo.), and Republicans Tim Hutchinson (Ark.) and Bob Smith (N.H.) . (Smith's primary opponent, Rep. John Sununu, runs better.) In other Senate races, no recent polls show significant changes.

All this is not to say that there won't be a Democratic trend by November. It does say that one hasn't appeared yet.

Mr. Barone is one of the best political reporters in the country and is particularly adept at reading polls and following local races across the entire country, so this is somewhat comforting. But Republicans have to face the reality that with an electorate that's still fairly evenly divided between the two parties, the miserable historic record of mid-term elections for the party in the presidency, a nation that's at war after an unanticipated attack, and an economy that's badly underperforming expectations, they are likely to lose the House and lose a few seats in the Senate. Mr. Barone's numbers suggest that the losses can be contained, but if the GOP should somehow manage to stand its ground it would be extraordinary, would possibly even signal the beginning of a realignment back to the kind of dominance by conservatism that was the pre-Depression norm in America and there's very little indication that such a thing is happening in the country at large. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 13, 2002 9:47 AM