Prepare Yourself for the Sixth-Year Itch

---

---

When I was growing up, political observers spoke of Election Day as if an invisible army of voters marched to the polls on that one day. It was often referred to, informally, as Decision Day.

But since the advent of early voting, Election Day really is more of a deadline, a finish line if you will. Election Day in the United States is on November 4 this year. In most states, voters have been trickling in for weeks. For the most part, I guess the only ones left who haven't voted really are undecided — or they have been prevented from voting early for any of a number of reasons, like work or illness or family obligations.

In short, the decisions have probably already been made in many places. We just won't know the outcomes until sometime Tuesday night when the official counts are known.

And so the suspense, such as it is, continues.

There is no suspense in the House. Republicans are all but sure to retain the majority, perhaps even add to it. Conventional wisdom holds, though, that Republicans probably already control nearly all of the districts in which (officially or unofficially) Republicans outnumber Democrats. After the 2010 midterms, Republicans held 242 House seats, their highest number since the first Truman midterm in 1946, when the GOP held 246 seats.

Two years ago, the Republicans lost eight seats in the House so their total now is 234, which is still greater than the number of seats Republicans held after the 1994 midterms. They would need a net gain of 12 seats to match their postwar high.

I don't really pay much attention to House races besides the one in my own district. They aren't very good barometers of national trends or moods. They're primarily local races, especially in the big cities where they may cover only a few square miles — as opposed to the mostly rural Arkansas district in which I grew up, which encompassed (and still does) several counties. However large or small they may be geographically, a district's issues tend to be local in nature. What matters to voters here in Dallas County, Texas, probably will not matter at all to folks in King County, Washington, or Franklin County, Missouri.

So I don't spend much time on House races — unless there is clearly an illogical imbalance that seems likely to be reversed. There was a time, earlier in this election cycle, when the popular mindset among Democrats was that they would hold the Senate and perhaps seize a majority in the House. Those hopes took a pounding when Republicans won a special election to fill a House vacancy left by the death of the Republican incumbent, who had won more than 20 consecutive elections. Democrats believed they had a good chance to win the seat because the district voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 — and the idea of making that seat flip fueled hopes of an unlikely midterm shift in the direction of the president's party.

No one spoke of that after the special election. Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, which is almost always accurate in its predictions, says the GOP is on course to gain nine seats, which would create the Republicans' second–highest total since World War II, eclipsing the number of seats the Republican held after the 2010 midterms.

There is no real suspense in this year's House races, except for a handful of districts, many of which are open seats.

There is, however, a lot of suspense surrounding Senate races. The Republicans need to win six seats to seize control of the chamber. Five would produce a 50–50 split, and, since vice presidents vote in case of a tie, a vote that goes straight down party lines would end up voting the way Democrats want because Joe Biden would break the tie.

The only way Republicans can avoid that is to win an outright majority. That seemed much more problematic for them a year or so ago, but today Sabato says Republicans are likely to win between five and eight Senate seats. He says it is all but certain Republicans will win open seats in Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia, which have been generally conceded to Republicans for months now, as well as the seat in Arkansas.

Sabato also thinks Republicans are in a position to win Democrat–held seats in Alaska, Colorado and Iowa, but polls have been showing those races as neck and neck.

And, to further complicate matters, there are those races in Louisiana, Georgia and Kansas. Louisiana and Georgia could go to overtime, so to speak, if no one wins 50% of the vote on Tuesday. In Kansas, the incumbent Republican is facing a serious challenge from an independent who has been coy about which party with whom he would caucus if elected.

Republicans insist that North Carolina Democrat Kay Hagan is in trouble — indeed, recent polls show her lead within the margin of error. Heading into the final weekend of the campaign, the North Carolina race is regarded as too close to call.

As I have been saying all along, a president's approval rating is always a factor in any midterm election — but especially when it is a president's second midterm election. I'm sure everyone remembers the 2010 midterm election, when Republicans took more than 50 seats from the Democrats. Barack Obama's approval rating was in the mid–40s just before that election. It's two or three points lower than that now.

OK, let's look at the approval ratings for presidents who were midway through their second terms. That doesn't apply to everyone, of course — only those presidents who were in office for two midterm elections. One–term presidents like Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush are excluded.

In 2006, George W. Bush's approval rating was mostly in the upper 30s when voters went to the polls. Democrats gained a net of six Senate seats and 30 House seats in that election.

In 1998, Bill Clinton's approval rating was in the 60s just before the election. He managed to buck the trend of the so–called six–year itch, in large part because of the public's perception of congressional Republicans having overreached in their attempt to impeach Clinton. The numbers in the Senate were unchanged as each party took three seats from the other. Democrats won a net of five seats in the House.

In 1986, Ronald Reagan's approval rating was in the 60s when the elections were held, but his party still lost eight seats in the Senate and five seats in the House.

In 1974, Gerald Ford had to preside over the midterms in the wake of Watergate and Richard Nixon's resignation. Ford's approval rating plummeted after he pardoned Nixon, but it was still in the upper 40s, even lower 50s when the elections were held. In what was likely more backlash against Nixon (as well as Ford's pardon), voters gave Democrats 49 House seats that had been held by Republicans and three Senate seats.

In 1966, Lyndon Johnson was in office for his first midterm, but it was the second of the Kennedy–Johnson years. Johnson had been elected by a landslide in 1964, but the public mood had soured in the subsequent two years, and Johnson's approval rating was in the mid–40s. Johnson's Democrats lost 47 House seats and three Senate seats.

President Eisenhower was pretty popular through most of his presidency. In 1958, his approval rating was in the low to mid–50s, but that didn't help his party in his sixth–year midterm. Republicans lost 48 House seats and 13 Senate seats.

Harry Truman wasn't elected to two terms, but, after succeeding Franklin D. Roosevelt three months into his fourth term, it was pretty close. He was president during the midterm of 1946 and again during the midterm of 1950. His approval rating in late October 1950 closely mirrors Obama's today. Democrats lost 28 House seats and five Senate seats.

That is the trend just since the end of World War II, but it has been repeated throughout American history. Prior to the end of World War II, the last two–term president whose party did not lose ground in both chambers of Congress in the sixth–year midterm was Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, who succeeded the assassinated President William McKinley in the first year of his second term. In what would have been the second midterm of McKinley's presidency (and the first of Roosevelt's), Republicans did gain ground in both the House and Senate.

All that predates approval rating polls; we do know, however, that Roosevelt's party won three Senate seats in the 1906 midterm but lost 28 House seats. And Woodrow Wilson's Democrats lost ground in both chambers in 1918. Eight years later, in the sixth–year midterm of the Harding–Coolidge administration, Republicans lost ground in both the House and Senate.

Even Franklin D. Roosevelt's Democrats lost ground in the House and Senate in the second midterm of his presidency in 1938, two years after he was re–elected by a landslide.

The odds are always against an incumbent president's party in the second midterm of his presidency. To beat the six–year itch, a president has to have phenomenal approval ratings, which Obama doesn't have, and extremely favorable domestic and foreign conditions, which he obviously doesn't have.

I'm going to predict that Republicans win the Senate seats in (1) the three states that have been conceded to them all along — Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia — plus (2) the Democrat–held Senate seats in Arkansas, Louisiana, Colorado, Georgia and Iowa. I also think they will hold on to the seats in Kansas and Georgia. The Louisiana and Georgia races might come down to a runoff, but, in the end, I think the Republicans will prevail.

I think Kay Hagan might be re–elected in North Carolina simply because she appears to have run a smarter race than most of her colleagues.

Thus, my prediction is that Republicans will gain eight Senate seats — enough to give them the majority in both chambers of Congress.

More About the Midterms

---

We're roughly 6½ months from the midterm elections.

With a split Congress, the priorities for both political parties have been predictable, haven't they? I mean, the Democrats have the Senate and would like to have the House, too. The Republicans have the House, and they would like to take over the Senate. All things being equal, either could happen — and neither could happen.

CNN's Ashley Killough reports that the political terrain is getting worse for Democrats. Killough reports that five Senate races that were previously thought to be reasonably safe for Democrats have become competitive. That is based on information from a memo from the political director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee — so take it with as many grains of salt as you wish.

Until the votes are counted in November, of course, anything (theoretically) is possible, but, as I have pointed out before, midterm elections don't usually work out too well for the president's party, especially in the second midterm of a president's tenure.

Historically speaking, therefore, since Democrats hold the White House, they are likely to experience setbacks in the midterms — unless something dramatic happens that has clear benefits for the president's party. How severe those setbacks will be is unclear.

With each passing day, the likelihood of something dramatic happening lessens.

How's it looking to observers so far?

• Over at Sabato's Crystal Ball, the emphasis lately is on the House of Representatives, which Democrats had hoped (and, presumably, still do) to flip in the fall.
  
  At one time, the Democrats with whom I spoke expressed optimism upon hearing of the retirements of Republican incumbents. Based on my highly unreliable conversations, that mood has shifted. In more recent weeks and months, the Republicans with whom I have spoken have expressed the same sense of optimism regarding the retiring Democrat incumbents.
  
  Actually, writes Geoffrey Skelley, associate editor for the Crystal Ball, "the degree of turnover in the House this cycle is not unusually high." An average of slightly more than 70 House members leaves every two years, Skelley writes, "about one–sixth of the total House membership."
  
  So far, 50 members of the House are leaving for one reason or another. Some are retiring. Others are seeking other offices. The reasons for a member's departure can be many (including losing a bid for renomination) and additional retirements may be announced, but, considering we are now better than midway through April, you have to wonder if the number of retirements will even reach the average.
  
  Currently, the Crystal Ball anticipates a gain for Republicans in the House of 5–8 seats. That is roughly what the Rothenberg Political Report projects.
  
  To people who haven't been watching elections too closely until, say, the last 10 years or so, that may seem like a low number. In the context of other recent elections, I suppose it is. In the last five election cycles, either Republicans or Democrats gained at least 21 House seats three times.
  
  But those other two elections, in which one party or the other gained fewer than 10 seats, were more typical of American legislative elections.
  
  An election in which one party or the other wins as many seats as the parties did in 2006, 2008 and 2010 is seen as a transformational year by political observers.
  
  Charlie Cook's Cook Political Report finds 17 House seats up for grabs. If all those seats were held by Republicans and Democrats carried each, it would be enough for the Democrats to seize control of the House.
  
  The problem is that only four of those seats are held by Republicans. The rest are in Democrat hands. To win the House, it looks more and more like Democrats will need something dramatic to happen.
• The latest Rothenberg Political Report finds Stuart Rothenberg obsessing over the rumor that outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius might challenge Sen. Pat Roberts in Kansas.
  
  
  
  Rothenberg wrote that his initial response to a New York Times article that reported Sebelius, a former two–term governor of Kansas, was "considering entreaties from Democrats who want her to run" was that Democrats "had to be encouraged," given the difficulty they have had in recruiting quality candidates to challenge Republican incumbents.
  
  "After that," wrote Rothenberg, "I quickly came to my senses." He pointed out the things that occurred to me immediately upon hearing that Sebelius was considering making a run — things that should have given her pause if she really was thinking about it. Maybe they did.
  
  It is true that, at one time, Sebelius was a popular figure in Kansas. She was elected governor in 2002 with more than 53% of the vote, and she was re–elected in 2006 with 58% of the vote.
  
  But she was perceived as more of a centrist then.
  
  "I remember interviewing her years ago," Rothenberg writes, "when she was running for governor. She was all business. No chit–chat. Not much personal warmth at all. She was all about Kansas and managing things properly."
  
  That image has been transformed by the Obamacare experience. It is no secret that Sebelius' name is intricately tied to Obamacare, which is not popular in red–state Kansas. Her boss for the last five years, Barack Obama, got 41% of the vote in Kansas when he first sought the presidency in 2008, and that dropped to 38% of the vote when he ran for re–election in 2012.
  
  If Sebelius had run for the Senate, Obamacare would have been front and center, keeping the story in the headlines and benefiting Republicans elsewhere at a time when Democrats have been trying to change the subject to ... anything.
  
  Then there is Kansas' electoral history in Senate races. It hasn't been unusual for Democrats (even Democrat women) to be elected governor of Kansas — rare but not unusual — but Kansans haven't voted to send a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since (appropriately) the year before the premiere of "The Wizard of Oz."
  
  Rothenberg concluded that the Senate seat is safe for Roberts — and, apparently, so did Sebelius.
  
  Republicans need to win six seats to take control of the Senate. Rothenberg currently thinks a gain of 4–8 seats is probable. The Crystal Ball says Republicans appear likely to win four Senate seats with three more rated tossups. The Cook Political Report is a little more conservative right now, saying that three Democrat–held seats appear likely to flip and five more are up for grabs. But it also says two Republican–held seats are in jeopardy.
• Those observers analyze politics professionally. I only do it on an amateur level.
  
  But, at this stage of a midterm campaign, I think it is useful to compare presidential job approval ratings for presidents in their second midterm election years.
  
  About a week ago, the McClatchy/Marist poll reported that Obama's approval rating was 45%. That's better than some polls, not as good as others, but it is the most recent one of which I am aware.
  
  How does that compare to other presidents in their second midterm election years?
  
  Well, Obama's immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, had an approval rating of 39% in a Los Angeles Times poll conducted in April 2006. Bush seldom enjoyed approval ratings of 40% or higher in 2006. His Republicans suffered, losing six Senate seats and 32 House seats.
  
  In April 1998, Bill Clinton had just survived an attempt to impeach him, and he was enjoying consistent approval ratings in the 60s. Thanks to the backlash against the impeachment attempt, the party division in the Senate was unchanged, and Clinton's Democrats actually gained four seats in the House.
  
  Ronald Reagan was facing his second midterm election in 1986. In mid–April of that year, Gallup reported that his approval rating was 63%. Reagan's Republicans lost eight Senate seats and five House seats.
  
  The circumstances of the midterm election of 1974 were unique in American history. Richard Nixon had been re–elected in 1972, but he resigned about three months before the midterm election of 1974. His successor, Gerald Ford, had to face the wrath of the voters in the grip of Watergate backlash.
  
  Nixon was still president in April 1973, and Gallup reported his approval rating at 26%. Republicans lost five Senate seats and 49 House seats.
  
  Dwight Eisenhower faced his second midterm election in 1958. In April 1958, Gallup reported his approval rating at 55%. 1958 was a tough year for Ike. His approval dipped below 50% in late March for the first time in his presidency. In November, Eisenhower's Republicans lost 13 Senate seats and 48 House seats.
  
  Harry Truman wasn't elected president, but he wound up serving most of Franklin D. Roosevelt's fourth term, and he presided over the midterm elections of 1946. The midterms of 1950 were the second midterms of his presidency, and, in the spring of 1950, his stunning victory in the 1948 presidential election was a distant memory, and he was fluctuating from the 30s to the 40s in his Gallup job approval ratings. Democrats lost six Senate seats and 29 House seats.
  
  Roosevelt had his own troubles. In the spring of 1938, with the second midterm of his presidency approaching, FDR's approval rating was 54% less than two years after he was re–elected in a landslide. In November, Roosevelt's Democrats lost six Senate seats and 71 House seats.

JFK Assassination: Still No Answers

---

---

Today is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I honestly cannot recall any anniversary being as anticipated as this one.

Well, perhaps with the exception of the American bicentennial in 1976 (for consistency's sake, perhaps this should be called the JFK semi–centennial). And maybe it only seems that way to me because I live in Dallas, and the city has been preparing for this anniversary all year (the behind–the–scenes preparations have been going on longer, I'm sure).

I suppose part of the reason it was so anticipated is the sense that, even after 50 years, the Kennedy assassination is an unsolved mystery, a cold case. The Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald alone shot the president, but there were enough loose ends that conspiracy theories flourished, especially after the American public got to see the Zapruder film for the first time.

Doubts persist. A recent Gallup poll shows that more than three–fifths of respondents do not believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Gallup acknowledged that the number is the lowest in nearly 50 years. What Gallup did not point out is that a majority of Americans accepted the Warren Commission's findings until the Zapruder film became public.

Since then, a solid majority of Americans has believed that Oswald did not act alone — if he acted at all.

By modern standards, I suppose the Zapruder film is almost primitive in its quality. But it is the most detailed visual record of a presidential assassination that we have — and, after they saw it, most people had to conclude that the Warren Commission's findings were not supported by the photographic evidence. By the time the Zapruder film was released (more than three years after it was made), the Kennedy assassination was already regarded as the most photographed assassination ever.

(LIFE.com focuses on a different image, one that sums up the global reaction to what happened here 50 years ago today.)

I hope we never have another attempt on a president's life, but if we do, I have to think that will become the most photographed assassination ever, given the number of cell/camera phones that are sure to be in use.

Today in Dealey Plaza — where the shooting took place — there will be a crowd of people holding tickets for a special program planned to commemorate the exact moment on this day in 1963 when the first shot was fired. As it did on that day in 1963, the day has dawned with rain — but it is considerably colder here today than it was then, and the rain doesn't seem likely to clear by midday.

Regardless of how cold it is, these tickets have been as hot as Willy Wonka's golden tickets, and I'm sure there will be few if any no–shows. A monument commemorating the assassination will be unveiled at that time (an "X" already marks the spot in the street where Kennedy suffered the fatal head wound). My understanding is that the program will be televised locally. Portions of it will almost certainly be shown on the national newscasts tonight.

It seems that so much has been said and written about the Kennedy assassination that almost nothing more could possibly be said, but the 50th anniversary is an invitation for all kinds of things — even if they aren't entirely relevant, such as Professor Nicholas Burns' piece in the Boston Globe on the three lessons of the Kennedy presidency (which is a separate topic from his death — as it is and should be for all presidents — and would be a dandy topic on the 100th anniversary of Kennedy's birth, which will be in less than four years but isn't necessarily appropriate on this occasion).

Relevance (or lack thereof) hasn't kept publications like the Los Angeles Times and others from running eyewitness accounts that are interesting but really add nothing to public knowledge of what happened.

For that matter, we know what happened. We continue to obsess over the who (which is also irrelevant). We're still asking the same questions. United Press International, for example, ran a piece a few days ago wondering who was responsible for the assassination.

Such things are to be expected, I suppose, but it has always struck me as inexcusable that so much time and energy should be wasted on speculating about who was responsible without determining why Kennedy was killed. I am certainly not a criminal investigator, but it seems to me that, if you answer the why, the rest should fall into place.

Larry Sabato, of whom I have written here before, wrote last week about five persistent myths about Kennedy. Most, like his points that the 1960 Nixon–Kennedy debates did not propel Kennedy to victory in the election that year or that JFK was not the liberal he is perceived to have been, come as no surprise to anyone with an interest in history.

Likewise, Tricia Escobedo's piece for CNN.com purports to tell readers five things they don't know about the assassination.

But I've been studying the assassination for a long time, and I knew that Oswald wasn't arrested for killing Kennedy. I also knew that the TV networks suspended all other programming for four days to report exclusively on the assassination and related events. And I knew that Judge Sarah Hughes, who swore in Lyndon Johnson on board Air Force One that afternoon, was the first woman to swear in a president.

I also knew that, earlier in 1963, Oswald tried to kill General Edwin Walker, a critic of the Kennedy administration and integration, while Walker was inside his home.

I'm not sure, though, that I knew that assassinating a president was not a federal offense in 1963. Interesting to know — at least from an historian's perspective — but of no real value when trying to answer the still unanswered questions.

Fred Kaplan of Slate.com, a onetime believer in conspiracy theories, recently devoted his energies to debunking them even though he acknowledged that "[t]here's no space to launch a full rebuttal" — apparently not even in cyberspace.

---

---

For a long time, whenever the Kennedy assassination has been the topic of conversation, the focus has been on whether it was the result of a conspiracy and who really fired the fatal shot.

America should have been asking why, not who. After half a century, I think it is too late.

The Election of 1912

---

---

A century ago today, an incumbent president was rejected by the voters.

That might be a bad omen for the incumbent president whose name is on tomorrow's ballot, but, unlike the incumbent who lost on this day in 1912, at least he doesn't have to run against a former president who is running as a third–party candidate.

(If, on the other hand, Barack Obama is re–elected tomorrow, that might open the door to another possible scenario that was suggested in print by Michael Barone the day after the third and final presidential debate two weeks ago. More on that a bit later.)

Presidential elections usually have several "third–party" candidates, but, typically, only the two major parties (which have varied in the last two centuries, but, since the time of Lincoln, the dominant parties in the United States have been the Democrats and Republicans) receive enough support to make them factors.

Most of the time, third parties are, at best, distractions — and magnets for disgruntled voters who like neither of the major–party nominees. But, occasionally, the third–party candidate wins a large share of the popular vote — and a few even manage to win a state or two.

There have been several times in U.S. history when an incumbent president was defeated in a bid for another term; obviously, such elections involve both a past and future president.

But once — and only once — a three–way race involved three credible candidates who had been — or would be — president. That was the election of 1912. Those voters went to the polls a century ago today.

The incumbent president was William Howard Taft, the hand–picked successor for Theodore Roosevelt, who did not run in 1908 because he had served nearly all of William McKinley's second term plus a full one of his own and honored a pledge he had made in 1904 not to seek another one.

Taft had been Roosevelt's secretary of War, and they had been close friends, but a rift developed between them during Taft's presidency and, by 1912, Roosevelt was the acknowledged leader of the progressive wing of the Republican Party while Taft was the leader of its conservative wing, setting the stage for a battle for the party's nomination in 1912.

Even before the presidential campaign, a deep divide within the Republican Party was clear when Republicans lost 10 Senate seats and 57 House seats in the 1910 midterm elections. The 1912 campaign for the Republican nomination merely put an exclamation point on it.

---

---

1912 was the first year that Republicans held presidential primaries, and Roosevelt was, by far, the more popular candidate among the Republicans' rank and file, winning nine of 12 primaries, most by wide margins.

But three–fourths of the state delegations were chosen in state party conventions run by the party's establishment, which strongly favored the status quo, and Taft, along with Vice President James Sherman, was renominated when Republicans convened in Chicago in June.

(Sherman's nomination wasn't the slam dunk that 21st century observers might assume. He was actually the first sitting vice president to be renominated in more than 80 years.)

Roosevelt and his followers held their own convention, and Roosevelt was nominated to run as the standard bearer for the new Progressive Party. When asked by reporters about his physical condition, the 53–year–old Roosevelt responded that he felt as strong as a "bull moose."

It was kind of an odd question, I suppose. I mean, since leaving the White House, Roosevelt had been on an African safari and had suffered no ill effects on it, but he had been stricken with malaria during the Spanish–American War so the question was relevant. From that point on, the new party was known as the Bull Moose Party.

All that sounds like a huge gift for the Democratic challenger, doesn't it? Well, since the Democrat eventually won the election, I suppose it was — except the nominee was not clear when Democrats convened in Baltimore at the end of June.

In those days, a simple majority of the delegates was not sufficient to win the Democratic nomination. The support of two–thirds was required, but no one could even get a majority until the ninth ballot.

In an ironic twist, the initial frontrunner, House Speaker Champ Clark of Missouri, was hurt when the infamous Tammany Hall political machine from New York backed his candidacy. Although it boosted Clark past the 50% mark on the ninth ballot, Tammany Hall's support had the reverse effect, earning the wrath of three–time nominee William Jennings Bryan, who had been officially neutral up to that time and was still the darling of the party's liberals despite having lost all three elections.

Denouncing Clark as the Wall Street candidate (that has a familiar sound to it, doesn't it?), Bryan threw his support behind New Jersey Gov. Woodrow Wilson, a centrist, and Wilson gradually gained momentum, finally winning the support of enough delegates to claim the nomination on the 46th ballot.

Perhaps the greatest irony of that election year was the fact that Wilson, who had been finishing second to Clark in the previous ballots, was on the brink of withdrawing and releasing his delegates to vote for someone else when the schism between Bryan and Clark occurred.

If Wilson had given up a ballot or two earlier, Clark might have won the nomination — or Bryan might have boosted the candidacy of someone else.

And the course of American history would have been altered.

It was a different time, of course. There was no internet, no television, no radio to rapidly distribute images and information; news traveled long distances by telegraph. It was relatively early in the industrialization of the United States. The railroad had opened up the West, but the automobile was still new, and commercial air travel was still many years away.

Those who thrive in our instant information era would feel wholly out of place if they could be magically transported back 100 years.

It was, as I say, a different time. Titanic sank nearly seven months earlier — man flew to the moon and back half a dozen times before his technology permitted him to probe the ocean's depths and find Titanic's remains.

It was a different political time, too. It was, in the estimation of many, progressivism's plateau. A fourth candidate for the presidency, Socialist Eugene Debs, made his fourth run for the office and received 6% of the national vote — his highest share ever of the popular vote.

A labor organizer at heart, Debs had little interest in the American electoral system, and he spoke disparagingly of the so–called "Sewer Socialists" who had made political deals to win low–level elections.

The 1912 campaign would have been one for the books if only because three men who had been or would be president were on the ballot.

But there were other things about the 1912 campaign that were significant.

For one thing, Roosevelt was the target of an assassination attempt about three weeks before the voters went to the polls.

While campaigning in Milwaukee on Oct. 14, 1912, Roosevelt was shot by a former barkeeper from New York, John Schrank.

Schrank claimed to have been visited in a dream by McKinley's ghost, who had urged him to avenge his death and pointed to a picture of Roosevelt. He apparently had been stalking Roosevelt from New Orleans to Milwaukee, where he confronted and shot the former president in his chest at a hotel where Roosevelt was to deliver a speech.

Roosevelt was not killed. The bullet struck Roosevelt's steel eyeglasses case and a 50–page copy of his speech. The ex–president concluded that, because he was not coughing up blood, he was not seriously wounded, and he proceeded to deliver his speech (which took 90 minutes).

Roosevelt's diagnosis was confirmed later by doctors, who decided that it would be more dangerous to try to remove the bullet from his chest than to leave it where it was. Roosevelt carried the bullet inside his body the rest of his life.

An attempt to assassinate a presidential candidate has been rare in American politics. Only two men (Robert Kennedy and George Wallace) have been assassination targets in the last 100 years — and no major–party presidential candidate had been similarly attacked on the campaign trail before.

(Schrank was declared insane and was sent to the Central State Mental Hospital in 1914. He died there of natural causes in 1943.)

Another thing that made 1912 different was the death of Vice President Sherman.

Sherman suffered from kidney disease — in fact, he had delivered his renomination acceptance speech against his doctors' wishes — and he died at his New York home about a week before the election.

In America's history, half a dozen vice presidents had died in office before Sherman did — including Roosevelt's predecessor, Garret Hobart, in 1899 — but no incumbent vice president has died in the century that has passed since Sherman's death, not even Harry Truman's veep, Alben Barkley, who was elected when he was 70 years old.

So, by 21st–century standards, I suppose, it would have been shocking if, say, Vice President Joe Biden had dropped dead last week.

But voters in 1912 probably weren't too shocked. Vice presidents' deaths were more common than presidential deaths in the second half of the 19th century.

Sherman's death was unique, however, in that it left President Taft without a running mate a week before the election. The president of Columbia University, Nicholas M. Butler, was designated to take Sherman's place, but Sherman's name remained on the ballot.

In the long run, I guess, it didn't matter whose name was on the ballot. The Taft–Sherman ticket ran third and received the electoral votes of only Utah and Vermont. That was not attributable exclusively to Sherman's death, but it could not have helped Taft's cause to have such uncertainty about his running mate just days before the election.

Taft's loss, however, turned out to be the Supreme Court's gain, as Claude Marx observes at RealClearPolitics.com

And now, back to Mr. Barone's observation a couple of weeks ago.

In 2008, he noted, Obama "got a higher share of the popular vote than any other Democratic nominee in history except Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson."

But most political analysts, including Barone, are convinced that, if Obama is re–elected, it will be by a considerably narrower margin. Only one president in American history, Barone observed, was re–elected by a smaller margin than the one by which he was elected originally.

That would be Wilson, who was "re–elected in 1916 by 49 to 46 percent in popular votes and 277 to 254 in the Electoral College," Barone wrote.

"If California, which then had only 13 electoral votes, had not gone for Wilson by 3,773 votes," Barone continued, "the incumbent would have lost."

Barone pointed out that Obama has not been definite about his plans for a second term.

"Presidents who get re–elected," he wrote, "usually offer second–term agendas. Obama hasn't, especially on the economy. As a re–elected president, he will be as free of constraints as Wilson was."

Just one thing stands between Obama and that second term — tomorrow's election. (And, for the record, Barone doesn't believe Obama will be re–elected. But Larry Sabato does.)

The Battle for the Senate

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times.

Practically since the last vote was counted in the 2010 midterm elections, supporters of the administration have bemoaned the difficulty of accomplishing anything with this Congress. Barack Obama can't do anything with this do–nothing Congress, they say.

I find myself struggling to follow the logic.

If the administration has been unable to accomplish its objectives because the Congress — more specifically, the House because that is the chamber that is controlled by the Republicans — has been obstructing its efforts, then it seems to me there are really only two options:

1. Change the president to one who will work with the Congress or


2. Change the majority in Congress to one that will work with the president.

If the American people decide collectively that they want cooperation between the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, the former seems more likely than the latter.

I mean, for Democrats to control both chambers of Congress, they would need to reverse the outcome of the midterm House elections, and that's a very tall order.

In 2010, Republicans took 64 seats from the Democrats. It wouldn't be necessary for Democrats to win that many to reclaim control of the House — unless the objective was not merely to win control of it but to regain the margin Democrats enjoyed in Obama's first two years in office.

To seize an extremely narrow majority (but a majority nevertheless) in the House, Democrats would need to increase their total by 25 seats in November. That certainly isn't impossible. Americans have taken at least 21 House seats from one party and given them to the other in the last three elections — but two of those elections were midterm election years, not presidential election years.

Historically, such turnover in Congress typically happens in midterm elections.

The party of an incumbent president who is seeking another term usually wins a few House seats in the process, whether the president wins or not, but only one such incumbent in the last 60 years has seen his party win as many seats as Democrats need to capture the House in 2012.

And no one has been suggesting that Democrats are likely to do that.

Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball indicates that Republicans currently are likely to hold 234 seats, which is 16 more than they need to ensure a majority in 2013 and 2014. Democrats can expect to hold 186. A total of 15 seats are regarded as tossups.

The Rothenberg Political Report says only six House seats are "pure tossups" — and there are five more, although Rothenberg indicates that those seats are leaning, however slightly, to one party or the other.

Well, one thing is certainly clear. Barring the development of something totally unexpected, the numbers just don't seem to be there to flip the House back to the Democrats.

That doesn't faze some of the Democrats I know.

It's no secret that Congress isn't popular, but many Democrats appear to be gambling that, because of that unpopularity, not only will Obama be re–elected but the voters, frustrated by gridlock, will give him a Congress that will work with him.

Don't hold your breath — at least on the latter — writes Alan Abramowitz for Sabato's Crystal Ball.

"[D]espite the abysmal approval ratings that Congress has been receiving," Abramowitz writes, "2012 will not be an anti–incumbent election. That's because opinions about the performance of Congress and opinions about whether most congressional incumbents deserve to be re–elected have little or no influence on the outcomes of congressional elections."

Sweeping losses in the House in a presidential election year (in which a 25–seat turnover is possible) tend to happen when the president (or his surrogate) is in trouble with the voters — in 2008, for example, when Obama was elected after eight years of Republican rule, and in 1980, when Jimmy Carter lost in a landslide.

If a change is going to come in Congress, it seems more likely to come in the Senate, where the Democrats' once filibuster–proof majority was reduced significantly in the 2010 midterms but they still clung to a bare majority.

Only 51 members of the Senate are Democrats, and two independent members of the chamber typically vote with the Democrats, giving them 53 seats. Forty–seven members of the chamber are Republicans.

It's safe to say that — numerically, at least — the bar for success is much lower in the Senate.

If Obama is re–elected, Republicans would need to win four Senate seats to have control of both chambers. That might be easier said than done, but incumbents who win re–election have been known to lose some ground in the Senate simultaneously. Bill Clinton's Democrats lost three Senate seats when he was re–elected in 1996, and Ronald Reagan's Republicans lost a single Senate seat in 1984.

If Obama is defeated, Republicans would need to win only three seats. That would produce a 50–50 tie, but the Republicans would have effective control of the chamber because the new vice president, who would be responsible for casting any tie–breaking votes, would be a Republican.

The fortunes of the individual presidential nominees in certain states could influence the outcome of the battle for the Senate. Rothenberg observes that ticket splitting, in which someone votes for the nominee of one party at the top of the ticket but votes for nominees from the other party in races down the ballot, is "increasingly rare" in America.

Thus, the trend to straight–ticket voting should work in Obama's favor in places like Hawaii and Massachusetts. Both states have long histories of supporting Democrats for president, and both will have Senate races this year. Logically, both seats should be in Democratic hands after the votes are counted, but both are a bit shaky.

In Hawaii, Democratic incumbent Daniel Akaka is retiring, and in Massachusetts, Scott Brown is running for a full six–year term after winning last year's special election to succeed Ted Kennedy. Obama's presence on the ballot could help his party retain — or regain — those seats.

But Obama could just as easily hurt Democratic prospects in states like Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and North Dakota, Rothenberg says. Presently, Democrats hold all four seats, but two are retiring, and those seats are regarded as likely to flip to the Republicans. The incumbents are running in the other two states, and those races are regarded as tossups by both Sabato and Rothenberg.

Nebraska was already likely to elect a Republican senator before incumbent Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson opted to retire, Sabato writes, so that didn't significantly alter the terrain, and that certainly makes sense, given the state's electoral history. But Nelson's decision "makes a Republican takeover of the Senate a little more likely," Sabato observes.

The task could be made even easier in the weeks and months ahead — and Rothenberg points out that it all could come down to half a dozen states that are considered battlegrounds in the presidential race — and also happen to have Senate races on the ballot: Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Five of those seats (all but Nevada's) are currently held by Democrats, and three of those Democrats (the ones from New Mexico, Virginia and Wisconsin) are retiring.

New Mexico may be small, but it bears watching. With a reputation for being a bellwether (it's been on the winning side in 23 of the last 25 elections), it might be the most accurate political barometer on Election Night — in more ways than one.

Virginia, as I wrote last month, had been in the Republican column for more than 40 years until it voted for Obama in 2008. But his popularity has declined there, and I am sure that the state will vote Republican in November. The next question would be, will the Republican nominee's coattails help the GOP retake the seat it lost in 2006?

I don't know what to expect in Wisconsin. The state has supported Democratic presidential nominees in the last six presidential elections, and it has seldom sent Republicans to the Senate since the days of Joe McCarthy — but it voted for a Republican over three–term Sen. Russ Feingold i 2010, and it has frequently elected Republican governors, including the one who was elected in 2010.

Both Obama and his eventual opponent can be expected to spend a lot of time and money in those states. It remains to be seen what kind of an effect the presidential race has on the Senate campaigns there.

Predicting the House

I was never a mathematician.

I mean, when I was a child, I did all right on my multiplication tables. And I managed to keep up with my classmates — sort of — when we moved on to more advanced types of math, like algebra and geometry.

But I must confess that, when we got into numerical constructions that involved figures that went into five or six digits or more, that was about the point where I got off the bus.

I do understand enough about math to know that the Democrats are about to get pummeled. I don't know how badly, but I suspect that it will be impressive, much like the 1994 midterms — and with about the same outcome, too.

Anyway, today my attention is on the battle for the House. In the next couple of days, I will write about the battle for the Senate.

As I say, I am not a mathematician. But I know the numbers are crumbling for the Democrats.

And many of them seem to be caught by surprise, like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. How could that be possible? The signs have been all around them for more than a year.

First, there were all those polls showing slippage for both Barack Obama and the Democrats after the euphoria of the spring of 2009 wore off.

But many Democrats chose to ignore the signals the polls were sending to them. I distinctly remember one of my friends admonishing me that polls aren't accurate, that no matter what the polls were saying, the voters would stick with Obama and the Democrats because the Republicans were clearly to blame for all the nation's ills.

And they went forward, full speed ahead, with an increasingly unpopular health care proposal while ignoring the very issue that had made Obama the first Democrat in more than 30 years to receive a clear majority of the vote — job creation.

It got a little harder to ignore the gathering storm when Republican Scott Brown captured Ted Kennedy's Senate seat back in January. Many Democrats were understandably stunned by that development.

But Jeff Jacoby suggested, in the Boston Globe, that the Democrats had been handed a "blessing in disguise."

His only condition? "[I]f only they are wise enough to recognize it." And the Democrats were assuaged.

Well, I guess we'll find out if they were that wise in a little more than a week. But I never felt that they were, and their last–minute attempts to breathe life into an employment picture that is half again as bad as it was the day Obama took office have been transparent, at best.

In their hearts, Democrats seem to know what is coming; the recriminations have already begun.

I'll give Obama credit for realizing that he failed to give adequate attention to the political side of issues in the first half of his term and for placing the blame for it squarely on his own shoulders — well, sort of.

---

"I think that one of the challenges we had two years ago was we had to move so fast, we were in such emergency mode, that it was very difficult for us to spend a lot of time doing victory laps and advertising exactly what we were doing, because we had to move on to the next thing," Obama said. "And I take some responsibility for that."

The attitude was to get the policy right, "and we did not always think about making sure we were advertising properly what was going on," Obama continued.

CNN wire staff

---

Well, as Mario Cuomo observed a quarter of a century ago, "You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose." And this president, while gifted at the poetry part, has never been able to master the prose.

Much like his predecessor, he just can't seem to take the blame for anything.

And that, I suspect, is at the heart of the disconnect between Obama and the voters. Obama feels compelled to remind the voters that he inherited the bad economy. But that isn't the problem.

The problem is that the voters already understand that. Their disenchantment is not due to origin. It is due to the absence of evidence of improvement.

Obama may think all sorts of grand things about himself and his historically inevitable role, but the thing that broke open his race with John McCain was the economic implosion and the massive hemorrhaging of jobs that continued through his first year as president.

He has never been enough of a politician to recognize the one thing that the voters expected from him above all else — leadership through harrowing economic times. Even if a president can't produce jobs, he should be enough of a politician to know how to take credit for his efforts to promote job creation by those who can do it.

That is called reassuring the voters. And this president, as intelligent as he is, couldn't grasp the national need for that. Even if you have limited knowledge or understanding of history or human psychology, you know that Americans respond favorably to — and remember with fondness — presidents who feel their pain.

Presidents who appear aloof or distant in trying times usually do not remain president very long.

Many were expecting some sort of solidarity from the coalition of irregular and first–time voters who fueled Obama's election two years ago.

But, one by one, the groups that helped Obama by actually coming out and voting for him in unprecedented numbers on Election Day 2008 have been slipping away from the president's party (lately, Helene Cooper and Monica Davey indulged in some hand–wringing in the New York Times about the defection of women voters — who usually vote for Democrats but appear to be pulling away from them this year; so, too, did Liz Sidoti and Darlene Superville with the Associated Press).

They aren't necessarily switching parties. They're just resuming their usual pattern — and not voting at all. Some may be disappointed — as idealists often are — and some may feel permanently alienated from the system, but there are always some of those.

It's just more pronounced this time, with so many first–time and seldom–participated voters who showed up to vote for Obama last time — and now appear to be living down to expectations in the midterm.

There's no telling, of course, what these folks might do in 2012. But one thing, I think, can be said with some certainty as we approach Election Day 2010: even if the Republicans aren't winning over these folks in the midterm, Obama isn't retaining them. Electorally, they might as well not exist. They might as well be one of George Orwell's "unpersons."

Meanwhile, the GOP base — the composition of which has been fairly consistent for the last two or three decades — is said to be energized and eager to vote.

Whether turnout is low or high, Gallup is saying, Republicans stand to win and win big. Pollster Peter Hart recently said the Democrats face a Category 4 hurricane on Election Day.

The House

And I was reminded of something John Boehner said about six months ago: "at least 100 [House] seats are in play." Many political observers scoffed at such bravado; after all, what Boehner suggested would be truly historic, unprecedented in this nation's history.

(Well, a 100–seat swing might be unprecedented, but we have come close to that at times in the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century.)

No matter what has happened in the last six months, to be honest, it still doesn't seem likely that the Republicans can win 100 House seats from the Democrats.

Of course, Boehner didn't say Republicans would win 100 seats, only that 100 would be in play. And, while each party would like to think it can win all the seats that are in play in a given election (and can devote seemingly endless hours to concocting scenarios in which it is conceivable to do so), such a thing simply never happens in modern America.

But today, some of the foremost political observers in America are suggesting gains that even they might have found impossible to believe only a few months ago.

• Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and perhaps the most spot–on political prognosticator in America today, predicts that Republicans will gain 47 House seats.
  
  To put that into context, let's look at the largest gains experienced by either party in the last half century — Republicans won 54 seats in 1994, 47 seats in 1966 and 34 seats in 1980, and Democrats won 49 seats in 1974, 49 seats in 1958 and 34 seats in 1964.
  
  If Sabato is correct — and last time, he was darn near perfect — it would match the Republicans' gains in 1966.
  
  Oh, and take note, you Boehner defenders — Sabato says 99 Democrat–held House seats are in play.


• Nate Silver of the New York Times predicted something similar.
  
  The GOP, he said, will win 49 seats on Nov. 2.


• Charlie Cook, another accurate political handicapper, projects a 52–seat gain for the Republicans.
  
  Which puts him in roughly the same range as the other two ...


• But Jay Cost's prediction at The Weekly Standard dwarfs them all.
  
  Cost says Republicans will win 61 seats. That would be their biggest gain in more than 70 years.

No matter which one you think is more likely to be correct, the Republicans would take control of the House. They need to win 39.

I, too, think the Republicans will capture control of the House. I think Cost's prediction is too extreme, that it is more likely to be somewhere between Sabato and Cook.

I'm more inclined to favor Sabato — but I think his number, too, is too high — and say that I expect the Republicans to win about 45 House seats.

Kudos to the Crystal Ball

You may have seen Larry Sabato on TV.

He's the director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. He also runs a website called the Crystal Ball, which assesses congressional and gubernatorial races — and presidential races every four years.

Sabato also shows up, from time to time, as an analyst on TV networks like CNN.

And the next time I go to the horse track, I want Sabato at my side.

I've been looking at his final election projections, which were posted November 3, the day before the election.

• In the presidential race, he appears to have predicted nearly every state correctly.
  
  At this point, Missouri is the only state left that is too close to call. Sabato predicted it would vote for Barack Obama — according to the latest results I've seen, it is leaning to John McCain. If that holds, it will be only the second time in a century that Missouri has supported the losing candidate.
  
  Sabato also predicted that McCain would win Indiana. That's understandable, given Indiana's long history of supporting Republican presidential nominees. But Indiana voted for Obama.
  
  Nevertheless, Sabato correctly predicted that Obama would win Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. He also predicted the Democratic victory in Nevada. All four states voted for Bush last time — as did Ohio, which voted for Obama this time. Sabato predicted that one, too.
  
  Even if Missouri stays with McCain, Sabato will have a success rate of better than 95%.
  
  And, in the Electoral College, he could be a single vote from being right on the money. He predicted Obama would win 364 electoral votes. Currently, Obama has 365 electoral votes — but, if Nebraska observed the traditional winner-take-all system for distributing its electors, he would be at 364 (I'll be writing more about this soon). Both Indiana and Missouri have 11 electoral votes so if Missouri stays with McCain, it's an even swap for Sabato.


• There are three races that are yet to be decided in the Senate. Republicans currently hold all three, and they currently lead in all three. But, as I mentioned in my earlier post, circumstances do exist in each race that could reverse the outcomes.
  
  At the moment, the Democrats have a lead of 57-40 over the Republicans (including the two senators who are independent/socialist who currently caucus with the Democrats), which is a gain of six seats.
  
  Sabato predicted that the Democrats would gain seven or eight seats, falling just short of the "filibuster-proof" three-fifths majority.
  
  His prediction included Elizabeth Dole's defeat in her campaign for re-election in North Carolina.
  
  What about the three races that are up for grabs?
  
  Well, in Alaska, Sabato predicted that Sen. Ted Stevens would be defeated. He has a narrow lead that could be overturned when some 50,000 absentee and uncounted ballots are added to the mix.
  
  In Minnesota, where the law requires a recount, Sabato predicted incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman would prevail over comedian Al Franken.
  
  And, in Georgia, Sabato correctly predicted the general election would not produce a winner and would end up in a runoff. Beyond that, he didn't predict who would win. Perhaps he'll post a prediction at some point.


• And in the House, Sabato predicted the Democrats would pick up 26 seats, bringing their total to more than 260.
  
  He may have been overly optimistic about Democratic gains in the House, but it's still a little early to tell.
  
  His actual projection stated that Democrats would hold 262 seats when Congress convenes in January. At the moment, Democrats appear to hold 255 seats with six races still too close to call.
  
  So mathematically, Sabato could be almost right on the nose in the House races as well. In many ways, I think that is the most remarkable of the predictions, considering the localized nature and sheer number of the House races.
  
  To be that accurate requires in-depth knowledge of more than 400 congressional districts.

All in all, an impressive performance.

Reversible Electoral Maps

I'm hearing a lot in this election about states "changing colors."

This stems from the typical color coding that TV networks use to indicate how a state has voted in a presidential election.

It's become a cliché to say that a conservative (Republican) state is a "red state," and a liberal (Democratic) state is a "blue state."

But if it makes everything easier to comprehend, I suppose I have no problem with it.

The truth is that most states have established recognizable voting patterns. California and New York, for example, have been voting heavily for Democratic nominees for a couple of decades. Texas has been voting heavily for Republican nominees for three decades.

And it's important to understand that these colors can change from one election to the next. It is possible.

I live in Texas, which has voted for Republican nominees in every presidential election since 1980. Does that mean Texas absolutely will not vote for Barack Obama in November? Not necessarily. People change. Their attitudes and beliefs change. And, sometimes, their votes change.

That's the dynamic nature of a democracy. Until the votes are counted, anything is possible.

But it's also important to remember that just because something is possible does not mean it is probable.

States seldom experience a sudden, long-term, seismic-like shift in party allegiances. When it happens, it is usually the product of a trend that has been a long time in the making.

It almost never occurs out of the blue (so to speak).

It's not the product of wishful thinking.

Ken Herman observes, in the Austin American-Statesman, that "[i]t takes a lot to make a state change color in a presidential election." Indeed. Unless it's going to be a one-time phenomenon (like the state of Colorado, which has voted for Republicans in nine of the last 10 elections — the exception being 1992, when it supported Bill Clinton against George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot), a campaign must devote a lot of resources to winning the hearts and minds of the voters.

Then Herman goes on to point out that, "[f]or all the money spent and speeches made, only ... Iowa, New Hampshire and New Mexico ... shifted from one column to the other in 2004."

Herman, however, seems determined to make the case that many states are "in play" in this year's election, so much so that he takes a comment from Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, completely out of context.

"It is highly likely that a half-dozen or more states will flip sides in 2008," Herman quotes Sabato, but he gives no time reference, which can lead the reader to conclude that Sabato made this statement in the last few days — perhaps after observing both parties' conventions and witnessing the acceptance speeches of both running mates.

In fact, the line was taken from an article Sabato wrote more than six weeks before either convention, and he posted it at his Crystal Ball '08 website on July 10.

(I knew the sentence Herman quoted sounded familiar. I referred to Sabato's article in my blog on July 10.

(Clearly, Sabato wrote that sentence with the knowledge that the Democrats were going to nominate a black man for president. That much had been established by July 10. But, unless that web-based "crystal ball" of his really is a crystal ball, he had no way of knowing the Republicans were going to nominate a woman for vice president.

(Does the Republican nomination of Sarah Palin for vice president change things in the fall? I'd say the jury is still out on that one.)

And, in the sentence immediately following the one Herman cited in his article, Sabato wrote, "Still, that suggests that around 40 states may keep the same color scheme. If November unexpectedly becomes a landslide for one party, then many states may temporarily defect from their usual allegiances."

In other words, unless something extraordinary happens, don't expect revolutionary reversals.

Enough states may switch sides to lift the Democrats to victory. But the races in the Electoral College have been very close in the last two elections. It wouldn't take a massive shift to reverse the results — a handful of states could turn things around in Obama's favor.

In 2008, we may see another election in which millions of dollars are spent and many speeches are made, only to see four or five states switch parties.

The presidency could hang in the balance while the nation waits for the final tallies in New Hampshire, Colorado and Nevada.

Which states switch sides — and which side benefits from the switch — remain to be seen.

Forecasters: GOP Might As Well Give Up on Senate

Charlie Cook writes in the National Journal that "[i]n the House and Senate contests, the debate is about how many seats the Republicans will lose; they no longer have a realistic chance of holding their own."

The grim outlook includes what Cook now expects to be losses of Senate seats currently held by Republican stalwarts like John Warner in Virginia and Pete Domenici in New Mexico.

Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics agrees with Cook that Warner's seat and Domenici's seat are likely to be captured by the Democrats this year.

Cook says he's shifted Republican Sen. Gordon Smith's re-election bid in Oregon from "leans Republican" to "toss-up." He says Smith doesn't face "an especially formidable challenger," but "the political climate has effectively erased the natural advantages that Smith brings to the race."

Sabato still has Smith's race rated as "leans Republican," but it appears to have been more than a month since he made any adjustments to that race on his website.

Cook has five other races listed as "toss-ups," and they're all held by Republicans. Four incumbents are running — Norm Coleman in Minnesota, John Sununu in New Hampshire, Ted Stevens in Alaska and Roger Wicker, who was appointed to fill the seat that was vacated by Mississippi's Trent Lott and now runs in a special election to serve the rest of the term.

The fifth "toss-up" is the open seat left by the retirement of Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard.

Sabato says the Colorado seat and New Hampshire seat are likely to switch to the Democrats. He agrees that the Alaska seat and the Mississippi seat look like "toss-ups."

But Mississippi is only a toss-up because Wicker was appointed, not elected. Mississippi, though, has been voting Republican regularly for several decades, so my inclination is to make Wicker the favorite to retain his seat. I'm not convinced that a Democrat can win a statewide race there.

And I'll need to see more evidence before I am persuaded that Stevens is in trouble in Alaska.

Sabato also hasn't changed his opinion that Coleman is likely to hold his seat. Perhaps the announcement that former Gov. Jesse Ventura will not be running for the Senate has something to do with it — although Sabato says that "[Ventura's] votes almost certainly would have come at [Democrat Al] Franken’s expense."

Cook contends that Elizabeth Dole's campaign for re-election in North Carolina is "getting increasingly competitive," although I have yet to see evidence of that.

In fact, I think some of what Cook is being told these days is mostly wishful thinking on the part of Democrats who are letting their imaginations get the better of them.

"Democrats ... contend that they are making progress against GOP Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, and Pat Roberts of Kansas," writes Cook, "but those boasts are not particularly convincing at this stage."

As someone who lives in Texas, I can assure you that Cornyn is quite likely to win re-election with no trouble. Sabato agrees.

I also lived in Oklahoma for four years, and I find it hard to imagine that Inhofe can be beaten there. Again, Sabato agrees that the seat should remain "solid Republican."

But I think the indications are clear that Democrats will gain about five Senate seats in November — not quite enough to make their majority veto-proof (in case they're having to deal with a Republican administration) but enough to make them formidable, no matter who sits in the Oval Office.

Political observers have mentioned only one Democratic Senate seat that might be in danger — the one currently held by Louisiana's Mary Landrieu. "What is clear is that the state is trending Republican," Cook says of Louisiana, but he concedes that Landrieu, who was narrowly elected in 1996 and then narrowly re-elected in 2002, "has a much stronger record of accomplishments this time ... and she is running a better campaign than in the past."

Sabato seems to agree, although he says the race is "still far too close to call."

As Maine Goes ... ?

There used to be a saying that went like this: "As Maine goes, so goes the nation."

It was a tribute to Maine's reputation as a bellwether state.

That piece of conventional wisdom kind of fell into disfavor during the Depression, when only Maine and Vermont opposed the 1936 re-election bid of Franklin D. Roosevelt (prompting a Democratic strategist to quip, "As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.")

Once a rock-ribbed Republican state, in recent decades, Maine has trended more and more to the Democratic side, and, in 2008, the state is generally expected to vote with the rest of the New England states for Democrat Barack Obama for president.

But in the only apparently competitive race in the state (aside from the presidential campaign), the Republicans seem to hold the edge.

Republican Susan Collins has been representing Maine in the Senate since 1996, when she was elected with 49% of the vote to the Democrat's 44%. When Collins was re-elected in 2002, she received 58% of the vote.

Because the national mood has shifted dramatically since 2002 (when Collins joined the majority in the Senate in supporting the Iraq War resolution), Collins has been expected to face a stiff challenge in her bid for a third term.

Yet, Collins is more of a moderate — which places her to the left of most of her Republican colleagues in the Senate — and that may serve to insulate her in a place like Maine. She was one of the few Republican senators, for example, who voted to acquit Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial.

Collins' moderate voting record seems to help her in Maine — even though many people, including Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, believed the Democrats were positioned to capture her seat this year.

But Sabato writes, "Politics can be just like fishing. You can have the best equipment, find the best location, and have the perfect conditions, but sometimes, the fish just aren’t biting. That’s how Maine Democrat Tom Allen feels right about now."

To this point, there hasn't been much evidence of a coattail effect from Obama that could benefit Allen in his Senate race.

Allen has been representing Maine's first congressional district since 1996, and he's usually received 60% or more of his district's vote. He endorsed Obama's presidential bid in May, apparently hoping some of Obama's popularity in New England would rub off on his own campaign, and he's also been trying to link Collins to George W. Bush's policies.

But it hasn't been working. In Maine, as Sabato says, "the fish just aren't biting." While surveys don't mean much at this stage of a campaign, the recent polls have shown Collins consistently maintaining a double-digit lead over Allen.

Certainly there are Republican incumbents who face an uphill climb in their bids to be re-elected this year. Right now, Collins doesn't seem to be one of them.

Sabato says the Senate race in Maine "leans Republican."

Down to the Wire Again in Ohio?

Four years ago, Ohio was considered a key to victory for John Kerry and George W. Bush. And it lived up to expectations, helping provide Bush with his electoral majority.

No Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio — and Ohio has developed a well-deserved reputation for being a bellwether state. It has been in the winning column in every presidential election except two since 1892.

The two exceptions were 1944 (when it voted for Thomas Dewey against Franklin D. Roosevelt — Dewey's running mate, it is worth pointing out, was from Ohio) and 1960 (when it voted for Richard Nixon against John F. Kennedy).

And it's typically decided by razor-thin margins.

With neither a Senate seat nor the governor's office on the ballot, the main attractions for voters this year (excluding the Obama-McCain campaign itself) may be races for House seats.

Although the Ohio Republican Party was facing some problems in 2006 — and ultimately wound up losing the governor's office and one of the Senate seats — the party retained its edge in House representation. The Republicans lost a couple of seats but remained the state's majority party in the House.

Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics says that, of the 18 districts in the state of Ohio, there are five races worth watching:

• The 1st sits in the southwestern corner of the state and includes the city of Cincinnati.
  
  It has been represented by Republican Steve Chalbot since 1994, but it has been competitive on the presidential level on a regular basis. It narrowly supported George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 — in 2004, in fact, it endorsed Bush by a margin of 3,261 votes out of more than 300,000.
  
  So this could be fertile territory for the Democrats' ticket in 2008, no matter what's happening between Chalbot and his challenger, state Rep. Steve Driehaus, whose campaign is being assisted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
  
  And history suggests that Chalbot is capable of turning back tough challengers. It remains to be seen if he can defeat one who is being financed by the DCCC.
  
  Chabot's voting record in the House has been generally conservative. Like his party's standard-bearer, he has been known to be a political maverick, willing to take risks for principle.
  
  Sabato says the district is likely to remain Republican.


• The 2nd is next door to the 1st, snaking its way along Ohio's southern border. It is the home of another Republican incumbent, Rep. Jean Schmidt, who is in a rematch with physician Victoria Wulsin.
  
  Two years ago, Schmidt defeated Wulsin by less than 2,600 votes out of less than 240,000 — in a district that routinely gave Bush more than 60% of its votes in the last two presidential elections.
  
  Part of Schmidt's problem may be her tendency to commit gaffes — especially her infamous advice on Iraq to colleague (and military veteran) John Murtha on the House floor: "[C]owards cut and run."
  
  The 2nd leans strongly Republican, but Schmidt hasn't proven to be the vote getter her party would like. Can she hold on to the seat? Like the 1st District, Sabato says the 2nd "leans Republican."


• In the 15th, GOP Rep. Deborah Pryce decided to retire after eight terms in the House. She has tended to be extremely conservative on economic issues, more moderate on social and foreign issues.
  
  Sabato rates the district a toss-up. The campaign matches 2006 Democratic nominee Mary Jo Kilroy (who lost by less than 1,100 votes) and state Sen. Steve Stivers (who also happens to be an Iraq War veteran).
  
  The district (which includes the city of Columbus) is a tough one to call. Pryce was re-elected there in 2004 with 60% of the vote while Bush beat John Kerry there by a handful of votes.
  
  Sabato says the race should be an "interesting backdrop" to the presidential campaign in the state.


• The 16th is also an open seat. With Republican Ralph Regula's retirement, Democrats are sensing another opportunity to pick up a seat — even though the district, as Sabato points out, has been reliably Republican in presidential elections.
  
  The candidates in the northeastern Ohio district (that includes the city of Canton) are a couple of state senators — Democrat (and Iraq War veteran) John Boccieri and Republican Kirk Schuring.
  
  In Boccieri's case, the unpopularity of the Iraq War in the 16th could work against him. That's a factor political observers will be watching as the campaign plays out.


• The 18th is represented by Democrat Zack Space, who was elected to replace Bob Ney in 2006.
  
  Republicans have been taking aim at the "accidental congressman" and nominated Ohio's former agriculture director, Fred Dailey, to oppose him.
  
  Considering the district's history of supporting Republican presidential nominees, it seems plausible for Republicans to think they have a chance to retake the seat. But Sabato insists it is likely to remain in the Democratic column.
  
  Both parties' congressional campaign committees are getting involved in the race, and it should be interesting to see which one prevails.

As always, Ohio will bear watching on Election Night.