By Charlie Cook, NationalJournal.com
© National Journal Group Inc.
Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2005

The conventional wisdom these days is that it would pretty much require a political tidal wave for Democrats to gain control of the U.S. House and Senate.

	The building blocks are there, but they aren't big enough to create the kind of momentum necessary to sweep the Republican majority out of power.

While it is true that many of the factors that have led to such waves in the past exist today, they aren't present to the degree necessary for one on the magnitude of the 1994 elections to occur -- at least not yet anyway.

The factors that generally contribute to such an overhaul include: an administration that seems to be running out of steam, an unpopular war, a string of scandals, high gasoline prices that threaten to stall the economy and a loss of control of the governing process.

In other words, the building blocks are there, but they aren't big enough to create the kind of momentum necessary to sweep the Republican majority out of power.

I can see Democrats pointing to this column and saying, "But, there are more than 13 months to go before Election Day, plenty of time for things to change."

That is true, but they have to change to get there. The status quo will not be enough.

While I firmly believe all of this, Jennifer Duffy, my colleague at the Cook Political Report and its specialist on Senate and governors' races, likes to point out that in recent years, it hasn't required a tidal wave for one party to win the lion's share of the most competitive races.

Duffy points out that in 1998, when the political environment tilted slightly in favor of Democrats, there were seven Senate contests going into Election Day that the publication rated in the "toss up" category -- too close to call with any real degree of comfort. Democrats won five of those seven races.

Going into the 2000 election, when the playing field was about as level as has ever existed in American politics -- remember those 537 votes in Florida? -- there were nine Senate contests that we rated as toss ups. Democrats won seven.

Two years later, the playing field was relatively level, perhaps tilted a bit in favor of the GOP, and Republicans won six out of nine of the most competitive races.

In 2004, the playing field was tilted a bit more toward Republicans, but their advantage wasn't considered strong. Republicans won eight out of nine "toss up" races.

What is clear is that even in level terrain, or at least on terrain with modest degrees of advantage for one party, the closest races in the Senate have a tendency to break one direction or another, and often without too much, if any, advance notice.

Today, the playing field is tilted in favor of Democrats.

It doesn't mean it will be tilted as much or even in the same direction next month, let alone a year from now, but that's where it is now.

At this moment, the political terrain is not tilted enough for Democrats to take the House.

There are far too many seats where Democrats need to be competitive, but don't yet have a credible challenger to run. Maybe the party will be able to find these candidates, setting up the opportunity to take advantage of whatever political environment exists, or maybe they don't.

In the Senate, though, Democrats need a net gain of six seats to win the majority, so logically they need to put six GOP seats in play.

They have accomplished that; in fact, seven Republican-held seats are now in play. They are the seats held by Republican Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona, Jim Talent of Missouri, Conrad Burns of Montana, Mike DeWine of Ohio, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island and Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee.

Democrats have credible candidates in all but one of those states, Ohio.

It appears likely that their nominee will be Paul Hackett, the lawyer and Iraq War veteran who came close to picking off a special election in Ohio's 2nd congressional district against now-Rep. Jean Schmidt.

If GOP Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi retires, as many expect he will, that would set up yet another competitive Republican-held Senate seat, bringing the total to eight.

Rep. Charles (Chip) Pickering would likely carry the GOP banner, with either former state Attorney General Mike Moore or Rep. Gene Taylor running for the Democratic nod.

At this point, no doubt, Republicans are pointing in dismay at this column and asking, "But what about all the vulnerable Democratic-held Senate seats like open seats in Minnesota, Vermont and to a lesser extent, Maryland, plus endangered incumbents like Democratic Sens. Debbie Stabenow in Michigan, Ben Nelson in Nebraska and Maria Cantwell in Washington state, and to a lesser extent Bill Nelson in Florida and Kent Conrad in North Dakota?"

And they are absolutely right. But when the seats start tumbling, as they did in the last four elections, then it's time to watch out.

The party getting pinched usually wins few, if any, challenger races and loses the lion's share of the competitive open seats as well.

The point of all of this is to serve as a reminder that while Democrats certainly need a political equivalent of a tsunami to take control of the House, it is possible.

But the size and power of the wave necessary to flip the Senate might be substantially less than commonly believed.

-- Charlie Cook is a NationalJournal.com contributing editor, weekly columnist for National Journal magazine and the founder and publisher of the Cook Political Report. This column also runs in CongressDailyAM when Congress is in session. His e-mail address is cookreport@nationaljournal.com.

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