Reading the people who are reading the polls

Today the Washington Post ran a story headlined "White House Upbeat About GOP Prospects; Self-Assurance of Bush, Rove and Others Is Not Shared by Many in the Party." Is this a case of "justified confidence," the paper asks, or is it "self-delusion?"

Let's see if we can figure it out.

The Washington Post details Karl Rove's analysis that the Republican Party will not lose more than eight to ten seats in the House, short of the fifteen needed to turn over control to the Democrats. He is equally confident that Republicans will hang onto control of the Senate.

The Bush White House has been wrong about a lot of things, but this is their area of expertise.

Another acknowledged expert in electoral politics appears to agree with them. Former President Bill Clinton told party activists in Des Moines Saturday that Democrats running this year should promise not to raise taxes, a startling comment from a man whose standard speech includes a couple of paragraphs on how much money he makes and how the Republicans have given him a tax cut he doesn't need.

President Clinton must have read the same polls President Bush was reading when he hit the campaign trail last week and told supporters at every stop that Democrats will raise their taxes and Republicans won't.

Also in the category of smart money is the New York Stock Exchange, where you might expect the possibility of a Democratic takeover on Capitol Hill to send a defensive shudder through the markets, sensitive as they are to any talk of higher taxes and business-unfriendly regulation. Instead, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is in record territory. Tobacco company stocks, as of Friday, were trading closer to their 52-week highs than than their 52-week lows, perhaps telling us that the market doesn't expect to see a gavel in Rep. Henry Waxman's hand any time soon.

So many Democrats have spoken so confidently about winning the House and Senate that they risk a real bloodbath in the leadership if it doesn't happen. If the best internal polls are really predicting Republican victory, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, party chairman Howard Dean, and House and Senate campaign committee chairmen Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer should probably start lowering expectations right now, before they catch all the blame for losing a sure thing.

Watch for that.


Copyright 2006

.