Charlie Cook says Dem chances of taking house in '06 is"within reach"

[WI_DEM]

"A year ago, with Republican victories in the 2004 elections still fresh and with President Bush's job-approval ratings still above 50 percent, Democrats' chances of capturing the House looked fairly slim. Today, however, with Bush's approval ratings hovering around 42 percent, the possiblility of a Democratic takeover--although less than 50-50--is very real."

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0206/020706op.htm

Cook, as usual, is talking conservatively, but he has a model which accesses many factors, historical patterns, caliber of the candidates, and political atmosphere. Right now the current model predicts a net Democratic gain of 10 seats (will take 15 to win control of House).

[Greeby]

1. That desrves a bouncer

:bounce:

[Nite Owl]

2. I wonder what he means by a

rock solid Republican district. Our congressman won by a large margin, I think it was 67%. We got a real good candidate this time though and I think there is a real good chance of taking that seat. (CD 20, NY)
Hopefully there will be a lot of surprises on election night. We need to take this big, by a nice enough margin that they can't buy out a few of those borderline dems after the election and make them switch.

[Ladyhawk]

3. I don't know. I was so sure 2004 was in the bag. I suspect fraud on

a large scale and unless we throw the machines into the Boston Harbor (metaphorically speaking), 2006 will go to the Republicans. There is a lot of evidence to support the theory and even though we can't conclusively prove it, my gut says the Republicans cheated and will cheat again if necessary.

If I can ever get my health under control, I am going to concentrate on getting the word out about the possibility of wide-scale fraud. Even if nothing happened, those blasted machines open up a can of worms. It's too easy to manipulate elections if voting is done on computers. We need to be hand-counting paper ballots like the Canadians. It's the only way to make sure wide-scale fraud does not happen.

[Talismom]

4. I agree with you Ladyhawk! I don't care what the polls look like or if

everyone is walking around talking about how the neocons have to go...if we vote into the ether and repug companies count the vote I expect the worst.