Gaining a few seats in Congress would be a small victory

I'm trying to be optimistic about Tuesday's elections, but I'm not holding my breath, based on the last two Congressional elections.

In both 2002 and 2004, some election-day polls showed Democrats gaining certain seats, but that didn't happen due largely to Republican electoral cheating.

Predictions that Democrats will win back the Senate or House or both are premature. The all-or-nothing attitude sets the party up for many to consider this election a failure for Dems, which is likely the goal of some right-wing media types.

For Democrats to win the Senate, they need to pick up six seats, which would be the largest gain by either party since Reps gained ten positions in 1994. I'd be happy if Dems picked up a few seats there and would consider that a victory.

For Democrats to win the House, they need to pick up 16 seats, which again would be the most since the Reps gained 60 seats in 1994. That is more doable than taking back the Senate. But we still have to deal with not being able to verify election results in many precincts with a paper trail.

And then the Reps are employing such cheating tactics as using automated dialing systems that play recorded messages to harass voters and making it seem like the calls are coming from Dems. A voter's phone rings, there's a brief recorded intro that makes it appear the call is from a Democratic campaign or related group and then a recorded message. If a voter hangs up, the program calls back many times. The goal is to make people think they are being harassed by Democrats and make them mad enough to change their votes.

And there is the lying fliers they pass out, the bussing in of homeless people to pay them to distribute GOP lies to voters and other measures.

With all that stacked against Dems, gaining a few seats would still hand Bush and Rove their first Congressional loss since they stole the White House. Dems did pick up some Congressional seats in 2000, but Bush wasn't quite in the White House then. The 2000 gains were more attributable to Clinton's popularity and a natural balancing since the 1994 disaster that had also seen Dems pick up Congressional seats in 1996 and 1998.

Giving Bush-Rove their first Congressional defeat in actual seats would still be a victory for Dems. Many right-wingers and those in the media would still crow about the Reps winning the election if they retained their majority in Congress - even if they actually lost seats.

With Reps in control of Congress, they would still rightly be pinned with the blame for everything that goes wrong between now and 2008. Reps' advantage in Congress would be even smaller, allowing Dems to still block many of the ugly laws Reps try to pass. And that could help regain the real prize, the White House, in 2008.