But the Dems admit the Publicans have a big emotional advantage with voters who are fed up with high unemployment, soaring deficits and what many see as an arrogant Congress and administration that rammed a revolutionary health care plan down their throats.
The high unemployment and the soaring deficits are the fault of both parties, which was why control turned over from Pubs to Dems in the first place.
Hard to remember those days, all the way back to 2005, but folks like Bill Quick were advocating that conservatives and libertarians sit on their hands rather than for the Dick Armey types, the country club Pubs and the RINOs who were doing the K street dance in Congress. The Pubs sure did need a lesson and it isn't clear that they have yet learned it, but it does seem that the cure is worse than the disease.
The arrogant Congress and administration were the result of the turnover, and the voters (at least slightly better than 50 percent of them is my guess) haven't liked what they've seen. In a world that makes sense -- and the real world might actually do so briefly in November -- San Fran Nan and Oil Can Harry Reid's followers, if not them personally, will be turned out on their ear and somebody else given a chance to either get things back on track or follow them out the door in two years.
If voters keep burning with the throw-the-bums-out fever that animated so many primaries, Democrats would be likely to lose more than 40 House seats, costing them the majority and positioning Republicans to block virtually any Obama initiatives in the next two years. Losing the Senate majority, which would require a 10-seat Republican gain, is less likely.
As soon as the current crop of crooks is gone Inside the Beltway will be oozing sentiments of "bipartisanship," which will equate to compromising with the B.O. regime, ignoring the Constitution, and splitting the remains of the national boodle. The actual electoral proof will be in that pudding.
Democratic candidates want to convince these voters that no matter how much they hate the status quo, they would be worse off under a Republican Party that hasn't learned from its mistakes and is lurching ever harder to the right.
That's the joy of the Tea Party movement, isn't it? The Pubs are being purged in their primaries. They're doing the "choice not an echo" thing. From where I sit I can hear Barry Goldwater snickering in his grave. The nation keeps "lurching harder to the right" and then the pols get sucked into the system of corruption and "bipartisaning" toward the boodle, which is where the lefties lurk.
"This needs to be a choice, not a referendum" on the Democratic-led Congress and B.O. regime, said Erik Smith, a Democratic campaign adviser.
Since it really is a choice, not an echo, it will be in many respects a referendum on the B.O. regime. I don't think it's gonna be a vote of confidence.

The reality is that being part of a shrinking wing of her party is not new for Snowe. She used to be one of many moderate New England Republicans, but the group has dwindled over the past decade after being defeated by Democrats, never mind conservative Republicans.

"I've always been on the outside looking in, in the world I live in. When you're a minority, moderate, New England, woman, Republican woman, you don't get more outside than that. Do you? I'm a minority within a minority," Snowe said laughing, "I've been fighting my whole life."

Last March, Republicans joined Democrats in calling on Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) to end his filibuster against the extension of unemployment benefits paid for by deficit spending, embarrassed he was blocking aid to the jobless. But it took just three months for the grassroots pressure to reach the Capitol -- Bunning was a Tea Party hero. By the time the $30 billion expired on June 2, Senate Republicans had united behind a nearly two-month filibuster of the next round of $34 billion in "emergency spending" for unemployment insurance. They were joined by Sen. Ben Cornhusker Kickback Nelson (D-Neb.), and some House Democrats warned their own leaders at the time that the days of votes on "emergency spending" would soon have to come to an end.

As of last week, before the House and Senate even reconvened, it was clear there were enough Senate Democrats joining Republicans seeking an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest earners that the Democrats don't have the votes to pass President B.O.'s permanent extension of the middle-class tax cuts without passing cuts for the top two tax brackets as well.

When Obama introduced his latest economic proposals earlier this month, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), an ally of the Obama White House, immediately put out a statement not only criticizing Obama's newest infrastructure plan but knocking the original stimulus as well. "I will not support additional spending in a second stimulus package. Any new transportation initiatives can be funded through the Recovery Act, which still contains unused funds," Bennet said.

Obama won't get his infrastructure plan through the Congress, and he knows it. Next year, when he is running for reelection, tax and budget reform will be the only issues he could realistically work on with a GOP majority or a razor-thin Democratic majority. In other words, the Tea Party agenda.

The Tea Party candidates themselves -- like O'Donnell, whom Karl Rove called "nutty," -- matter little. Only a few will actually get elected this fall. Yet the Tea Party has won without them. There are no tea leaves left to read. Democrats have been spooked and Republicans threatened, cajoled or cleansed. The results are already in.