Will the Echo Chamber Help Republicans or Democrats?

Politics in Washington, D.C., is often like an echo chamber. One or two people say something, others think it sounds insightful and repeat it, and eventually it becomes conventional wisdom. Often there are not many nuggets of data to support the Conventional Wisdom, but it prevails anyway.

Right now, the CW on this year's midterm elections is unclear. For a long time it was assumed that the Democrats would be unable to gain the 15 seats they need to retake control of the House. The primary reason is that the scandalous gerrymandering of Congressional seats leaves very few that are remotely competitive. But for whatever the reason, most in Washington have thought ever since the 2004 election, that Republicans would retain control of the House after 2006.

The perception is important because it can do a lot to shape the reality. If potential Congressional candidates believe that their party will do well or poorly in a given year, it can help them decide whether to run now, or wait for two years. If a Congressional incumbent in a swing seat thinks that his party will regain the majority, he or she is more likely to run for re-election than if another term out-of-power looms. When lobbyists are deciding where to make donations, judgments about a given Congressman's likely level of influence are very important - and that rests a great deal on whether he's in the majority or minority.

So while people spent all of 2005 working under the assumption that Republicans would have a narrowed majority in 2007, they certainly thought they would still be in the majority. But with the turn of the new year, and stories about Jack Abramoff, Hurricane Katrina, continued problems in Iraq, out-of-control federal spending, feuding over immigration legislation, and a whole raft of others, the CW came open for review. With the precipitous drop in approval ratings for the President and Congressional Republicans, people began to doubt the accepted CW. They began to wonder whether things would get SO bad for Republicans, that Democrats might take control.

I think that the last month or two has represented a tipping point. All it would take was a few small data points - a Republican loss in the race for Duke Cunningham's seat, or a poll showing Tom DeLay losing his re-election bid, or one of DC's senior election analysts predicting a Democratic takeover - for that idea to resound through the echo chamber and change the CW. But as far as I can tell, Republicans are navigating their way through those narrow straits.

And where will the CW shift next? Articles like today's in the Washington Post bring cheer to Republicans. The Post characterizes the Democratic effort to retake the House of Representatives as an uphill climb. And as for DC's leading political anlysts, Stu Rothenberg tells the Post that Democrats look likely to fall short, and he recently wrote that Democrats haven't expanded the playing field enough to have much of a shot at the majority. Larry Sabato - another prognosticator who carries a lot of weight in DC - cautions that the partisan shift this year is likely to be pretty small.

In the echo chamber that is Washington, D.C., Republican prospects are looking up right now.