The Democrats Are Coming! (Right?)

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 6, 2006 7:38 AM

After a media drumbeat that has grown louder for months, the only big news tomorrow night will be if the Democrats don't capture at least one house of Congress.

Day after day, from the endless opinion polls to the features on Nancy Pelosi contemplating life as House speaker, news organizations have framed the midterm elections as a season in which the Republicans are probably, most likely, almost certainly heading for big-time defeat.

And, in truth, many journalists are probably rooting for a Democratic House.

But not for the reason you might think.

After six years of almost uninterrupted GOP control of Washington, divided government would produce what reporters like best: conflict. A spate of investigations and subpoenas of the Bush White House, led by such new committee chairmen as John Dingell, Henry Waxman, Barney Frank and Charlie Rangel, would liven things up for the capital's chroniclers. Even the mundane prospect of the Democrats being able to bring their preferred legislation to the floor -- though most bills might never make it past the president's veto pen -- would give journalists a new script. Divided government may or may not be good for the country, but it's great for the Fourth Estate.

In retrospect, the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994 was a godsend for journalism. The rise of Newt Gingrich, the government shutdowns, the Whitewater investigations, the Monica investigations, the overwhelmingly party-line vote to impeach Bill Clinton, all fueled thousands of stories about scandal and showdowns that boosted ratings and book sales.

One-party rule is, let's face it, rather predictable, especially with a Republican Congress that has basically gotten out of the oversight business during the Bush presidency.

As the 1994 elections approached, news organizations said the Republicans had a strong chance to win the Senate and at least a shot at taking over the House, based largely on polls that forecast GOP gains but greatly underestimated the size of the political wave. In fact, a Washington Post/ABC poll showed the Democrats with a 3-point edge in congressional voting while a CBS/New York Times survey gave Republicans a four-point lead.

This time around, media outlets for months have been all but predicting a Democratic takeover of at least the House. This has been apparent in such newspaper headlines as "Open Seats Lift Democratic Hopes in the House" (New York Times); "Scandals Alone Could Cost Republicans Their House Majority" (Washington Post) and "Democrats Find Control of Congress Within Their Grasp" (Los Angeles Times). In recent weeks, ABC's Charlie Gibson has told viewers that "if today's polls hold, this could be a tough year for Republicans." CBS's Katie Couric has talked about the focus "shifting to the Senate" amid "growing concern among Republicans they could lose their majority in that chamber as well." NBC's Brian Williams led one broadcast by saying, "Not much good news for the Republicans tonight in our new NBC News poll. Can they hold onto power?"

There surely may be some instances of liberal bias. Maybe the press made too much of Sen. George Allen's "macaca" moment, or wallowed too long in the finger-pointing fallout from the Mark Foley page scandal. At the same time, the press can't very well ignore the rising death toll in Iraq, which is also being cast as bad news for President Bush and his party.

But much of the handicapping is poll-driven. Media surveys have shown Bush's popularity consistently below 40 percent and voters favoring the Democratic Party in the midterms by as much as a 19-point margin. Polling cannot measure turnout, and many people disgusted by Congress still vote for their own lawmaker. But polls are like crack for journalists, who have grown addicted to the GOP-in-trouble narrative.

"If you mention something enough times, you make it seem as if it must be so," says NBC's Williams. But, he says, "if the media are guilty of beating the Democratic House takeover drums, the media share that guilt with prominent Democrats, who in on- and off-the-record settings have indeed been all but measuring the drapes."

Mark Halperin, ABC's political director, says all the data suggest a good year for Democrats. "I don't think there's anything wrong with reporting the reality of what's going on," he says. Most revealing, he says, are "Republican sources who say, 'We're going to lose a lot of seats and, if nothing changes, we will lose the House and maybe the Senate.' "

Conservative commentators and radio hosts usually provide a cheering section for Republicans, but a striking number say the GOP should be punished this year for straying from conservative principles. Some, like Christopher Buckley and Jonah Goldberg, have said the Republicans deserve to lose the House. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com says the GOP seems to have a "bizarre death wish." George Will calls it "disgusting" that the White House refuses to acknowledge the depth of the fiasco in Iraq. Andrew Sullivan says he feels "betrayed" by the administration's botching of the war and the use of torture against terror suspects. Others have complained about overspending and the mishandling of the Foley debacle.

The press has treated all this as a leading indicator that the Republican base is downcast and disillusioned.

If the Democrats prevail tomorrow, journalists will be feasting on new story lines and subplots for the next two years. And if the Democrats fall short after this huge media buildup, some folks are going to have a whole lot of explaining to do.

Life After Birth

For a brief time last spring, Elizabeth Vargas, pregnant and under pressure from her bosses, became a rallying point for feminists when she stepped down as co-anchor of ABC's "World News Tonight."

Two and a half months after giving birth to her second child, Samuel, Vargas returns to fulltime duty at "20/20" this week with a segment on the plight of working mothers, beginning with herself.

"A lot of us -- me, most of all -- were surprised by the amount of press in the aftermath" of her job change, Vargas says in an interview that had to be moved up because of her breast-feeding schedule. And she is training the spotlight on a difficult period in her life. "It's inherently uncomfortable for me to be the subject of the story," Vargas says.

Women's organizations sent protest letters to ABC after Vargas was eased out in favor of Charlie Gibson. Now, says Vargas, who also has a 3-year-old with her husband, singer Marc Cohn, "having had the baby, I can't imagine going back to that demanding job right now."

For the "20/20" piece airing Friday, Vargas examines the lives of three working women with children, interviews politicians and serves up a slew of statistics on the problems faced by working mothers. As an example of public attitudes, she cites a Cornell University survey of undergraduates saying that if they were employers, they would offer women with children $11,000 a year less in salary than childless women, and be 44 percent less likely to hire those with kids.

"There is still in this country real discrimination against working mothers," Vargas says.

She also reports that the United States is one of five out of 168 countries that does not mandate paid maternity leave. "North Korea and Iran offer more benefits," Vargas says.

If it sounds like she's become an advocate on the issue, she doesn't dispute that. "I have a strong point of view on it, yes, because of what I've been through," says Vargas.

She says she was drawn to the subject because "women talk about this everywhere I go. My friends at work talk about it." Men, too: her producer on the segment, a divorced father, sometimes has to rush home from the office.

"I know I'm very, very lucky," Vargas says. "I have a job with a lot of flexibility. I am well compensated for it. And I can afford good child care." She still hopes to return to news anchoring -- but not for awhile.

Nom de Plume

Did President Bush fritter away a $5.6-trillion surplus? "Is Bush truly the culprit?" asks economist J. Edward Carter on National Review Online. No, he concludes, it was always fictional.

But the writer was quickly unmasked, by Washington Monthly blogger Kevin Drum, as James E. Carter, a Labor Department undersecretary and presidential appointee.

NRO Editor Kathryn Lopez says the Web site mistakenly assumed that Carter had left the administration: "As a practice, we don't publish pieces from people who work in government without disclosing it. We were remiss here and apologize to our readers."

So: The big question today, in my considered judgment, is who's gonna win ?

NYT Sunday piece has "Republican Party leaders saying the best outcome they could foresee was losing 12 seats in the House. But they were increasingly steeling themselves for the loss of at least 15 seats and therefore control of the House for the first time in 12 years."

WP Sunday piece: "Democrats have moved into position to recapture the House and have laid siege to the Senate, setting the stage for a dramatic recasting of the power structure in Washington for President Bush's final two years in office."

LAT Sunday piece: "In races in virtually every corner of the country, key Republican House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates are facing imposing, sometimes cavernous deficits in the traditional center of the electorate, among voters who describe themselves as independents and moderates. If that trend holds through Tuesday, it may not only sweep Democrats into control of one or both chambers of Congress, but could also ignite a debate in Republican ranks over the continuing viability of the base-centered strategy devised by Bush and key advisors such as Karl Rove."

New Time poll: "Among registered Democrats polled, 52% say they're more enthusiastic about voting than usual, compared with just 39% of Republicans. Thirty-seven percent of Republican respondents are less enthusiastic than usual, while only 29% of Democrats feel that way."

New Newsweek poll "finds support for Republicans (and for President Bush) receding. For example, 53 percent of Americans want the Democrats to win enough seats to take control of one or both houses of Congress in the midterm elections on Tuesday. Those results are close to early October levels, while less than a third of Americans (32 percent) want Republicans to retain control. If the elections were held today, 54 percent of likely voters say they would support the Democratic candidate in their district versus 38 percent who would vote for the Republican-a 16-point edge for the Democrats."

USA Today poll: "Democrats, poised to score gains in the U.S. Senate, are struggling to pull ahead in the final seat they need to win control, USA TODAY/Gallup Polls in six key states find." That would be either Tennessee or Virginia, where Republican candidates are leading by 3 points.

One last wild card: "The guilty verdict in Saddam Hussein's trial became the latest in a string of dramatic developments that could influence tomorrow's elections, as Democrats and Republicans launched a barrage of ads and get-out-the-vote efforts in a campaign dominated by views about the Iraq war," says the Boston Globe .

"The White House, after being on the defensive for months about the difficulty of the Iraq war, seized on news about Hussein's verdict to suggest that the action is a positive sign for the effort to stabilize Iraq. 'It's a major achievement for Iraq's young democracy and its constitutional government,' President Bush said at the airport before flying to Nebraska and Kansas on a campaign swing for Republican candidates two days before the election."

Tony Snow says anyone who thinks Iraq timed the verdict to influence the U.S. election must be "smoking rope." Maybe I'm high, but . . .

Craig Crawford has some of the latest prognostications:

"CQPolitics.com's Greg Giroux writes: 'It seems plausible that the Democrats might not lose a single race for the House, Senate or governor in which they are presently the incumbent party.'

"Larry Sabato: 'The Crystal Ball cannot identify a single election for Senate, House or Governor in which a Republican is likely to succeed a Democrat in office.'

"Rothenberg Report: 'We believe that state and national dynamics favor Democrats netting six seats and winning control of the United States Senate. ... The most likely outcome in the House of Representatives is a Democratic gain of 34 to 40 seats.' "

And we all know the experts are never wrong.

What ? A negative story about Obama?

"Sen. Barack Obama expressed remorse Saturday for a series of financial arrangements he made with an indicted political fundraiser to improve their adjoining South Side properties," says the Chicago Tribune .Obama has described his dealings with Antoin "Tony" Rezko as ethical and proper, but he now acknowledges the arrangement might have appeared improper."

Welcome to 2008.

The latest move at DOD hasn't gotten much attention, but Kevin Drum thinks it's a bombshell:

"Republicans may say they don't believe in deadlines for Iraq, but it turns out there's one deadline they do believe in. The Pentagon budget signed a couple of weeks ago includes a hard date for putting Stuart Bowen, the Inspector General for Iraq, out of business:

"The order comes in the form of an obscure provision that terminates his federal oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, on Oct. 1, 2007. The clause was inserted by the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee over the objections of Democratic counterparts during a closed-door conference, and it has generated surprise and some outrage among lawmakers who say they had no idea it was in the final legislation.

"That's a real shocker, isn't it? The official excuse from Duncan Hunter (R--Running For President), who inserted the provision, is that he wanted to return to a 'non-wartime footing' for all this inspection stuff. That seems a little funny considering how relentlessly Republicans remind us that 'we're at war,' but maybe I've misunderstood this concept all along. After all, as our commander in chief tells us, war is hard.

"But at least it should soon be a little easier for Halliburton."

War or not, why shouldn't the Pentagon have an IG like other federal agencies?

The blogosphere is buzzing over this NYT report about the administration making public nuclear research from the Saddam era. Wizbang questions the paper's motives:

"Once again, on the surface, it appears another hatchet job on the Bush administration: either through incompetence or for sheer political gain, they released highy-sensitive nuclear secrets.

"That's the sizzle, though. Here's the steak, buried down in the 14th paragraph:

" Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq had abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein's scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.

"It's rather carelessly written, but the interpretation I get is that in 2002, Iraq was within a year or so of possessing a nuclear weapon. That, despite 11 years of UN sanctions and inspections to prevent just that.

"And in 2003, the United States invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein.

"I don't like to put too much stock in the New York Times, but to me that looks suspiciously like the 'smoking gun' everyone said didn't exist.

"So, why would the Times release -- less than a week before the elections -- a story that tends to disprove the arguments of so many on the Left, that Saddam had no WMDs, no WMD programs, and did not pose an 'imminent threat?' Sheer incompetence is one possibility -- there's certainly no lack of precedent for that. But could it, instead, be designed to balance out their previous biased coverage and manufactured stories that have backfired so often in the past? Could they be looking to curry favor with the GOP, just in case the Democrats don't pull off a major victory on Tuesday?

"Nah. I don't think they're that smart."

With all due respect, what's not smart is to imagine that newspaper editors sit around deciding whether to run stories or not based on how they'll affect the election. The Times also gave big play to the John Kerry gaffe, which wasn't exactly helpful to Democrats.

At Power Line, Paul Mirengoff disses the story as well:

"The defining characteristic of partisan attacks on President Bush has been their unthinking and indiscriminate nature. For example, Bush is to blame for not halting the development of nukes by Iran and North Korea, but he's also to blame for toppling Saddam Hussein due in part to his concern that Saddam was interested in and capable of developing nukes. Critics point to Iran's rise as evidence that Bush misplaced his focus on Iraq but they don't consider how Saddam would have reacted to Iranian nuclear progress.

"The New York Times now has carried unthinking Bush-bashing to a point beyond caricature . . . It quotes with apparent approval 'experts' who say that Saddam was as little as a year away from building an atom bomb. The Times does so in order to show that the Bush administration acted recklessly when it published captured Iraqi documents that describe that country's WMD programs, because those documents might be used by another country in furtherance of building WMD.

"Did the Times just say that Saddam's Iraq was a year away from building a nuclear weapon? I guess so. Good thing Saddam's no longer in power."

A middle-aged dad blunders onto Facebook, and tells the tale here , proving once again that teenagers are smarter than anybody.