The View From Here . . .

A little over a year from now, in November 2006, the voters will have yet another chance to express their opinion of the Bush Administration, as national midterm elections will be held. All of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate will be up for election.

Historically, elections held in year six of a two term administration have not gone well for the party holding the White House. There was one notable recent exception - 1998, when an apparent backlash against the forces seeking President Clinton's impeachment led to gains for the Democrats. More typical, however, have been the elections of 1958, 1966 and 1974, when the White House party lost more than 40 House seats and 1986, when President Reagan's party lost control of the Senate.

Moreover, the news background has not been very favorable to the Bush Administration in recent weeks, even if the elections in Iraq this week were generally successful At this writing it is difficult to tell if the administration will be rocked by indictments from the Wilson-Plame scandal.

On the other hand, the Democrats face a surprisingly daunting task in their quest to capture either the Senate or the House. The mathematics are simply not in their favor.

In the Senate, the Republicans currently enjoy a majority of 55-45, counting the one liberal independent, Jim Jeffords, as a Democrat. Since Vice President Cheney would break any 50-50 deadlock, the Democrats would need to pick up six seats for control. However, of the 33 seats being contested next year, 18 are currently held by Democrats, again counting the seat held by Mr. Jeffords, who is retiring, while the GOP only must defend 15 seats. Two Republicans, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, are clearly in trouble, but the Democrats will have to defend seats in North Dakota and Nebraska, both of whom voted for President Bush by overwhelming majorities in 2004.

In the House, the current Republican advantage is 231-202, with 1 independent and 1 vacancy. The basic Democratic problem in the House is that the playing field is small. In July, for example, the Cook Political Report estimated that there were only 50 realistically contested seats out of the total of 435, with 28 held by the Republicans and 22 held by the Democrats. There are a number of reasons for this low number - gerrymandering, extremely well funded incumbents and the lack of members (59 to be exact) in districts carried by the opposing party in the last presidential election. But the reality is that the Democrats pretty much would have to run the table in the marginal districts to get the necessary 16 seats for control.

This is not to say that the Democrats cannot win Congress after the 2006. No one foretold the huge Republican gains in 1994, where the GOP gained 54 seats in the House and organized the chamber for the first time in 40 years, and also won the Senate. In a landslide year, even a few seats not deemed to be in play are captured by the surging party. Moreover, public approval of the current Congress is at a very low level.

Nevertheless, in light of the uphill struggle that the party faces, the Democrats would be well advised to focus on issues rather than simply rely upon dislike of the Bush Administration. In 1994, the Republicans won their signal victory with the Contract With America, a series of 10 concrete policy proposals. Voters will want to know what the Democrats offer.