Don't Get Ahead Of Yourself

Democrats are giddy as schoolchildren upon seeing the latest polls, which show ridiculously large leads across the board:

Democrats had a 23-point lead over Republicans in every group of people questioned — likely voters, registered voters and adults — on which party's House candidate would get their vote. That's double the lead Republicans had a month before they seized control of Congress in 1994 and the Democrats' largest advantage among registered voters since 1978.

Nearly three in 10 registered voters said their representative doesn't deserve re-election — the highest level since 1994. President Bush's approval rating was 37% in the new poll, down from 44% in a Sept. 15-17 poll. And for the first time since the question was asked in 2002, Democrats did better than Republicans on who would best handle terrorism, 46%-41%.

And 37 is high for Bush, I've seen 34 and 33 in New York Times and Newsweek polls. More important than that, the GOP is already conceding half the seats Democrats would need to take back the House.

Republican campaign officials said yesterday that they expect to lose at least seven House seats and as many as 30 in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, as a result of sustained violence in Iraq and the page scandal involving former GOP representative Mark Foley.

Democrats need to pick up 15 seats in the election to take back control of the House after more than a decade of GOP leadership. Two weeks of virtually nonstop controversy over President Bush's war policy and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's handling of the page scandal have forced party leaders to recalculate their vulnerability and placed a growing number of Republican incumbents and open seats at much greater risk.

When Republicans are hopeful that a rogue nation testing nuclear weapons on their watch will bring the conversation around to a place where they're on surer footing, you know that spells trouble.

But I think to think you could coast four weeks from Election Day would be silly. The NRCC, for example, has only begun to fight, dumping $7.8 million dollars into House races across the country in ONE DAY alone last week, 98% of it on negative advertising and phone banking. Despite some great fundraising, the Republicans still have the money advantage. And that still matters.

Here at D-Day I'm going to do whatever I can over the next 28 days to ensure that this great opportunity is not squandered. And there's a lot you can do. I've donated. I've made calls through MoveOn's Call for Change program. I've been to local campaign headquarters. And I feel like I haven't done enough! This election will be all about GOTV, and I know that a great number of people online are uncomfortable about reaching voters that directly. It's much easier to hide behind the Internets. But it's simply not an option anymore.

One super-easy thing you can do, which I did in 2004, is call your cell phone address book before the election and make sure they're all voting. It's less uncomfortable because these are people you know, and I believe people are more responsive to a friend than to a faceless volunteer.

This is no time for complacency. It's time to understand the stakes of this election, ensure real checks and balances in government, and do whatever is humanly possible to pitch in.