This Is When You Increase The Pressure

Obama is pulling away. The spate of attacks are falling flat (oh please, McNasty, please bring up Ayers tomorrow night and watch your favorable numbers fall off a cliff), and the ground game advantage is flat ridiculous. In 21 days, it is increasingly likely that we will have President-Elect Barack Obama.

But I'm not going to focus on that. Because the key finding in my mind is that Obama's lead mirrors almost exactly the generic Democratic-Republican lead:

And after nearly eight years of increasingly unpopular Republican rule in the White House, 52 percent of those polled said that they held a favorable view of the Democratic Party, compared with 37 percent who said they held a favorable view of the Republican Party. Voters said that they preferred Democrats to Republicans when it came to questions about who would better handle the issues that are of the greatest concern to voters — including the economy, health care and the war in Iraq.

This is where progressives can have the most impact. We're not just talking about a change at the top, but a realignment, with Democrats winning all over the map and beating the conservative failure of the past 8 years onto the margins of American life. The best evidence of this today is not the topline Presidential numbers, but this incredible story from the Politico:

Darren White and Erik Paulsen were prized Republican recruits, House candidates poised to be the new face of the GOP on Capitol Hill.

But as the two head into the homestretch of their campaigns, GOP operatives say they’ll probably have to win — or lose — on their own. The money national Republicans earmarked for White in New Mexico and for Paulsen in Minnesota will likely go instead to protect GOP incumbents who once looked like locks for reelection.

GOP Reps. John B. Shadegg of Arizona, Lee Terry of Nebraska, Henry Brown Jr. of South Carolina and Dan Lungren of California are all fighting for their political lives, a reversal of fortunes that has caught even the most astute campaign observers by surprise.

That's right, the GOP has again retrenched to protecting its previously safe incumbents, unable to play offense practically anywhere (though unlike in 2006, they'll probably pick up a couple stray seats). No matter where you live, you're likely to have Republicans feeling threatened for perhaps the first time ever. Here in California the financial crisis has brought maybe a half-dozen seats strongly into play where they were outside shots previously. One of them, CA-03 held by Dan Lungren, is mentioned above.

In California, Republican operatives have noticed some troubling trends.

Two years ago, Lungren — who is completing his seventh term in Congress — beat physician and Vietnam War veteran Bill Durston by 21 points. But the economy has taken its toll, and Lungren’s district has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. In a newly released Democratic poll, Lungren leads Durston by just 3 percentage points.

Former GOP consultant Allan Hoffenblum said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher and other California Republicans, including Reps. David Dreier and Brian Bilbray, are also at risk.

“The Republican base is not sufficient by itself to elect a Republican in those [California] districts; they still need the independent vote,” Hoffenblum said. “In the past decade, they have been reliably voting Republican for president and for Congress. … There are a lot of angry and scared voters out there. This is not your traditional environment.”

This is what we've been waiting for and what we need. It's unclear whether Obama is going to be bold enough to meet the huge challenges he will face upon his first moments in office. But it is clear that the best opportunity we have to pressure him into doing the right thing is by electing a strongly progressive Congress full of leaders that will be dedicated to a strong agenda for America. Darcy Burner is one of those leaders, and the latest poll shows her leading. That's tremendous news. Darcy is the co-author of the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq and is committed to fighting for her constituents instead of corporate lobbyists and Wall Street hacks.

This is just as true in the Senate, where Republicans are so afraid of a filibuster-proof Democratic majority that they are considering throwing McCain overboard.

With party strategists fearing a bloodbath at the polls, GOP officials are shifting to triage mode, determining who can be saved and where to best spend their money.

And with the House and Senate Republican campaign committees being drastically outspent by their Democratic counterparts, and outside groups such as Freedom’s Watch offering far less help than was once anticipated, Republicans are turning to the national party committee as a lender of last resort.

A decision is imminent because television time must be reserved and paid for upfront, and available slots are dwindling.

A representative for the RNC would neither confirm nor deny that it was considering the move.

If they shift away from McCain, cutting off his coattails, it's all over. Republicans played very poor defense in 2006 when they lost control of Congress. Now they are forced to try it again.

Time to make them pay. Make them pay for financial uncertainty and increasing inequality. Make them pay for 47 million uninsured and 30 million in poverty. Make them pay for illegal spying, torture and rendition. Make them pay for an unnecessary occupation of Iraq. Make them pay for crony capitalism and free market fundamentalism.

Work your ass off wherever you are. We can cause a true realignment.