Turdblossom Roundup

mcjoan on Kos: "Rove Brings Hate Speech Tour out West." This post is leading in the comments contest on their front page.

Darryl: "Maria Cantwell on the Rove Visit." Maria's posse raised more than $31K for Darcy in four hours.

David Postman: "A tale of two Texans," with video of "a prominent lefty populist Texan's take on the big time Lone Star conservative" from Lynn Allen. In an earlier post, Lynn recounts how Hightower ran into the "Bush/Rove Meatgrinder" during a political campaign.

Seattle Times: "Rove hits the Eastside for some fundraising " reveals that Kemper Freeman also hosted a pre-reception gathering in his Bellevue offices on the top floor of Bellevue Square.

"Know Thy Voter"

Hotline:

A sophisticated and previously unrevealed experiment by Democratic interest groups could provide Democratic candidates in as many as nine states with an unanticipated edge in the November elections.

If the state modeling projects work, America Votes hopes to set up a similar effort in every battleground state in 2008.

America Votes, a roundtable of the nation's top liberal membership groups, is coordinating a multimillion-dollar program to boost Democratic turnout using the same voter modeling method mastered by Republicans in 2004.

"The goal here is to once again bring 'field' into the column of the progressive community," said Jano Cabrera, a senior adviser to the project.

EMILY's List, which raises money to help elect Democratic women, is in the catbird seat for two states: Michigan and Minnesota, both of which feature competitive gubernatorial and senate races. Other members of America Votes plan to employ the project in Ohio, Colorado, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. And so-called "robust" voter lists will also be provided to program members in Arizona, New Hampshire and New Mexico.

Catalist, a private information firm founded by veteran Democratic strategist Harold Ickes, is providing the raw data. The firm has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to add demographic and commercial data to entries for each voter, often purchasing the information from information vendors.

In Michigan, EMILY's List asked Garin Hart Yang, a Democratic polling firm, to survey more than 12,000 Michigan voters with an in-depth battery of lifestyle and issue questions. From the massive poll, EMILY's List and Garin Hart Yang were able to profile distinct clusters of voters. These groups were then given names like Educated Postgraduate Democrats or Downscale Union Independents. Each cluster was scored for how likely it'd support Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, their affinity toward the Democratic Party and the likelihood they will vote.

Then, using reams of the appended demographic data, each of more than 6.7 million names on the statewide voter file was given a score that corresponded to the clusters they most closely matched. Based on the cluster score, voters will be targeted with precise appeals. The project aims to increase turnout statewide, not just in traditionally Democratic counties like Wayne, but in heavily conservative areas of Western Michigan, and Oakland and Macomb counties in the east.

If the state modeling projects work, America Votes hopes to set up a similar effort in every battleground state in 2008. Officials at Catalist, America Votes and EMILY's List will unveil the program to major Democratic donors. Similar efforts are under way at the Democratic National Committee, which has spent more than $6 million to craft robust voter files for state parties, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has modeled clusters of voters in its targeted states, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

In 2005, the DNC worked with the Virginia Democratic Party, then-Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine's gubernatorial campaign and a private firm called Copernicus Analytics to identify Democrats who had voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 but not for then-Gov. Mark Warner in 2001. Kaine saw his turnout increase more than 40 percent among those so-called drop-off voters. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's re-election campaign has employed the same microtargeting firm, Copernicus Analytics, to help them find new voters in New York.

The impulse to find new ways to flush voters to the polls was midwifed from the party's failure in 2004. Democrats and their allies spent more than $100 million to turn out a record number of voters in areas with high concentrations of Democratic voters. It worked, but Republican targets were far higher. The Republican National Committee and the Bush-Cheney campaign had pioneered several new technique for tunneling to their voters. One, dubbed microtargeting, allowed them to find hidden warrens of Bush voters in Democratic precincts. It also predicted the best way to send persuasive messages to those voters.

"While there used to be a time when progressives could feel secure in having a field advantage over conservatives that came to an abrupt end in November 2004," said Cabrera.

Some Democrats worry that the Republican National Committee is cycles ahead of the Democratic Party in using the technology, and they fear that the Democratic National Committee's efforts to catch up are underfunded and proceeding too slowly. Also, dozens of outside Democratic groups have worked for years with voter and membership lists dubbed "dirty," meaning they were out of date and not dynamic. Ickes, the deputy chief of staff to President Clinton, started the Data Warehouse in part to help these outside groups. Laura Quinn, who ran the DNC's database in 2004, became its president. America Votes became its first client; the two share an office in Washington. Last week, Data Warehouse changed its name to Catalist.

The Republican machine is massive. The party will use an enhanced version of micro targeting and voter persuasion programs in every contested House race in the country. For months, state parties have been adding and updating identified voters to their centralized database, called Voter Vault. In several states, the number of identifiable voter clusters exceeds 40. More than 200,000 volunteers will make telephone calls and knock on doors on election day.

Told about the Michigan program, one senior Republican party official said he wasn't worried. "We've been doing this for years. They're just starting."

And Rep. Tom Cole, who is coordinating get-out-the-vote efforts for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said that no matter what Democrats or allies do, "We'll clearly enjoy a significant resource advantage over our counterparts."

Mike?: "Mr. Civility" and "Stand Up Guy"

Darryl:

I was thrilled to read about your “three strikes” plan with its mandatory drug-abuse testing for Welfare recipients. It is about time we take action against those societal leaches, and make them think twice about signing up to pick our pockets. And your proposal to snatch away parental rights for those who “strike out” is a beautiful example of Compassionate Conservativism™ baked to perfection!
(snip)
I think all too much has been made of the irony that you were once arrested for DUI. The blogs are going nuts suggesting that your right to be in a relationship should be revoked because you drove your wife-to-be around while you were stinking drink. I’ve even heard demands that you submit to substance abuse evaluation for the good of your own young children out of fear that you might be setting a bad example (perhaps fueled by your recent admission that you still socially drink and drive).

Don’t concern yourself with these silly criticisms. Remember, Mike!™, you can diffuse such arguments in a way that only a man of your stature and achievement can. You can simply point out that you have given your children the gift of a gated community, the moral fiber of a home life isolated from the ugliness (and, frankly, the raw stench) of poor people with their filthy little habits. You have given your children the gift of a trust fund conditional on a clean record. Finally, you have given your children the emotional security of knowing that, if need be, they have the financial certainty to spend a few months in rehab.

Frankly, Mike!™, you are just plain better than poor people, and that’s why you deserve to be our next Senator.

My favorite comment from a reader of Goldy's post on this topic:

How about drug testing for corporate welfare recipients? They receive a helluva lot more in federal money than do individual recipients. Maybe Halliburton’s shareholders should all have to pee in a cup before we give them any more taxpayer dollars.

And my favorite part of Goldy's post:

Leaving aside the obvious irony of Mike?™ calling for a crackdown on substance abuse, I guess my biggest question for the candidate would be whether he has a dollar figure attached to his proposal, and how he expects to pay for it?

"Suit: Ban computer voting"

Rocky Mountain News(CO):

Voting on computer screens is so vulnerable to massive fraud that Colorado's November election is "headed for a train wreck," says an attorney who is seeking to have the equipment barred at trial next week.

An expert would need just 2 minutes to reprogram and distort votes on a Diebold, one of four brands of computerized voting systems attacked in the suit, says attorney Paul Hultin. His firm, Wheeler Trigg Kennedy, has taken on the case pro bono for a group of 13 citizens of various political stripes.

And he's not the only one alarmed as details of the case spread this week.

The Colorado Democratic Party on Thursday urged all voters to cast absentee ballots for the November election to avoid potential fraud, after a key state official said in a deposition that he certified the computer voting equipment even though he has no college education in computer science and did little security testing.

"New 527 Ripoff Schemes from 'Top Democratic Strategists' "

Matt Stoller:

Ok, so Harold Ickes is trying to raise $25 million for a new 527 to focus on field and advertising. Rahm Emanuel is hiring the Bob Shrum of field operations, Michael Whouley, to run his DCCC field plan. And another 527 with a presumed budget of $8-10 million is being run by former DNC bigwigs Martin Frost, Tony Coehlo, Joe Andrew, and Don Fowler.

Ok, let's look at what's going on here.

"How Chafee Won"

UPDATE: This news story in the WaPo, "In R.I., a Model for Voter Turnout," provides more details.

Hotline:

Rhode Island will become a case study in the effectiveness of the Republicans’ 72 Hour Program. Behind the curtain, Chafee’s campaign spent $500,000 to squeeze out every conceivable voter from neighborhoods across the state. They searched for independents who voted Democrat in municipal elections but who had once upon a time voted for a Republican for president or governor or senator. There were a few of those. They looked for non-affiliated voters in Republican neighborhoods. Using microtargeting techniques, they even tried to figure out which committed Democrats might be tempted to vote for Chafee.

By the end of the summer, Chafee’s campaign had identified 42,000 potential supporters. Then the second part of the program kicked in. Message, here, is a verb. The campaign “messaged” these voters, often individually. Chafee himself called more than 100 of them who were identified as being capable of swinging the votes of colleagues and friends. The standard complement of robocalls, mailings and personal visits were employed. In the twelve days of September, Chafee, the RNC and NRSC made more than 198,000 phone calls to the voters on their list. Many voters received one every two days.

On election day, the Chafee campaign stationed poll watchers at 100 key precincts across the state. By 10:00 am, the RNC and the NRSC were confident that Chafee would win.

"The Army Field Manual, The Torture Scandal, and The Intelligence Scandal"

Rolling Stone:

Thanks to reader Ancon for digging up what should have been in a box on the front page of every newspaper the day Bush proposed rewriting the Geneva Conventions:

I would simply like to quote the Army Field Manual here, which I think summarizes how this works in reality quite well:

“The use of force, mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment of any kind is prohibited by law and is neither authorized nor condoned by the US Government. Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.”

"Senate Forecast Update, and a Generational Gap Among Forecasters"

Chris Bowers:

I have the new Senate forecast up. It features updates on virtually every race, so summarizing them here would be pointless. Just go read it. I have also made some adjustments to the House forecast, thanks to your excellent comments in the update thread form this afternoon. It would be impossible to do this forecast without you guys. Thank you!

I also wanted to highlight what I think is a very insightful comment by Charlie Cook on a generational gap among election forecasters. From his latest column:

As a general rule, election-watchers under the age of 40, regardless of their party or ideology, see the contest for control of the House as fairly close. They foresee Republicans' losing at least 10 seats, but certainly no more than 20, and they put the odds of a Democratic takeover at 50-50, give or take 10 percentage points. As for the Senate, these observers tend to expect Republicans to lose three or four seats, but probably not five and certainly not the six required for Democrats to take charge.

Observers over age 40, meanwhile, tend to see a greater likelihood of sizable Republican losses. They think that the GOP could well lose more than 20 House seats and more than five Senate seats.

Most of the professionals toiling in the vineyards of the party campaign committees and watching individual races most closely are in the under-40 cohort. They tend to see control of the House as a close call and tend to be most conservative on their House seat counts. They're also the least likely to think the Senate will change hands. Invariably, these younger pros acknowledge that for Republicans this is a "very challenging election cycle," the euphemism that GOP spokesmen use to keep from saying that 2006 is shaping up as "a really bad year" for their party. Yet these younger observers focus almost exclusively on where each contest stands right now, employing a sort of political version of the literal interpretation of the Bible.

Older pros, while often one or more steps removed from the day-to-day developments in each contest, appear to read a bit more into the races, placing greater emphasis on the national political environment and what it is likely to mean for contests that are currently too close to call or for Republican incumbents with precarious leads. These relative old-timers vividly remember the midterm elections of 1994, 1986, 1982, and 1974, as well as the presidential year of 1980, when the late Speaker Tip O'Neill's adage "All politics is local" clearly didn't apply.

I think that Cook is absolutely correct in what he writes here. As someone in the under-40 crowd, the only wave election I remember was 1994. I don't even remember that election very well, since I was in England during my study abroad year at that time. For me, the House has basically been static and local, with the exception of one huge landslide that I was unable to follow closely. When I was 14 years old in 1986, I did not follow congressional elections much at all.

In addition to what Cook wrote, I think there is something else fueling this generational gap. Younger people who follow politics closely are used to Republicans winning. I remember brutal Republican landslides from 1984, 1988 and 1994. I remember Republicans pulling out tight elections in 1998, 2002, and 2004. In my experience, with few exceptions, Republicans have consistently won elections, while Democrats have consistently lost. For an older generation, the opposite was true--and how!--for a very, very long time. I have often thought that this difference in experience has led to a different political attitude by the older and younger generations in the Democratic Party and progressive ecosystem, where one generation views us as the natural governing party, and one does not. I think that this leads to a desire for much fiercer opposition tactics from the younger generation, as well as a desire to shake up existing infrastructure (especially advocacy and consulting infrastructure). We don't view our return to power as the natural course of things, we are convinced that the old ways have failed, and we have grown utterly paranoid of Republicans pulling out any election no matter how dire the circumstances seemed for them. Thus, in addition to the differences I just described, generally speaking we also view the 2006 situation as slightly better for Republicans than an older generation might. Most of my friends don't really believe that we will win in November, and while I am not as pessimistic as some, I am certainly not the most optimistic forecaster out there. In fact, among the professional forecasters, I think only CQ politics rates the situation as worse for Democrats than I do. I want to believe in a national wave, but there is no way I am going to let my hopes get that high. Until Election Day, I will try to stay away from a focus on national trends, and instead look at races on a district-by-district basis. Back in 2004, I used a theory known as the Incumbent Rule to predict a narrow Kerry win, but it did not pan out. Even leaving aside my own personal hopes for the moment, the last thing I want is to once again be the person who caused 250,000 people to get their hopes too high, only to see them dashed to the curb on a Wednesday morning in early November.

The Devil Comes to Town for Dave

Lynn Allen gives us a short history of Turdblossom's deeds in "Dirty Tricks Master, Karl Rove, to Stump for Reichert:"

Why would “the Sheriff” bring someone to raise money for him who has repeatedly skirted the law? Desperation? We have to assume it is nothing else. The latest poll shows his opponent, Darcy Burner, ahead by a couple of points, and that is without the 90% plus name recognition that Reichert commands. So, Karl Rove, the man who groomed George Bush for President and ran a series of truly dirty political campaigns to get him elected and re-elected, is coming to Medina this Friday to raise money for Dave Reichert. This is the man whom “the Sheriff” has asked to come help him stave off the increasingly successful campaign of Darcy Burner.

Let’s make certain it doesn’t work.
(snip)
Only now, with the rise of the progressive blogs and the ability of the blogosphere to research and articulate the truth about what is going on and to support the Democrats who dare to speak the truth, are we overcoming the strategy and tactics that have made Karl Rove so dangerous.

This is the man whom “the Sheriff” has asked to come help him stave off the increasingly successful campaign of Darcy Burner. Contribute to Darcy's campaign to prevent Rove from maintaining his control of the Republican House.

"Frameshop: The Physics of 'Safety'"

Jeffrey Feldman:

This year on 9/11, President Bush made the odd statement that five years after the attacks "we are safer, but we are not yet safe," and that as a result of 9/11, Americans seek a "safer" world.

Bush is claiming, in other words, that invasion and occupation of Iraq is his strategy to keep us 'safe'--to create a condition that he calls 'safety.'

But what is this 'safety' of his, anyway? What is President Bush's view? Should we even be talking about 'safety'? What is the alternative?

While there is some question as to whether or not we should view our foreign policy in terms of war or police action, President Bush is framing the debate in terms of a much more general premise: safety.

To reframe the debate, Progressives must shift the logic from the Physics of Safety to the logic of Security as a Program.

Wednesday Political Potpourri

John Dean on the Impeachment of the President:

A prolific author, most recently of the New York Times bestsellers “Worse Than Watergate” and “Conservatives Without Conscience,” Dean discussed with Truthdig managing editor Blair Golson (via e-mail) his view that the Democrats should not initiate impeachment hearings unless they have strong reason to believe the Senate would then vote to remove Bush from office – or else risk the kind of “sham” proceedings that characterized the Clinton impeachment saga.

Record $1.3 Million Spent so far to Elect Groen to Washington State Supreme Court:

Breaking all records, reported campaign contributions and spending to elect John Groen to the Washington State Supreme Court now exceeds $1,294,608. Over half a million dollars ($557,980) alone has been spent by by the BIAW (Building Industry Association of Washington) and PAC's it controls.

The BIAW and other special interest groups are trying to defeat current Supreme Court Justice Gerry Alexander. Groen is running on a program of defending developer interests over those of individual property owners and comunities. The BIAW is trying to elect their third Supreme Court Justice that represents their special interests. Previously they were the main spenders to elect James Johnson and Richard Saunders to the Court.

E-Voting: Corrupted Machines Not Needed to Rig an Election:

You don't need to corrupt the software in electronic voting machines to gain an unfair advantage for one party in an election. All you need do, in certain, select precincts (e.g., ones which vote predominately Democratic), is simply delay getting the the electronic cards needed to operate them when the polls open.

Air America To Declare Bankruptcy, But Progressive Radio Remains Strong:

Air America Radio will announce a major restructuring on Friday, which is expected to include a bankruptcy filing, three independent sources have told ThinkProgress.

Air America could remain on the air under the deal, but significant personnel changes are already in the works. Sources say five Air America employees were laid off yesterday and were told there would be no severance without capital infusion or bankruptcy. Also, Air America has ended its relationship with host Jerry Springer.

"Dean Agrees to Finance Some Programs for Turnout"

NY Times (AdNag):

Ending a long and cantankerous standoff with House Democratic leaders, Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has agreed to a limited program to finance get-out-the-vote operations this November, party officials said Tuesday.

But Mr. Dean remained at loggerheads with Senate Democrats, who continued to insist he provide more money.

The committee said it would provide $12 million to finance turnout operations for candidates running for the House and the Senate, and for state races. Just $2.6 million would go to finance turnout operations in 40 House races, far less than House Democratic leaders had asked for.

By contrast, the Republican National Committee has said it will spend more than $30 million of the $176 million raised this cycle to finance Republican turnout efforts, most of it going to House and Senate races.

Mr. Dean had staved off demands for more money from Democratic leaders in Congress, saying it was in the long-term interest of the Democrats to instead use the nearly $100 million he has raised this year to build strong Democratic organizations in all 50 states by giving them money to hire staff members.

The disagreement had sparked a lively feud between Mr. Dean and Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, who is leading the Democratic effort to win back the House. Mr. Emanuel and Mr. Dean stopped speaking to each other several months ago.

Mr. Emanuel’s aides said he was satisfied with the deal. “Yeah, we’re happy,” said Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Between our effort, the D.N.C. effort, the labor effort and what other Democrats are doing, we’re going to have what we need for voter turnout.”

Mr. Emanuel’s counterpart in the Senate, Charles E. Schumer of New York, did not share his assessment. “We’re still in the process of negotiating,” Mr. Schumer said. “We’re hoping that we’ll have an amicable agreement that will make everyone happy.”

"WA-Sen: Cantwell leaps forward"

This just hit the front page of Kos:

Rasmussen. 9/6. Likely voters. MoE 4.5% (8/15 results)

Cantwell (D) 52 (46)
McGavick (R) 35 (40)

Ouch. Republicans really, really had high hopes for this race. So what the heck happened? No Senate Democratic incumbent is seriously in trouble this year. Not anymore. Our biggest challenges holding Blue seats are the open seats in Minnesota and Maryland.

September 11th QUOTE OF THE DAY (with video)

Keith Olbermann:

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had ’something to do’ with 9/11, is "lying by implication."
The impolite phrase, is "impeachable offense."

Here's some instant commentary on MyDD and reality-based educator.

Comparing Apples to Apples

Danny Schechter:

The last time a docudrama triggered a such a sh*t storm was not that long ago, when CBS was offering a fictionalized dramatization of the live and loves of Ronald Reagan. That was back in November 2003. Right wing organizations went ballistic with websites like insultspunished.com blasting it as biased and an unacceptable attack on a living President. Other outlets compared it to a media assassination.

Remember what happened then? CBS first defended it as accurate but then as the heat grew, yanked the whole series, no ifs and buts, and put it on Showtime, another Viacom-owned outlet.

"Howard Dean breezes through Chris Wallace interview" (Video)

Crooks and Liars:

Howard Dean gave a good performance on this morning’s (Sunday) edition of Fox News Sunday. He breezed through Chris Wallace’s interview with clear, honest and realistic answers. Chairman Dean presented one of the most unified voices for the Democratic Party of the election season so far.

"9/11 Video Tribute"

Truthdig presents a range of footage from the plane crashes to David Letterman to Jon Stewart to "9/11: Press for Truth" and "Loose Change."

Sunday Parts and Pieces

Hotline on Call.

Expect a rapproachment: an agreement between DNC chairman Howard Dean and occasional sparring partner Rahm Emanuel on how the party will help House campaigns is near, sources say. The two have agreed in principle about specific interventions the DNC can make in specific House races.

Paul Waldman in the Boston Globe (hat tip to Lynn Allen):

To see how Democrats have misunderstood the question of strength, we can examine Iraq -- likely to be the most prominent issue in the 2006 congressional elections and the 2008 presidential primaries and general election. It seems safe to assume that there were some Democrats who thought the Iraq war was a bad idea, but voted for it anyway out of fear that if they didn't, they would be called weak.

Three years later, with most Americans now believing the war was a mistake, do the Democrats who voted for the war look strong? Hardly. They look like pushovers who didn't have the guts to stand up to President Bush when it mattered most.

Yet today there are still some Democrats in Washington who believe their problem on national security can be solved by adopting positions as close as possible to those of the Republicans.

But strength doesn't flow from a policy proposal, and it can't be demonstrated with a hawkish vote. The public will be convinced that Democrats are strong when they stand up for their beliefs, take political risks, and don't run scared every time they get attacked by Republicans. Think about it this way: Martin Luther King Jr. was a pacifist, and no one ever called him weak.

In short, it isn't about voting the way you think the public wants you to vote, and it isn't about your 10-point plan. It's about who you are. That's just one lesson Democrats need to learn from Republicans.

Cheney Stays the Course on "Meet Tim Russert":

CHENEY: You’ve got Iraq and Al Qaeda, testimony from the Director of C.I.A. that there was indeed a relationship — Zarqawi in baghdad. et cetera. Then the

RUSSERT: The committee said there was no relationship. in fact saddam —

CHENEY: I haven’t seen the report. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.

BONUS: Meet the Ignoramus: Russert Lets Cheney Completely Off the Hook" by Stephen Kaus:

As usual, Cheney said that Sadaam "kicked out the inspectors." Russert apparently does not know that the inspectors returned on November 27 2002 and that Blix reported on the increasing cooperation several times, including a report on March 7, 2003 describing three months of inspections. It made sense to threaten war to get the inspectors back in. It did not make sense to attack anyway.

Russert also let Cheney say that he has not seen or had a chance to read the Senate Intelligence Committee Report released late Friday that says that not only was there no link between Sadaam and Al Qaeda, but that Sadaam was trying to kill or capture al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The report also faults the administration for relying on Ahmad Chalabi. Shouldn't Russert have asked why Cheney did not get a chance to read the report during the year that committee chairman Pat Roberts has been suppressing it?

"In a pivotal year, GOP plans to get personal"

UPDATE: MyDD is first out of the gate with commentary on this story and their readers join in.

Washington Post:

Millions to be spent digging up dirt, ‘defining’ Democratic candidates---Republicans are planning to spend the vast majority of their sizable financial war chest over the final 60 days of the campaign attacking Democratic House and Senate candidates over personal issues and local controversies, GOP officials said.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, which this year dispatched a half-dozen operatives to comb through tax, court and other records looking for damaging information on Democratic candidates, plans to spend more than 90 percent of its $50 million-plus advertising budget on what officials described as negative ads.

The hope is that a vigorous effort to "define" opponents, in the parlance of GOP operatives, can help Republicans shift the midterm debate away from Iraq and limit losses this fall. The first round of attacks includes an ad that labeled a Democratic candidate in Wisconsin "Dr. Millionaire" and noted that he has sued 80 patients.

"Opposition research is power," said Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (N.Y.), the NRCC chairman. "Opposition research is the key to defining untested opponents."

The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, has enlisted veteran party strategist Terry Nelson to run a campaign that will coordinate with Senate Republicans on ads that similarly will rely on the best of the worst that researchers have dug up on Democrats. The first ad run by the new RNC effort criticizes Ohio Rep. Sherrod Brown (D) for voting against proposals designed to toughen border protection and deport illegal immigrants.

Challengers make easy targets
Because challengers tend to be little-known compared with incumbents, they are more vulnerable to having their public image framed by the opposition through attacks and unflattering personal revelations.

And with polls showing the Republicans' House and Senate majorities in jeopardy, party strategists said they have concluded that their best chance to prevent big Democratic gains is a television and direct-mail blitz over the next eight weeks aimed at raising enough questions about Democratic candidates that voters decide they are unacceptable choices.

"When you run in an adverse political environment, you try to localize and personalize the race as much as you can," Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said.

In a memo released last week, Cole, who is running to succeed Reynolds at the NRCC, expanded on that strategy. The memo recommended that vulnerable incumbents spend $20,000 on a research "package" to find damaging material about challengers and urged that they "define your opponent immediately and unrelentingly."

GOP officials said internal polling shows Republicans could limit losses to six to 10 House seats and two or three Senate seats if the strategy -- combined with the party's significant financial advantage and battled-tested turnout operation -- proves successful. Democrats need to pick up 15 seats to win control of the House and six to regain power in the Senate.

Going for the local body blow
Against some less experienced and little-known opponents, said Matt Keelen, a Republican lobbyist heavily involved in House campaigns, "It will take one or two punches to fold them up like a cheap suit."

Republicans plan to attack Democratic candidates over their voting records, business dealings, and legal tussles, the GOP officials said.

John Geer, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University and the author of a book on negative advertising, said Republicans and Democrats alike lack positive issues on which to run because of divisions over the war and economic policy. This will be a "very negative campaign and probably a more negative campaign than any in recent memory," Geer said.

As Republicans try to localize races, Democrats' hopes for the most part hinge on being able to nationalize the election and turn it into a referendum on the Iraq war, President Bush, and the performance of the Republican Congress -- all faring poorly in polls this year.

Bush will try to make terrorism the issue nationally, casting the election as a choice between two distinct approaches for protecting the nation from attack. Beyond that, however, most Republicans want to distance their elections from the national context.

That strategy is born of necessity. Republicans are alarmed by the large number of House and Senate incumbents who are trailing or tied in their internal polling. Many are attracting the support of less than 45 percent of likely voters -- a danger zone for any incumbent 60 days before an election. The political rule of thumb is that incumbents rarely draw a majority of voters who make up their minds in the days shortly before Election Day.

Do voters have an appetite for change?
History shows how the combination of opposition research and negative advertising can work. In 2000, Republicans unleashed a furious attack on the spending practices of Democratic House candidate Linda Chapin, including her purchase of an $18,500 bronze frog as a legislator in Florida. Chapin, then the favorite to win an open Florida House seat, lost to Republican Ric Keller. That same election cycle, Republicans dug up a tape of state Rep. Eleanor Jordan (D-Ky.) asking to speed up a vote so she could attend a fundraiser, an image that destroyed her chances of knocking off Rep. Anne M. Northup (R).

This year, the challenge is tougher, as national polling shows voters dissatisfied with the party in power and ready for a change.

"When all [Republicans] do is launch potshots, they look like they're trying to cover up the fact that they have no solutions" said Phil Singer, communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

As in past elections, the bulk of negative advertising this year probably will be delivered by party committees -- a strategy that allows the candidates to distance themselves from the trash-talking messages that turn off some voters.

Digging for dirt
Wisconsin's 8th District offers an example. Earlier this summer, the NRCC sent a young staff member to the district for one week to look through court records, government and medical documents, and local newspapers to find embarrassing information about physician Steve Kagen, one of the leading Democratic candidates in an important swing district, an NRCC aide said. The researcher discovered that Kagen's allergy clinic has sued more than 80 patients, mostly for failing to pay their bills.

A new NRCC ad airing in the Green Bay area, the district's main media market, warns: "What Dr. Millionaire doesn't want you to know is his clinic left more than 80 patients behind -- suing them. That's right, suing more than 80 patients."

In recent elections, Democratic officials have complained that Republicans are much better at opposition research. But Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who chair the Democrats' House and Senate campaign committees, have invested more heavily in research. Notably, the researchers dig not only into Republicans, but also their own candidates. This allows Democrats to anticipate what is coming and be ready to respond quickly.

Dems also do opposition research
One Democratic research success this year came when Emanuel's staff combed though the archives of several universities to find a copy of an article Colorado Republican candidate Rick O'Donnell wrote for an obscure publication in the mid-1990s. A researcher eventually found the article at George Washington University. In it, O'Donnell argued that Social Security should be abolished -- a revelation that was highlighted in three sharply worded DSCC mailings in the district.

Direct-mail appeals often carry the most negative and potentially damaging messages. Dan Hazelwood, a leading GOP direct mail consultant, said that if a hypothetical Democratic candidate favors the establishment of a garbage dump in a section of the district, for instance, it makes more sense to "narrow-cast" this message by mail to the people most affected rather than buying an expensive, districtwide television ad.

The RNC's expanded role in part reflects concerns that Senate Republicans may not have enough money to take the fight to Democrats. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, under Chair Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.), had $15 million less to spend than the DSCC at the end of July. But, the RNC is planning to make up the difference. The committee ended July with nearly $44 million in the bank, four times what the Democratic National Committee had on hand.

In setting up a separate arm to spend money on Senate races, the RNC is altering its past practice. In the past, the RNC simply transferred a large sum of money to the House and Senate campaign committees and let the chairmen decide how to spend it. This year, Nelson -- a former top official in the Bush reelection effort and political strategist for House Republicans -- will work with consultants Tony Feather and Curt Anderson to oversee the TV and direct-mail campaign, which by law must remain independent of coordination directly with candidates.

"Osama Bin Missing?"

Video (51 seconds) from the DNC.