We think we can, say GOP optimists

President Bush was hosting lawmakers in the Oval Office last week when he asked House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to size up GOP prospects in the midterm election.

When Boehner said he had already written off some Republican House seats, naming one in the South, Bush protested loudly and called in his chief political advisor. Karl Rove entered on cue with an armful of charts to prove that the seat was still in play and that the party could hold on to its House majority.

“Thanks for the information,” Boehner responded.

The exchange illustrates the dual mood of Republicans in the final week before election day: Though there is pervasive fear that the party will lose control of Congress, a cadre of die-hard optimists is refusing to wave the white flag.

They point, like parched travelers spying water in the desert, to a few recent developments that could help the GOP in the waning days of the campaign.

They delight in this week’s gaffe by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who made a joke that seemed to insult U.S. troops in Iraq. The GOP Senate candidate in Maryland is running a surprisingly strong campaign. Some of the party’s most endangered incumbents, such as Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds in New York and Sen. Conrad Burns in Montana, are battling back in the polls.

And some analysts are no longer writing off GOP chances of holding on to seats in Texas and Florida that were vacated when scandal-scarred Republicans Tom DeLay and Mark Foley quit the House.

Bush on Thursday was in Billings, Mont., campaigning for Burns and attacking the Democrats, who he said were undermining the Iraq war effort.

Senior party officials, including Rove and Bush, insist that Republican fundraising and voter-mobilization advantages -- or some 11th-hour surprise -- will preserve their Senate majority and keep GOP losses below the 15 seats that would give Democrats control of the House.

“The Republicans are going to make a great goal-line stand,” said GOP pollster Whit Ayres.

Tactical optimism?

Many strategists in both parties dismiss that kind of talk as a Pollyannaish effort to keep GOP voters from being so discouraged they stay home on election day. The fact that Republicans are fighting so hard in some of the country’s most conservative regions is a measure of how tough a road they face. For every seat like DeLay’s that comes within reach, strategists are identifying once-safe incumbents, such as Rep. Jim Ryun of Kansas, who suddenly are in trouble.

Analyst Amy Walter of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report says Republicans are like boaters bailing water in a storm.

“You have a bucket, and your ship is filling up,” Walter said. “But for every bucket you bail, another wave is coming in.”

Even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) -- who in a recent memo claims momentum has shifted to the GOP and predicts the party will keep control of the Senate -- gives Republicans a 50-50 chance of losing their House majority.

In the Senate, Republicans have a clear, if uncertain, path to victory: To keep Democrats from winning the six seats they need to gain the majority, the GOP is pouring resources into three key races that are neck and neck. Those are in Tennessee, Missouri and Virginia.

Elsewhere, Republicans are cheered by recent signs their standing has improved in other races that had been considered lost causes.

In Montana, polls show Burns closing in on his Democratic opponent. The national GOP this week announced a new round of television ads for Burns, and Bush campaigned for him in Montana on Thursday.

In Maryland, a Democratic-dominated state, some polls show that Republican Michael Steele has narrowed the gap in the Senate race.

In the more difficult battle for the House, a senior GOP strategist says there is still a road to victory -- even if it runs steeply uphill and ends in a wafer-thin majority.

This strategist conceded that at least seven GOP-held seats were lost causes: open seats in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa and Ohio, and seats held by two incumbents in Indiana (Reps. Chris Chocola and John Hostettler) and one in Pennsylvania (Rep. Curt Weldon).

But the strategist said the party could hold the line elsewhere, identifying 24 GOP-held seats and four Democratic-held seats where polls indicate the races are too close to forecast.

“No one can predict how those seats go,” said the strategist, who requested anonymity because he did not want to publicly acknowledge GOP weak spots.

“This is where race-by-race dynamics kick in.”

The weight of incumbency

Even accepting those assumptions -- which many Republicans regard as too optimistic -- the GOP would have to win three-quarters of those close races to retain its House majority. That might have been plausible in other years when incumbents had an edge. But this year, with anti-Republican winds blowing at gale force, that may be a long shot.

Republicans are betting that the advantages traditionally enjoyed by GOP incumbents -- their fundraising edge, their record of bringing home federal money for local projects, their high name recognition and the party’s vaunted get-out-the-vote machinery -- remain formidable and will tilt close races their way.

Indeed, Reynolds’ money advantage may have helped him bounce back from a steep drop in the polls after the Foley sex scandal.

The lawmaker from upstate New York immediately bought television time for an ad in which he apologized for not responding more aggressively to early warnings that Foley had sent salacious e-mails to young male congressional pages.

Reynolds was also helped by a huge blizzard in his district, which eclipsed the Foley scandal and gave him a chance to showcase his political clout by securing federal disaster aid for the community.

But in many places, incumbency this year is as much a liability as an asset. In Ohio, moderate GOP Rep. Deborah Pryce has been under attack for being part of the conservative-dominated House leadership. She has resorted to campaigning like a challenger: She recently mounted the back of a music-blaring flatbed truck, demanding that her opponent meet her for a debate.

The GOP endgame includes a determined effort to hold on to the Foley and DeLay districts. Many strategists regarded those seats as slam-dunks for Democrats because the GOP was unable to replace Foley’s and DeLay’s names on ballots. But both districts are heavily Republican, and party officials are laboring to educate voters on how to cast ballots for the GOP’s chosen replacement candidates.

In Texas, Republicans are running a write-in campaign for Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. Republicans were encouraged by a new poll showing that more than 50% said they would vote for her over Democrat Nick Lampson. The party is now sending people door-to-door to explain how to cast a write-in ballot.

In Florida, Foley’s name will be on the ballot, but any vote cast for him will count as a vote for GOP candidate Joe Negron. The GOP won an important court ruling last week that allowed signs making that point to be posted in polling places.

The Cook Political Report, which previously said the Foley and DeLay seats were likely to go Democratic, now rates both races as toss-ups.

On another front, Republicans hope to cut their losses by defeating at least one of the handful of House Democrats considered vulnerable. In Illinois, where Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean serves a GOP-dominated district, Republicans hope a third-party candidate will siphon enough votes to give the GOP candidate the edge. In Georgia, Republicans are targeting two House Democrats whose hold on their seats has been weakened by redistricting.

janet.hook@latimes.com