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Place your bets!

All wagering on the 2006 October Surprise will officially end midnight Saturday, so lay your money down now!

Karl Rove is already bragging to the Republican faithful that he's got a doozy of an October Surprise teed up for 2006. Karl hasn't seen fit to let us in on the secret of what this year's surprise will be, though.

So the betting atmosphere is in a frenzy.

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Disappointingly, the only thing the Democrats seem to be rallying around at this point in the election campaign is: "We're not Republicans, and we're especially not President Bush." Bad as that sounds, it could actually be enough for them to win. But the concept needs to be better defined and executed if it's going to have a chance.

Many sincerely wished the 2006 campaign was going to be about bright new ideas, but there is that old "herding cats" problem when it comes time for Democrats to agree on anything. They tried to get a domestic policy agenda together and wound up with competing plans and slogans -- all of which were largely ignored. They haven't come up with an Iraq strategy that will play well in both Peoria and Connecticut. They were even mostly content to stand in the background and let Republican Senators McCain, Warner and Graham take the heat for standing up to legalized torture.

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The best way to make a political case against an untenable position is to ask a question that paints the opponent into a corner, because it has no "right" answer.

The most famous of these is "So tell us, Senator, have you stopped beating your wife?"

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With all the prognosticating currently happening over the Democrats' chances of taking back the Senate in November, a real and likely option looms: winding up in a 50-50 tie. Not much has been said about this, but one would like to think that Democratic strategists are prepared for it and are actively considering using back-door politics to solve it.

Call it "The Jeffords Solution" -- get one or more moderate Senate Republicans to jump the aisle, to swing the balance of power to the Democrats.

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A bit of trivia to begin with. The smallest state in the country has the longest official name. And tomorrow, it also has the most interesting primary race this side of Connecticut (so to speak). In the "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" the Republicans are having their own sort of Lieberman problem.

Senator Lincoln Chafee, much like Joe Lieberman, is having to win two elections this year, since he has a serious primary challenger to beat before the general election. And how Tuesday's very strange primary in Rhode Island turns out is going to matter to the big picture of how many Senate seats Democrats can pick up this year.

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I wrote in my book How Democrats Can Take Back Congress that Democratic candidates should utilize the creativity of advertising professionals to come up with snappy campaign slogans: "Hire some ad-men and ad-women who do that sort of thing for a living. There's a lot of Madison Avenue talent just waiting to be tapped for this mission."

Well, it seems one of them isn't sitting around waiting to be tapped, but is trying to educate candidates on his own initiative. Continue Reading »

Rather than taking potshots at all and sundry this week, for a change I'd like to spotlight some positive ideas from the Democratic campaign trail. Two encouraging developments deserve both applause and emulation by other Democrats running for office.

The first is a local television ad for the California governor's race, and the second is a campaign tactic ("stunt" would be more accurate) from Democratic House contenders in North Carolina, Kentucky and Ohio.

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There are two major anniversaries just around the corner: the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and the fifth anniversary of 9/11. Both will have political implications in this election year. The Democrats need to realize that this is an opportunity, and use it to their advantage.

I realize this is an inflammatory concept. But Republicans have already proven they aren't afraid of politicizing both 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden. Democrats shouldn't shy away from turning these issues to their advantage, in an intelligent and respectful way.

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Step right up and place your bets on October Surprise, 2006!

What will Republicans trot out this election year? What will be their outrageous attempt to swing the election? What plot is Karl Rove et al. currently hatching to give the GOP an edge?

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There was an important news story last weekend, but it got swallowed up by the Israeli/Lebanese/Hezbollah conflict and the Connecticut primary news. Newsweek broke the story that the White House is actually planning what to do if civil war breaks out in Iraq. This shouldn't be stunning news, but with this White House it's a bombshell.

The main source for the story is attributed as "a senior Bush aide who declined to be named," so make of that what you will.

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