Deadbeat Dem Incumbents Vulnerable to the Wave. This is Why We Need Good Candidates EVERYWHERE.

UPDATE: Bill Russell now only down 1.8% against Murtha. And a tipster points out that Dennis Kucinich only leads Republican Jim Trakas by 10 points in his heavily Democratic Cleveland seat.

It will come as no surprise that our prospects in the House of Representatives look dim. In many ways, this is more disconcerting than the Presidential race because we thought 2006 was the "correction" that readied us for a bounceback or at least a status quo year in 2008. Every historical precedent to date suggests that "waves" do not come in twos.

But 2008 is NOT like 2006 in at least one significant respect: unlike 2006, at least one, and perhaps at least a handful of Democratic incumbents are in real danger of losing. And many of these newly vulnerable incumbents are mostly nowhere near the NRCC's Tier One targets, or what you thought would have been the targets three months ago.

These are entrenched incumbents like Jack Murtha (PA-12), Bobby David Scott (GA-13), and Paul Kanjorski (PA-11), suggesting that post-bailout, there is a broadly anti-incumbent sentiment in the electorate, not just an anti-Republican one. There are probably a few more we don't know, but the House pollster of record (Daily Kos/R2K) probably won't bother polling them.

In PA-12, longshot challenger Bill Russell is now within 4 of Murtha after Okinawa Jack called Western Pennsylvanians racists and rednecks. 2006 Murtha challenger Diana Irey was a much stronger candidate, and got clobbered by 22 points.

In GA-13, Bobby Scott's own campaign released an internal poll (!!) showing him up 5 points over Republican Deborah Honeycutt. TPM tried to rough up Honeycutt for her aggressive direct mail tactics, a controversy we covered here at TNR. And get this: in 2006, Scott defeated Honeycutt 69-31. A close race here would signal a remarkable turnaround from '06.

And in PA-11, Lou Barletta routinely runs ahead of gaffe-prone, self-dealing Paul Kanjorski (disclaimer: my firm has done some work for Barletta). This is a Cook PVI Dem +5 seat. And even Swing State Project is saying "Bye Bye Kanjorski."

What are we to make of this?

Well, we know that in 1992, when George H.W. Bush was booted from office in a wave of voter anger over the economy, Republicans gained 10 seats, a precursor to their 1994 triumph. This is not 1992, and '92 was a redistricting year, but "change" cut both ways that year in an environment assumed to be toxic for the GOP.

We also know Congress's approval ratings are in the tank. In Democratic seats with rusty incumbents who haven't had to campaign in several cycles (PA-11, PA-12 and GA-13 all fit the bill), the only way you can vote for change is to vote Republican.

So, the question is, did Beltway Republicans miss the boat in assuming that the easiest Democratic pickings would be freshmen in red districts instead of soft incumbents in culturally conservative but Democratic-leaning areas who haven't had a real campaign in 20 years?

The three things Russell, Honeycutt and Barletta have in common is that they are remarkably aggressive candidates who spotted an opportunity and took it, even against long odds.

And in those few districts where we are running aggressively, we are positioned to pick off some seats.

At the RNC in 2006, we noticed late in the game that in the districts everyone knew would be competitive (including surprise holds like CT-4, PA-6, and NM-1) we held our own. What got the Dems from a net gain of 15 to a net gain of 30 was 1) scandal seats, and 2) lazy Republican incumbents who didn't realize it was time to campaign until too late (like Obama endorser Jim Leach in IA-1, Gil Gutnecht in MN-2, Sue Kelly in NY-19).

This is why we need to focus on recruiting good candidates everywhere in 2010. I do think there is much to learn from the netroots' insistence on getting candidates to file in all 435 districts. And I think we need to be unafraid to tell our candidates that it's okay to lose the first time out -- the British parties routinely feed promising young lambs to the slaughter in unwinnable by-elections or deep in opposition territory. Those that prove their mettle are brought back to run in safe seats. Tony Blair won 10% of the vote in a 1982 by-election before being given a safe seat to run in. The average Democrat who was elected to Congress as a second-time candidate in 2006 won an average 42% of the vote in their previous election.

While I believe the Presidential race was always an uphill climb, deep Republican losses in the House were preventable and the product of poor recruiting resulting from an early psywar campaign to equate 2008 to 2006. In an anti-incumbent environment, it's not necessarily freshmen who are most endangered. They're the ones who know it's coming, who usually had to fight a tough campaign the last time out, and who aren't as closely tagged with Washington. It's corrupt, entrenched members in winnable seats. If a handful of Democrats unexpectedly go down on Election Night, you will know that our poor recruiting has left 10 to 15 seats on the table.

And what does good recruiting look like?

Heath Shuler, a former Washington Redskins quarterback, recalled to Bendavid how Emanuel recruited him to run for Congress in 2006. Shuler told Emanuel that he was worried that he would have to sacrifice family time as a congressman. "The next day," Shuler says, "Rahm calls and said, 'Hey, I just wanted to call you and tell you I'm taking my kids to school. I'll call you later.' … Then he calls me back three hours later and said, 'Hey, I just wanted you to know I stopped by my daughter's school. I'm going to lunch with her.' That was it. No conversation. He calls me a few hours later, 'I want to let you know I'm picking my kids up. I'm taking them to swim class'." This went on for two or three weeks—calls from dance recitals, swim classes, with the sounds of kids happily playing in the background—until Shuler agreed to run for Congress (he won).

I'm not saying that the playing field isn't tilted against Republicans. But you still man up and take the field. If you're a no name challenger who gets 40 to 45 percent next Tuesday, you're in excellent position to come back in 2010.