NEWS ARTICLE
From the New York Times
JULY 27, 2007

It was the sort of press release that would more typically go out six months before an election rather than 16 months before.

"Republican Main Street Partnership PAC Announces Support for Senator Susan Collins," blared the headline this week on a statement from the centrist Republican group, heralding its backing for Ms. Collins of Maine, a moderate who faces a potentially difficult re-election campaign next year.

The early endorsement illustrated more than the eagerness of Republican moderates to lend aid to Ms. Collins, a favorite in those circles. It also showed that even though the presidential race is getting nearly all the attention, the 2008 battle for control of Congress is also fully engaged.

The political architects for both parties in the House and Senate are hard at work recruiting candidates, raising money, mapping the playing field and experimenting with campaign themes. Strategists say that given what is likely to be a turbulent political environment, neither side can afford to waste a minute and things are off to a fast start as Democrats try to retain their hold on the House and Senate.

Lawmakers from swing states are getting special attention from both sides. Congressional Democrats owe much of their success in 2006 to knocking off Republicans in the Northeast and Midwest and, with the aid of sympathetic activist groups, are aggressively trying to brand Republicans there as enablers of President Bush.

In response, groups like the Republican Main Street Partnership are moving much earlier than they have in the past to shore up allies such as Ms. Collins and Representative Jim Gerlach, a Pennsylvania Republican who has been a regular Democratic target and also got the organization’s endorsement this week.

"They got killed on moderates last time and they are not going to make that same mistake again," said Ms. Collins.

Republicans, worried about holding on to the presidency, envision a plan by which they can recapture the House even if their presidential nominee is defeated. They point to the 61 districts now held by Democrats that were carried by President Bush. The calculation is that even if the Republican contender struggles nationally, the nominee would perform well enough in Republican-leaning areas to restore Republicans in those House districts. By contrast, Republicans now hold only eight seats that voted Democratic in the last presidential election.

"They are defending the harder-to-defend ground," said Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 2 Republican in the House.

He and other party leaders say they believe they will be able to easily retake seats in Texas and Florida that went Democratic due to unique circumstances such as the sudden vacancy created in the West Palm Beach, Fla., district of Mark Foley, who was forced to resign in the page scandal.

Democrats scoff at what they see as Republican happy-talk regarding 2008. Though some Democrats acknowledge they are likely to lose a few of the House seats they grabbed in 2006, they believe they will hold most of them and nab other seats around the country to offset such losses. They point to polls that, despite the low regard for Congress, show that voters favor Democrats over Republicans by substantial margins.

They also are cheered by the disparity in the financial resources between Congressional Republicans and Democrats. Republicans concede they have to work much harder to raise less money since they were exiled to the minority. Over lunch recently in the Republican Capitol Hill Club, Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said party donors remain in a bit of a post-2006 funk. But he expects it to dissipate as 2008 approaches and the prospect of a Democratic White House and Congress sinks in.

Democrats remain confident of holding both the House and the Senate, where Republicans are defending 21 seats to 12 for Democrats. Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who is performing an encore as chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said he believed Republican efforts to deny Democrats significant legislative victories will ultimately backfire.