GOP tidal wave in 2010?

Dan Balz:

A week after Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said Republicans can't win control of the House in this year's midterm elections, two House leaders have offered a contrary -- and highly bullish -- forecast.

"We believe we can win back the majority," House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told a group of reporters over dinner Tuesday night. "Lot of work to do. It is not a done deal, a sure shot, but we believe we can take back this majority."

Cantor and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who heads up the party's recruiting efforts for the midterm elections, offered both their upbeat predictions for the midterms and a rough roadmap for taking back the majority they lost in 2006.

The two House leaders, pointing to GOP victories in Virginia and New Jersey last November and the nervousness among Democrats about next week's special Senate election in Massachusetts, said that the national political climate is now titled significantly against President Obama and the Democrats.

They said the effort Democrats are now making in Massachusetts reminded them of the lengths to which Republicans went in 2006 in special elections in normally GOP districts, only to lose them because of the political environment.

"This is an election where people are just going to be motivated and governed by their distaste for this agenda being proposed here," Cantor said. "It's that straightforward."

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The two leaders said internal polling presented during a retreat earlier in the day was so positive that the pollsters "said they had to recheck their numbers because they could not believe that the numbers looked as good as they did for us on some of these issues."

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Republicans plan to focus their attacks on Democrats on three key House votes: the administration's stimulus package, the energy bill that includes a cap-and-trade mechanism and the health-care bill that is in final negotiations.

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Certainly the Democrats have no GOP cover on these three bills. Despite its clear unpopularity, Democrats plan to run against the GOP on health care, which appears to be an in kind contribution to the Republicans. For every Democrat attack ad on the issue, the Republicans can say thank you and remind folds that they are on the side of the voters on the issue.

While Democrats claim the stimulus bill was a success the employment numbers tell a different story. Republicans just need to remind voters of the Democrat promises and the current reality. On the cap and trade bill, Republicans only need to remind voters of how it will lower their standard of living during a recession.