Second-Rate Candidates

Almost every day seems to bring a new storm warning for Republicans. The current national political climate is undeniably awful for their party.

A report released last week by the Gallup Poll's Jeffrey Jones said that in elections from 1974 to 2002, when the approval rating for Congress as an institution was 40 percent or higher (1986, 1998, and 2002), the party in control of the House lost an average of only five seats. But when the approval rating of Congress was lower than 40 percent (1974, 1978, 1982, 1990, and 1994), the average loss was 29 seats.

In the most recent Gallup Poll, taken March 13-16, Congress's approval rating was just 27 percent, compared with 65 percent disapproval.

If the environment looks so conducive to a Democratic surge, why aren't scads of first-rate challengers taking on potentially vulnerable Republican incumbents? The party's failure to recruit them isn't for lack of trying. Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and his team of recruiters have done everything short of kidnapping to pull strong challengers into key contests.

But what, exactly, makes someone a top-tier challenger? A truly promising candidate possesses most -- if not all -- of the following characteristics: He or she has run and won competitive races; has stature and name recognition in at least one significant part of the district; has an interesting and/or compelling personality and life story; understands campaigns and what it takes to win; is a proven fundraiser; has a sufficiently thick skin to withstand darts from the other side; and is enough of a scrapper to fight back as hard as necessary.

In contrast, second-tier candidates are those who have a few of those traits, but not most of them. And third-tier competitors tend to have, at most, only one or two of those key attributes.

One reason that Democrats are having recruitment problems is that they have not enjoyed a strong national wind at their backs since the 1982 midterm election, when a recession marked President Reagan's first term. Before that, a pro-Democratic gale had not blown since 1974, when the Watergate scandal badly hurt Republicans who had stood by President Nixon.

At 52, I'm at the older end of the peak age group from which parties hope to draw most of their top-tier, experienced challengers. People who are my age were in their late 20s in 1982. And, back then, most of those whom Democratic recruiters are now keen on luring into promising races either were not actively involved in politics or were on the lowest rungs of the political ladder.

Very few of them were in a position to appreciate what the political climate did to benefit Democrats that year, when they picked up 26 seats in the House even though they had fielded relatively few strong challengers and the GOP had run what was probably its strongest group of candidates in a generation. In 1974, today's 52-year-olds were just turning 21 and were even less politically aware.

Some observers argue that 1986 was a great year for Democrats because they recaptured the Senate. Yet that success had less to do with Democrats' popularity than with the weakness of GOP incumbents swept into office with Reagan in 1980.

To be sure, Republicans this year have just a handful of top-tier challengers of their own. And they've been unsuccessful at persuading strong candidates to run against several potentially vulnerable Democratic House incumbents, including Lincoln Davis (TN-04), Jim Matheson (UT-02), Dennis Moore (KS-03), Earl Pomeroy (ND-AL), and Stephanie Herseth (SD-AL).

Will fielding surprisingly few first-tier challengers keep Democrats from winning a majority in the House? If the wave that hits the GOP in November is weak, or moderate, the answer is yes. If the wave is strong, the answer is maybe. If that wave turns out to be a real tsunami, the answer is absolutely not.

Just remember: In 1994, the GOP ran, at best, only two dozen first- or second-tier challengers, but 34 challengers won. Even unpromising candidates can be swept into office by a tidal wave in their party's favor.