"Those Damn Republicans Won't Give Up!"

From the Washington Post:

White House Upbeat About GOP Prospects
Self-Assurance of Bush, Rove and Others Is Not Shared by Many in the Party

By Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 15, 2006; A04

Amid widespread panic in the Republican establishment about the coming midterm elections, there are two people whose confidence about GOP prospects strikes even their closest allies as almost inexplicably upbeat: President Bush and his top political adviser, Karl Rove.

Some Republicans on Capitol Hill are bracing for losses of 25 House seats or more. But party operatives say Rove is predicting that, at worst, Republicans will lose only 8 to 10 seats -- shy of the 15-seat threshold that would cede control to Democrats for the first time since the 1994 elections and probably hobble the balance of Bush's second term.

In the Senate, Rove and associates believe, a Democratic victory would require the opposition to "run the table," as one official put it, to pick up the necessary six seats -- a prospect the White House seems to regard as nearly inconceivable.

The Mark Foley page scandal and its fallout have many Republicans panicked, but Rove professes to be taking it in stride. "The data we are seeing from individual races and the national polls would tend to indicate that people can divorce Foley's personal action from the party," he said in a brief interview Thursday.

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Three points here. 1) the liberal media (sorry, I try to avoid being redundant) just hates it how optimistic us Republicans are, even though they seem to think that it's only the President and Rove, 2) isn't it nice to see how confident Rove and POTUS are? and 3) this story is a perfect one for the conspiracy theorists to reflect back on when the Dems don't win the House and say, "even thought they had no shot that Rove was over confident. This election must be rigged!"