Republicans On The Run

But party leaders are warning privately against taking that strategy too far. "If Diet Coke criticizes Coke, people buy Pepsi, not Diet Coke," said Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee. In an internal Republican Party memo provided to TIME, Jan van Lohuizen, a longtime Bush pollster, warns candidates tempted to distance themselves that "President Bush drives our image and will do so until we have real national front-runners for the '08 nomination. If he drops, we all drop." Another Republican strategist describes the problem for G.O.P. candidates this way: "Adding weight to the anchor doesn't help them."

Meanwhile, although there is no doubt that Americans are unhappy with the Republicans who run the country, Democratic strategists acknowledge that they have yet to sell voters on their party. In the TIME poll, approval for congressional Democrats is no higher (39%) than for Republicans, and 56% of voters said they don't believe the Democrats offer a clear set of alternative policies. Democratic activists and fund raisers are putting pressure on their leaders to come up with a program to tout as an option different from the Republican agenda, the way Gingrich and G.O.P. candidates did in 1994 with their 10-point Contract with America. Few voters were aware of the particulars of the Contract, but it helped give coherence and a positive tilt to the party message. Emanuel points out that the Republicans did not unveil their 1994 Contract until September of that year and says the Democrats are leery of doing anything right now that may draw attention away from the Republicans' problems. Still, he promises, "we will have, and properly so, in late spring and early summer a rollout [that tells voters], You give us the car, and we'll drive it."

Indeed, the party's House leaders and committee chairs have begun making plans for their first moves if they take power, Democratic sources told TIME. Those sources said one of the first steps that a newly installed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would take would be to introduce legislation making college tuition more affordable for middle-class families, perhaps through tax credits and lower interest rates on student loans. Democrats would move immediately to tighten port security, seeking to have 100% of incoming container cargo inspected. A Democratic official briefed on the plans said the party would quickly push a bill designed to inhibit future lobbying scandals. The sources said Democrats would push for changes to the troubled Medicare prescription-drug plan, giving more control to Medicare and less to private providers and striking the provision that prevents the government from negotiating prices with pharmaceutical companies.