Taking back the House

One of my biggest pet peeves in politics is people who refuse to believe in the possible. The Washington Post reports that Stephanie Herseth's victory in the congressional special election yesterday in South Dakota has now given Democrats hope that perhaps they could even take back the House this year. Up until Herseth's victory, no one even considered that possibility.

Any my big question is: Why not?

If I talk to one more person in DC who on any given day tells me how absolutely positively certain he is that there is no way the Dems can take back the House or Senate, I'm going to scream. Why? Because already in my 15 years in politics I've heard everybody and his brother tell me about "the impossible" that then becomes "possible." To wit:

- When Clinton won in 92, the Republicans all told me that they would never win the White House or Congress again. In 2 years, they had taken back the House and Senate.
- When Democrats lost the House and Senate, I'd asked a very big player in town when he knew there was a possibility of losing each body to the Republicans. He told me they knew one body was in play a few weeks before the election, and the other they only had a clue a day or two before the election. That means that folks were saying as much as two days before the election that there was no chance of the Dems losing control of that body, and they were wrong.

My point is that not only are these pundits often wrong, but their message either dispirits the troops (in the case of convincing them that they can't win the race), or it lulls the troops into a false sense of security, which is dangerous as hell. I find this problem all the time, whether working on gay politics or other political issues. Folks tell you it simply can't be done, and that attitude becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.