Gloom hangs over Republicans when they think of next year’s elections — but it shouldn’t. The sea change in political fortunes between 2004 and 2006 should not remind Righties only that the winds can change quickly — from a supportive breeze at your back, to a gale-force wind in your face — they should also be reminded that the political landscape can get better fast, too.

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Next year could be a surprisingly good one for the GOP, though it’s clearly not guaranteed. The party will need good candidate recruitment, message discipline, a clear, unifying agenda, and a bit of good luck. But on a wide variety of fronts, there are pieces of good news that are overshadowed by the mainstream media’s preferred “Democratic-Tsunami Part Two” narrative.

Presidency
The Democratic party faces a choice: Their field includes one of the most charismatic and likeable figures to come along in politics in a long time, who attracts thousands at every campaign stop, and has generated enormous enthusiasm among young people. It also includes a smooth-talking populist who could go to any red-state district and campaign with the Democrat and help that candidate, whose wife has the rare ‘two-fer’ appeal of being beloved by the hardcore antiwar base, and simultaneously the subject of enormous public sympathy for her fight against cancer.

Naturally, the Democrats appear set to nominate the woman who can’t top 50-percent in a head-to-head match-up against Ron Paul.

Can Hillary win a red state? In spite of Howard Dean’s insistence that the party needs a 50-state strategy, and that Democrats should contest as many states as possible, it’s unlikely she’ll put more than a handful of states that voted for Bush in play.

Ohio? She could win, but it will once again be down to the wire. Pollster Scott Rasmussen finds that against each of the four leading Republican hopefuls, Clinton’s support from Ohio voters is in the mid-forties, ranging from a low of 42-percent against McCain, to a high of 46-percent against Romney. In the latest batch, she beats Thompson and Romney, and loses to Giuliani and McCain. Forty-eight percent of Ohio voters have a favorable opinion of Clinton while 50-percent have a negative view. Barring any sudden changes, the Buckeye state will be as competitive as 2004.

Florida? It too, will probably be competitive down to the wire. A Survey USA poll, released on November 1, has Hillary leading all of the GOP contenders, but Giuliani and McCain are within the margin of error. Quinnipiac’s late October poll found essentially the same results with Giuliani leading her narrowly, McCain within one percent and Thompson within five percent.

Maybe Hillary will outperform John Kerry in a couple of the Southwestern states that were relatively close last time around. Though, if most of the map stays the same, without Ohio or Florida, the Democratic nominee would have to sweep New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada.

(In an October memo aiming to persuade folks that Clinton can win the West, Mark Penn wrote, “Hillary is winning the general election in New Mexico, a state which Bush won in 2004, and in California, Oregon and Washington. Together with Hawaii, this means Hillary Clinton is starting with two-thirds of the electoral votes in the West.” Yes, but Al Gore won all of those and Bush won New Mexico’s five electoral votes by 1-percent, so she’s doing about the same as either losing Democratic candidate of the past two cycles. The same memo notes that she leads Rudy Giuliani by two points in Oregon, and contends “because of her unique ability to take advantage of changing demographics, Hillary can also turn Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, and Montana from Red to Blue” without citing any polling numbers.)

There are two upsides to Hillary’s nomination: First is that she’s beatable; the second is that a figure so thoroughly disliked by half the country is just about incapable of a winning in a landslide, barring some third-party faction breaking away from the GOP. Hitting 270 electoral votes is extremely achievable for any of the top tier Republican candidates.

House of Representatives
The Democrats won back the majority in the House in 2006 by doing well in districts that are unfamiliar territory for them: Two Arizona seats, which Bush carried by 52.9 and 54-percent in 2004, and Kansas seat that Bush carried with 59-percent of the vote. In addition, there was Heath Shuler’s North Carolina-11 seat that Bush carried with 57-percent. They had a couple of right-leaning districts fall in their laps because of scandals — Mark Foley’s Florida-16 seat, Tom DeLay’s Texas-22 seat, Don Sherwood’s Pennsylvania-10.

There are a couple of House Democrats who won reelection by the skin of their teeth in 2006, when they had a gale-force wind at their back. In Georgia, John Barrow won the 12th District race by just 864 votes of more than 142,000 cast, and Jim Marshall secured the 8th District seat by only 1,752 votes of nearly 160,000 votes cast.

A massive chunk of the House Democratic caucus is running in Bush country, heartland communities that Hillary probably won’t sell well in: In 2008, 70 Democrats will be running for reelection in districts Bush won in 2004. Four House Republican-held seats are in districts won by Kerry.

How would you like to be one of these freshmen House Democrats seeking your first reelection bid with Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket? While all of the GOP candidates have their strengths, how would you feel seeing a southern or western GOP nominee Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, or John McCain coming in for a rally for your Republican rival, blasting away the Democrats as the party of gun control, taxpayer-funded abortion, driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and activist liberal judges?

(There are also a few Hillary-vulnerable Democrats in blue state districts, too.)

You think the Democrats planned on having an 11-percent approval rating? This is now way beyond some short-lived swoon. Only one poll since May has had Congress’ approval above 30 percent.

The Democrats have thrown away most of the reform issues that helped them a lot with independents: lobbying reform, ethics rules, earmarks, lack of disclosure, junkets, etc. The “culture of corruption” narrowly outranked terrorism on the list of voter concerns in 2006. Barring any last-minute passage of rules changes, no Democrat will be able to run for reelection on the message, “we cleaned up Washington” without triggering derisive and skeptical laughter from voters.