Are Dems Starting to Get Overconfident?

The Washington Post is reporting that the Dems are starting to make noises about what they plan to do after they take control of the House this Fall.

Democratic leaders, increasingly confident they will seize control of the House in November, are laying plans for a legislative blitz during their first week in power that would raise the minimum wage, roll back parts of the Republican prescription drug law, implement homeland security measures and reinstate lapsed budget deficit controls.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said in an interview last week that a Democratic House would launch a series of investigations of the Bush administration, beginning with the White House's first-term energy task force and probably including the use of intelligence in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Pelosi denied Republican allegations that a Democratic House would move quickly to impeach President Bush. But, she said of the planned investigations, "You never know where it leads to."

In recent days, Democratic confidence has been buoyed by a series of polls indicating that not only is Bush growing increasingly unpopular, so are Republicans in Congress. An Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Friday found that 33 percent of the public approves of Bush's job performance, the lowest rating of his presidency. And only 25 percent approves of the job Congress is doing, a figure comparable to congressional approval ratings before the 1994 elections that swept Republicans to power.

The AP-Ipsos poll found that 51 percent of Americans say they want Democrats rather than Republicans to control Congress. Only 34 percent favor Republican control.

"We have to be ready to win," Pelosi said, "and we have to tell [voters] what we will do when we win."

Republicans say Democratic leaders run the risk of looking overconfident -- if not foolish -- in predicting they will win the 15 net seats necessary to take the House.

"If they fall short [of control], she's going to be severely damaged," Carl Forti, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said of Pelosi.

It's one thing to announce plans for a legislative agenda, as the GOP did in 1994 with its Contract With America, but it's a whole different thing to announce plans for a series of White House investigations. Although that news may excite their angry left base, I don't think moderates (and certainly not conservatives) will want to spend the next two years with a paralyzed government and a president who can't get anything done because his administration is tied up in hearings. Promising an endless string of investigations is more likely to drive voters away from the Dems, rather than encourage them to change control in the House.

I hope the Dems keep talking like this, because if they do, they will only hurt themselves.