How Worried Are the Democrats?

Let's see, three prominent Democrats have announced their retirements in the past 24 hours, so I'm thinking they're getting pretty worried. John Fund has more:

How worried are Democrats about the mid-term voting only 10 months away? "If the election were held today, we'd lose the House," Democratic campaign consultant Tom King told the Huffington Post this week, expressing a view that HuffPo says is echoed by a number of Democratic strategists in off-the-record conversations.

Democrats are reportedly busy devising a strategy as a firewall against a citizen revolt at the polls. Rather than emphasize their party's accomplishments, they will attack Republicans for wanting to restore the discredited Bush era. "The Republican party in Washington today is no different than the Republican party that ran the Congress before," Rep. Chris Van Hollen, head of the Democratic House campaign committee, told the liberal Talking Points Memo.

Without delay, campaign strategists are advising Democratic clients to use bloggers, phone banks, direct mail and canvassers to try to create a negative impression of their GOP opponents. Labeling their GOP candidates as being part of the Sarah Palin or Tea Party wing of the GOP will be the key element. One Democratic consultant told Huffington Post that the 2010 election "basically comes down to one thing. You've got to kick the [bleep] out of somebody."

No doubt both sides intend to play rough this political year. Still, it's striking how much Democrats have pivoted away from the civility that President Obama pledged to bring to Washington.

So, Democrats think they will lose the House and the RNC's Michael Steele is assuring them they won't. Something's very wrong with this.