As in every election cycle, the Democrats promise to win, and jittery conservative pundits feel they might. The effect is a virtual tsumani of media opinion that "the Republicans are in real trouble" this November.

You don't see me writing that and here's why.

Most obviously, the Democrats always promise to win--and always lose. That in itself isn't determinative, but along with the predictable rhetoric are the predictable structural, or should I say "cultural" problems within the Democrat party. Thing don't appear to change from cycle to cycle, so why should I expect different results?

Beyond that, there are some simple "realities" that drive election outcomes far more strongly than current opinion on theoretical subjects like the Iraq war (ask yourself, what do you really know about what's going on in Iraq?).

Those realities tend to be persistent over several election cycles because it takes time for a new generation to arise and for a region's economic and demographic profile to change. Similarly, issues with a broad, generalized effect can skew the patterns for one party or the other--war favors Republicans, peace favors Democrats.

There has been lots of talk about the Gingrich "Contract with America" and the 40 seats or so that changed hands in 1996, but the suddenness of that tidal change was more an issue with the media's habit of chasing the hot story of the moment, and ignoring trends that occur over longer periods. Republicans had been building a majority party since the late seventies, but the effort's visible fruits were only evident in the early to middle nineties.

The Democrats have had no such effort, until very recently. Perhaps in 20 years or so, we will see Democrat majorities again, but don't bother marking it on your calendar.

So what about the polls that predict a wipeout this November?

Jay Cost, a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago, enlightens the willing student.

Currently - the average June/July Gallup generic ballot of "national adults" shows the Democrats leading the GOP 51.8% to 38.4%. If we take only the people who are registering a party preference (what is known as the "two-party vote"), we can see that the Gallup generic ballot shows the Democrats leading 57.4% to 42.6% among people who prefer either the Democrats or the Republicans. That amounts to a very hefty 14.8% lead.

But this does not factor in the skew.

Historically speaking, when the Democrats have that kind of edge in June/July, by November their victory in the popular vote "shrinks" to a much more modest 51.75% to 48.25%.

In other words, today's Gallup generic ballot does not predict a Democratic blow-out. Not at all. It predicts another squeaker on the order of Bush v. Kerry. Bush's share of the two-party vote in 2004 was 51.2%. Kerry's was 48.8%. Michael Barone's "49-49 Nation," if you believe the generic ballot, has not actually gone anywhere. This year will be Round 3.

I'd recommend reading the entire article to understand the mechanics of the skew, but basically it comes down to the fact that polls always include a lot of people who say that they'll vote but won't. So why do they skew so reliably to the Democrats?

I think that the reason for both violations relates to the presence of non-voters who are registering a party preference. We know two things about non-voters that are relevant for this discussion - they are more inclined to the Democrats than voters are, and they know less about politics than voters do. This could make all the difference.

That's a polite way of saying that dummies and slackers tend to be Democrats. Oh, I'm so sorry, that was rude.

The generic polls means precisely nothing. What does mean something are factors like encumbency, money, organization and candidate quality. There have been some small stories out there that I think have a highly predictive value--particularly as it concerns the condition of the Republican party. For all the worry that Republicans were fractionalizing, not much sign of it survives today. In the words of one author--Republicans are "like a rock". There isn't the drama and bluster that always seems to follow the Democrats, but Republicans are decided, organized, determined and ready--and they have a lot of money--huge amounts dwarfing the Democrat war chest.

The Democrats on the other hand, are failing to bring some fundamentals to the table--like quality candidates. Candidate quality is huge in an election mainly for what it says about the chances of winning. Quality candidates usually wait for an opportunity to win, since losing isn't much of an asset to an ambitious political career. When they do run, they usually have excellent support from the party and a whole whack of cash on hand. Here in Utah, Jim Matheson, son of the popular former Democrat governor (huge statue of him in the justice building in Salt Lake), was a quality candidate biding his time for a grab at the brass ring. Perennial candidate Merrill Kook, I mean Cook (ten races, eight losses), lost the Republican primary after two mercurial terms in Congress to Derek W. Smith, a self-financing political neophyte. For Matheson, it was the dinner bell, and he handily won the race in a heavily Republican district. Looking over the this year's candidate slate for the Democrat party and its almost uniformly a bunch of party hack placeholders.

There are a number of other factors, incumbency not the least of them, that strongly suggest that we will be seeing pretty much the status quo come this November.

As for me, I'm looking forward to more people wearing trash cans on their heads during the post-election recriminations.