Incumbents may pay for voters' anxiety

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/election/s_468924.html

On the holiday weekend traditionally marking the end of summer -- and kicking off general election campaigns -- more than just seasonal change is in the air.
With rising oil prices, unstable national security conditions and scandals in both political parties in the nation's capital, voters in 2006 want not only a new direction but new faces representing them in Washington. And that means risk for incumbents of both parties.

Congressional candidates face tough races -- not unlike in 1992, when 56 House incumbents lost, either in the primary or general election. Of that number, 36 were Democrats and 17 were Republicans.

That retention rate of 85 percent compares to 1990, when 96 percent of House incumbents were re-elected, and 1994, when 90 percent were re-elected. In 1994, Democrats lost control of the House under Republican Rep. Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" purge. That year, 34 Democrat incumbents lost, but no Republicans lost.

Republican strategist Kent Gates, of the consulting firm Brabender Cox, believes Nov. 7 will be an election about "changing direction," not "a revolution in the way government is run. This election is more like 1992, and not 1994 -- which means that Democrat incumbents are in trouble, too."

This is the Scaife Rag