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The election isn’t for another 14 months, so it’s too early for hand-wringing. You’re right, if the election was held tomorrow, Sununu would lose, but the election won’t be held tomorrow.

I followed the 2002 NH Senate election closely, and Shaheen was seen as a prohibitive favorite until Sununu won the nomination, at which time it appeared that it would be a tight race, but in the last two weeks just about every pundit was counting NH as a Dem pickup. Sununu ended up winning by 4% despite outgoing GOP Senator Bob Smith (the man he defeated in the primary) pointedly refusing to campaign for Sununu or even denounce the campaign for people to write-in Smith.

And speaking of Smith, he was reelected in 1996 by 3% despite Clinton carrying the state by 10% and Smith being written off throughout the campaign and having his opponent, Dick Swett, being declared the winner on election night by all the networks.

We *cannot* give up on NH (which gave President Bush 49% in 2004, just like it would be idiotic to write off the Senate race in VA (which gave President Bush 54% in 2004). It is *not* a foregone conclusion that the Democrats will keep the Senate, and we need to fight for every seat. I still believe that the two most vulnerable Senate seats are Johnson’s in SD and Landrieu’s in LA, and if we pick those two up we are at 51 Senators.

Defeatism only sparks more defeatism until it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.