The thing is, the map really needs to be expanded one more time. First off, the polling in Idaho shows that Craig's problems haven't rubbed off on the rest of the GOP there ... LaRocco can't hold any of the challengers below 50%.

That means you need to start putting other seats into play. Oklahoma is cheap and Inhofe has very high negatives. McConnell has been catching flak in Kentucky. Wyoming would be a dirt cheap race, especially if you could convince Freudenthal to run. Maybe Noriega makes a run at in in Texas (though that's a ton of money). Slattery had good numbers in a very tough district.

You probably have to have eleven or twelve seats in play to get to 60. But 59 is at least enough to get you efca (specter will vote for cloture).

Nicholas,

I agree that you need eleven or twelve seats in play in order to get nine to fall your way. Inhofe, I think, would be almost impossible to knock off -- the best hope is that he decides to retire. There's also the possibility that Sessions gets caught up in the Alabama corruption case that TIME recently broke. But I doubt it.

And then there's the possibility of the Dems picking up nine but losing Landrieu's seat, which would be a real bummer. Especially if it was because so many African-Americans were driven out of the state during Katrina, never to return.

Oh certainly ... expanding the map to eleven or twelve is a very tall order. But it's definitely going to require at least one outside-the-box play, in the same way that having Harold Ford Jr. make the Tennessee race competitive tied down resources that could have gone to Virginia or Missouri.

With the current state of play, only seven of the nine you list are truly competitive; Idaho isn't really on the table given current polling, and Kerrey has yet to announce in Nebraska. So one really has to think about was to expand the map further.

It's definitely slimmer pickings, but there have to be candidates willing to put the effort in in case their opponents fall flat. If the evanagelical movement starts taking global warming seriously, do Inhofe's rantings leave an opening? Is there ever going to be a candidate in North Carolina? Is Ted 'Tubes' Stevens going to go down in the VECO scandal? Can the Ditch Mitch efforts gain any traction? Is Noriegamania going to work?

I'll be happy with picking up 5 seats and the WH. It might make governing hard, but I'd rather take pot shots for the next few years framing the GOP as a party of OBSTRUCTIONISTS for a change.