The American Spectator

p> HOUSING AROUND br> House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt was in San Francisco last week, touting his party’s chances in the next election. Speaking at a fundraiser hosted by Democratic Whip Nancy Pelosi , Gephardt predicted voters would sweep the Democrats back into power on the strength of their newfound aggressiveness with the Bush Administration. But not everyone bought all the glad tidings. /p>

One guest asked Gephardt what he thought of the California reapportionment that may net the Democrats only one new seat in the House. Predictions had Democrats gaining as many as five California seats after reapportionment. Even more troubling is the news that almost everyone in the state now give the Democrats no better than a 50-50 chance of holding on to the House seat currently being kept warm by Rep. Gary Condit.

Condit was knocked off in the primary last March by longtime political ally Dennis Cardoza, who will face state senator Dick Monteith in the fall. Cardoza currently holds between a seven to ten point lead, depending on whose poll you look at, a surprisingly low gap when you consider the Dems attempted to reshape Condit’s district by drawing in more traditional, liberal voters.

“We’ve done a much better job of getting voter registration drives up and running down there,” says a state Republican staffer. “We aren’t convinced we can win, but we’ve made that seat competitive when it shouldn’t have been.”

Gephardt, though, insisted that all was well in California, that the Democrats were going to “spend big” there in the fall, and that the House races nationwide would at worse be a wash for Democrats, who currently hold six fewer seats than the Republicans.