My latest column from Tech Central Station, looking at some more parallels between 1994 and 2006.

Excerpt:

Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.) doth protest too much. In a memo sent out to Republican congressmen earlier this month, Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, tried to quell fears that the 2006 midterm elections will turn into a bloodbath for the GOP.

The president’s approval ratings may be at an all time low, and Congress’ might be the worst since right before the Gingrich Revolution, but Reynolds’ message was simple: “The Democrats say we should be worried. But I am NOT.” The capital letters are in the original.

The parallels between 1994 and 2006 keep piling up. Republican denials that there could even possibly be a problem might just be the next piece of the puzzle.

Reynolds makes a couple of solid points as to why Republicans don’t have to break out their emergency pants just yet. The Republican congressional committee has three times as much cash on hand as the Democratic congressional committee; and, as the memo boasts, “redistricting has reduced the overall number of truly competitive congressional races.”

But he also hauls out a chunk of argument that looks increasingly stale and irrelevant: the idea that though voters are exceedingly upset with Congress as a whole they’re still eager to send their own congressmen back to Washington, D.C. Reynolds cites a Pew poll from September showing that 57 percent of Americans would like to see their Congressman returned to office, versus 25 percent who would not.

But if Reynolds or his staff had done any digging into the poll numbers from 1994, he probably wouldn’t have cited the Pew poll — at least not if he wanted to disprove the 1994/2006 connection.

Read on … if you dare …

(Toward the end, I compare Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to lactose-intolerant kittens. It makes sense in context. Well, maybe even out of context it makes sense. Depending on your general disposition toward kittens.)