It's like WWI without mustard gas

In the House, the terrain is even more concentrated than in the Senate. Democrats need to pick up just 15 seats out of 435 to win control. That may sound easy, but no more than a few dozen seats -- less than a tenth of the total -- appear remotely competitive. There are two reasons that more than nine-tenths of the House is out of play. One is that Republicans increasingly live near other Republicans and Democrats increasingly live among other Democrats, which reduces the number of districts with a close enough partisan balance to field a competitive election. The second is that members of both parties have drawn up districts in order to cement their incumbents in place. Gerrymandering is an ancient art, but the technology used to create districts has grown so sophisticated that both parties -- but especially Republicans -- have learned to use it with less shame and more sophistication.

California Democrats and Republicans are especially notorious practitioners, having drawn a map that safeguards the state's House incumbents from virtually all challenges. As a result, none of the expected competitive races lie within the Golden State.

As was the case in World War I, the limited terrain has spurred a strategic quarrel about widening the war. During the Great War, generals on both sides, but especially the Allies, debated whether to concentrate their resources in France, where the heaviest fighting took place, or to open fronts elsewhere, such as Turkey or Mesopotamia. Democrats are having the same debate today. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is committing resources in all 50 states, with the long-term goal of making his party viable everywhere. This strategy has drawn bitter criticism from Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois and Charles E. Schumer of New York -- the Democrats in charge of directing their party's electoral campaign -- who insist that the 50-state goal has diverted resources from battleground states where control of Congress will be won.

Deep-rooted enmity

Democrats and Republicans have come to loathe one another in much the same way the Germans and Austrians hated the French, British and Russians. As the field of the battle has narrowed, each side has come to view the struggle in something close to apocalyptic terms.