November 2002: The shape of the Senate.

Anyone concerned that Hill Republicans aren't taking the 2002 elections seriously enough can stop worrying: A 23-page strategy memo-from Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign-on how Democrats get out the vote has become mandatory reading among GOP operatives. A GOP looking to Hillary for political pointers is a GOP that will leave no stone unturned in its quest to preserve its House majority and recapture the Senate.

And give Hillary her due: While the memo makes for dry reading, it lays out with great clarity some things the Democrats are doing right-and that Republicans must do right to win next year's Senate races. GOP strategist Curt Anderson summarizes the memo's message as the importance of person-to-person contact; he contrasts Hillary's emphasis on engaging local community leaders-and tapping volunteers to work their neighborhoods-with recent Republican efforts that, he says, amounted to "placing phone calls from ten states away, and sending bad direct mail."

We shouldn't overstate the challenge facing the GOP next year. Although Republicans, for the second cycle in a row, are defending more Senate seats than Democrats are, GOP officials point out differences they hope will lead to a more congenial outcome in 2002. Republicans this time have 20 seats up, compared with the Democrats' 14; but these GOP incumbents are far less vulnerable than those of the last cycle, who had first been elected in the exceptional national tide of 1994. Eight of the GOP's incumbents in 2000 were running in states Gore won. Mitch Bainwol, the executive director of the Republican senators' campaign committee, explains that he is able to avoid the defensive psychology his predecessor faced in 2000 because he will be selling GOP candidates in states where voters buy Republican. Fifteen of his candidates will be running in solid "Bush Country," and another four where the presidential election was extremely close; only Susan Collins of Maine faces reelection in a state Gore won comfortably.

Furthermore, five Democratic senators are running in states Bush carried by at least 5 points. In Montana, to take one example, Bush enjoyed a 24-point win; early polls there find that a majority of Sen. Max Baucus's constituents want to replace him. And Bainwol believes that life is about to become even more difficult for Baucus. When he was the ranking minority member of the Senate Finance Committee, Baucus could cross over to support the president's tax bill. Now he will be the committee's chairman, and, says Bainwol, "the price of being in the majority is a demand for orthodoxy" that will send Baucus to the left- just when the politics of his Senate campaign demand that he tack to the right. Former governor Marc Racicot would be the strongest challenger to Baucus, but he has begged off running. Still, Republicans remain optimistic about the race. "We don't need Marc Racicot to beat even Chairman Baucus," Bainwol declares.

On the map, then, it looks like Republicans have a good shot at attaining a Senate majority next year. But to make it happen, they will need to maximize every possible advantage. Here are four key things they have to do.

One: Avoid running weak incumbents. Despite the favorable marketplace, there are vulnerable incumbents in Bush Country. Should the inestimable Jesse Helms, who has faced tough races in an increasingly Republican (but less and less conservative) North Carolina, decide to seek reelection, some of his admirers worry that he could strike voters as too frail for another term. He could wind up being the Bill Roth of 2002 (Sen. Roth being the Delaware Republican who, after 30 years in the Senate, finally lost reelection). In New Hampshire, most observers give Rep. John Sununu far better odds of defending the seat than the incumbent, Sen. Bob Smith. ...