Typically, Congressmen, and even most Senators, are elected on purely local issues, which explains why South Dakota elected both Daschle and Bush.

This would seem to make the economy a more important issue than the war, at least as far as House elections go, and the Republicans have their work cut out for them. Tax cuts would help. Real ones.

The Bush tax cut was a half-assed approach. He should have either pushed full cuts immediately, or skipped them entirely. The "manana" cuts, that kick in over years, still exposed him to all the grief from the Democrats, who hate all tax cuts, but did little to improve the economy.

The flip side, of course, is that the tax cuts, which have not really occurred yet, can't be legitimately blamed for the current economic problems, but the Democrats are blaming them anyway, and most of their voters don't bother to figure it out.