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The fight for control of the House will be just as intense. In 2000, G.O.P. candidates handily outraised Democrats and flooded the airwaves with more ads, but many saw their leads evaporate on Election Day when union workers swarmed door to door to get out the Democratic vote. During a party retreat in West Virginia last January, DeLay handed out packets marked stomp, for Strategic Taskforce to Organize and Mobilize People. It outlines a campaign to spend millions of dollars busing volunteers from safe congressional districts to ones where Republicans face a fight.
Because Pelosi and DeLay represent the hard-core loyalists in their party, they can be polarizing figures. "You can't take Pelosi to every district, and you can't take DeLay to every district," admits Davis. Both have been called vindictive. Pelosi gave $10,000 to the primary opponent of the powerful Democratic Congressman John Dingell, who backed Hoyer in the race for whip. "That was dumb," says a senior House Democratic aide. DeLay has lately tried to tone down his bulldog image. At the party's January retreat, he staged a comedy skit, putting on a gray wig and pretending to take media lessons so he would "project a kinder, gentle face." With Pelosi as a foe, however, he had better make sure his inner bulldog is still hungry.