Very good diary!  Either these Congressmen are paranoid, or they have a very heartfelt belief that their actions regarding the war, or lack thereof, are justified.

Holden's district is a lot iffier than it looks here. In 2002 his slightly Republican district was gerrymandered around a very Republican district with the intent of pushing him out, but instead the sitting GOP congressman (George Gekas) lost. Holden would have very tight races, but the Republicans in the district (and the state) have been incompetent.

First they nominated Penn State coach Joe Paterno's son for the name recognition. He had to hurriedly move into the congressional district for starters, had nearly no job experience or other credentials, and was a really poor campaigner. In 2006, the GOP candidate announced he was withdrawing from active campaigning due to ill health.

There's a lot of feuding within the Pennsylvania GOP at present; remember, Specter almost lost his primary in 2004. Then the party picked politically inexperienced football player Lynn Swann over a willing and popular former lt. gov. for its governor nominee, making a lot of insiders mad. And this is in a climate where dozens of state legislators (mostly Republican) were thrown out of office in 2005 over greed scandals. There are still active protest groups (mostly GOP) carrying their giant inflatable pink pig around the Capitol complex. County GOP committees in these parts are voting out their chairs and endorsing challengers to their sitting county commissioners. I read that even Jim Matthews (Chris's brother and the losing GOP lt. gov. candidate) narrowly won endorsement for county commissioner.

Which boils down to: It's OK to push Holden to the left now, but eventually the Republicans will get their act together, and his district is maybe 60% R.

2006 provides a skewed metric.  By and large, the NRCC was dedicated to protecting its members, and it was a wave year where no sitting Democrat got defeated.  If the Democrats expect, reasonably, that in 2008 they'll be playing a fair amount of defense, the numbers from 2006 aren't going to be as useful as numbers which better represent what it might be like to have to play defense if the Republicans field and support decent challengers.  2004 numbers and PVI might be useful to provide a bit of perspective.

Well, most of the "conservative" (in fact - not so conservative in comparison with the past or really conservative Republicans) Democ rats win (and sometime - win big) despite their Democratic label, not because of it. Run "progressive' in Taylor, Cramer or Melancon districts - and you will lose sure and big. Of all districts in your table i see about 5 - ME-2, CA-1, CA-29. CA-36, NY-2 and, may be - TN-5, where more "progressive" candidate stands a chance. That's abiut all..

For IN-09:

Baron Hill is in his 7th year (99-04, 07-present).  Hill lost in 2004 to Sodrel in large part for voting against the federal marriage amendment and the flag-burning amendment.

I was suprised by Chris' post on Hill not wanting withdrawl language - he never communicated that to me or anyone else I knwo in the district that keep in contact with him or his staff.  He made the right vote last week.

This is an odd district.  Bloomington is a liberal oasis and Baron cleaned up (8,000 vote victory in Monroe Co. of 35,000 toal votes).  But he lost the rest of the district just barely.

Hopefully we win the govrnorship in 08, or there may be a redistricting that could tilt IN-09 to a larger Republican PVI.

Well, I grew up in Jim Costa's district in central California, and he is pretty representative of his constituents.

And I worked in Mike Ross' district in Arkansas in 2004 as part of the coordinated campaign.  I can safely say that he is also representative of his constituents.

Maybe that's why they win so easily.

The re-elect numbers are deceiving.  Democratic performance data would be much more useful.

Good diary, but a more useful metric would be the partisan voting index (PVI).