Bush: The Optimist-in-Chief as GOP mopes on upcoming elections

I found this through The New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 — The capital is filled with Republicans convinced that they will lose the House and maybe the Senate. So last week, the White House and party leaders convened a “friends and allies” teleconference to dispute what Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, considers flawed conventional wisdom.

For 20 minutes, Mr. Mehlman and the White House political director, Sara Taylor, tried to lift the cloak of gloom that has descended on the top ranks of Republican strategists, using what one of the dozens of lobbyists, donors, party aides and other supporters who listened in later called “happy talk.”

President Bush and his political strategists may be the most outwardly optimistic Republicans in Washington these days, and perhaps the only ones. They are doing their best to fend off the sense of impending doom within their party that they fear will become a self-fulfilling prophecy on Nov. 7.

[....]

Mr. Bush has been saying for months that he believes Republicans will keep control of the House and the Senate, and he is not changing his tune now, even if it means taking the rare step of rebuking his own father.

[....]

The president’s professed certainty, shared with outside friends and advisers, is a source of fascination among even his staunchest allies. In lobbying shops and strategy firms around town, the latest Republican parlor game is divining whether the White House optimism is staged, or whether Mr. Bush and his political team really believe what they are saying.

There are hints that the mood is not so upbeat or unremittingly confident in the West Wing. Mr. Bush and his inner circle, people in regular contact with them say, are well aware of the Democratic surge recorded by polls, and of the stakes for the final two years of an administration already burdened with troubles like the deteriorating situation in Iraq.

A strategist close to the White House said Mr. Bush’s own political team had polling that showed as many as 14 House seats were probably already lost to Democrats, just one shy of the 15 seats they need to gain to win control.

Though White House aides said that account was exaggerated, they acknowledged that polls have shown at least that many races with Democrats leading Republicans. “Their attitude is, ‘We’ve got our backs against the wall, but we know how to fight our way out of this,’ ” said Charles Black, a Republican strategist who has been in regular contact with Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s senior adviser. “They’re not unrealistic, but they’re optimistic that we can still win.”

This story brings up a huge question that I have for the Bush administration. Is the President so confident that the Republican Party can maintain control of Congress--by even projecting that they will maintain control of the House by one seat? Or has the situation at the White House gotten so bad that the president and his top advisors are living in a fantasy world at the White House--a world where they can so manipulate the polling data to show that the Republicans are winning? A fantasy world where even the lower-level White House aids are not willing to become the bearer of bad political news to the president?