I’ve had similar thoughts as you re whether it would be better for the Democrats to come close in November to a majority in the House, but not actually to get it. In the 1930 off-year elections, the Democrats came within 2 votes of a majority in the House (218 Republican/216 Democratic); and then in 1932, they swept the House when F. Roosevelt was elected and kept it for 14 years. But just a cautionary note on this idea: The only two times in U.S. history that a party re-took the majority in the House in an off-year election, only to lose that majority during the following Presidential election, were:1946 (GOP took control) and 1948 (GOP lost control when Truman was re-elected); and1854 (opposition (Whigs/Republicans)) took control) and 1856 (Republicans lost control when Buchanan was elected).Most of the time, the party that takes over the House just keeps it for awhile – sometimes for a long time. I’m sure there were plenty who thought that the Republicans would “blow it” after the 1994 elections, but they maintained control through Clinton’s ‘96 re-election and even through almost-unprecedented losses during the “6th-year” election in 1998, when the argument that they had overplayed their hand was easily made.The problem with the theory is that it assumes that people will act tomorrow as they are acting today. But that often doesn’t happen. I wouldn’t assume for the world that a Democratic House majority in 2007 is going to sound or act like the Democratic House minority in 2006, or for that matter, that events would occur that won’t so entirely change the dynamic that the “issues” people care about don’t entirely change from what we are talking about today.