I know that the conventional wisdom — or the Obama-backers’ preferred narrative — is that we’re headed to a Democratic landslide.

But there is already one indicator that we are not headed to an exact re-run of the last cycle. The 2006 congressional races featured something quite odd, in that not one Republican knocked off a sitting Democrat. It marked the first time since the GOP was founded that the party won no seats previously held by Democrats in either the House or the Senate.

And yet this year, in what we’re told is a worse environment for the GOP than 2006 (an assertion I dispute), there are a couple of House seats that are just about guaranteed to be pickups, and a couple others looking surprisingly good. Internal Republican documents are indicating Florida 16, Pennsylvania 11, and Texas 22 are “hopeful” pickups and another 10 are possibilities.

The Democrat who replaced Tom DeLay is down by 17 percent. Democratic Congressman Paul Kanjorski is considered political toast. Democratic Congressman Tim Mahoney, reeling from revelations of multiple mistresses, is trying to save his seat with attack ads, and avoiding public appearances; he trails by anywhere from 9 percent to 26 percent.

I can hear it now: “But Jim, you’re talking about seats that just fell in the GOP’s lap – Mahoney, Tom DeLay’s old seat, a scandal-ridden old pol in central Pennsylvania…”

Yes, that’s the point. The GOP couldn’t knock off anybody in 2006, even in deep red districts. In Georgia, John Barrow won the 12th District race by just 864 votes of more than 142,000 cast, and Jim Marshall secured the 8th District seat by only 1,752 votes of nearly 160,000 votes cast. Scandal-ridden pols like William Jefferson and Allan Mollohan skated to victory. This year, the dynamic is different; the Obama/Democratic wave isn’t enough to save the scandal-ridden…

(Between PA-11 and Murtha’s sudden weakness in Pennsylvania’s 12th district, the GOP could actually pick up two Democratic-held seats in Pennsylvania. No wonder Team McCain refuses to give up on the Keystone State.)