"Democrats Push Fight for House in the Northeast" is the title of Raymond Hernandez's piece in this morning's New York Times. It's more or less a reprise of the piece that Rick Klein authored in the Boston Globe five weeks ago: "Democrats see Northeast as ripe for picking."

Jay Cost wrote about the flaws in the Globe piece (here and here) and the Times article is equally flawed in that it features Connecticut 5 and New Hampshire 2 as two of the "races to watch." That may be what Rahm Emanuel is telling Hernandez and what he wants people to believe, but no one seriously thinks that Charlie Bass or Nancy Johnson are in trouble right now - or that the Dems necessarily need these seats to win control of the House.

For example, CQ has NH-2 rated "safe Republican" and CT-5 "Republican favored," Charlie Cook has both seats rated "likely Republican" (**see below), and National Journal doesn't list either among the Top 25 races in the country.

While the New York Times seems content to play along with the DCCC's spin that a bunch of Northeastern seats are in play, right now that's not the reality. Rob Simmons is vulnerable in CT-2, Chris Shays to a little bit lesser degree in CT-4, and Boehlert's open seat (NY-24) is also a very legitimate pick-up opportunity for the Dems. Beyond that, however, the pickings in the Northeast get slim pretty fast - as they do elsewhere around the country once you get beyond the handful of Republican seats that are seriously in play.

**Originally I listed this as "the most definitive category Cook uses," which is incorrect. It is the second-most definitive category. The chart I referenced only "competitive" races - Cook has the remaining Republican seats listed as "solid" which do not appear. Among the 47 Republican races Cook lists in his chart there are three categories: toss-up ("the most competitive, either party has a good chance of winning"), lean Republican ("competitive races but one party has an advantage") and likely Republican ("not considered competitive at this point but have the potential to become engaged").