ASHINGTON - When Democratic leaders declared in January that they were ''on the verge of taking back the House in 2000,'' they were counting on candidates like Barney Brannen.
Brannen looked like a decent choice to unseat a three-term New Hampshire Republican, US Representative Charles Bass. Brannen was a lawyer. He was a mainstream Democrat. Above all, he had a talent for raising cash, bringing in $144,000 in the first three months of the year - nearly two-thirds more than his opponent during the same time period.
But five months after he quit working full time to run for office, Brannen, 39, is still a relative unknown. He lags $100,000 behind Bass in fund-raising. And, with six months remaining until Election Day - an eternity in campaign terms - his prospects for toppling the incumbent remain far from clear.
Across the country, at least eight other Democratic insurgents are waging similar battles, key races in what is shaping up as the closest campaign for control of Congress in decades. Several challengers have amassed giant war chests, and engendered similarly great expectations.
Yet they face serious obstacles that money alone can't overcome: voter complacency, local issues, and the simple fact that incumbents almost always win. The challengers' struggles suggest that, despite their unprecedented $28.6 million in campaign funds, Democrats may not be as nearly ''on the verge'' of capturing Congress as they had hoped, according to several political analysts observing the House.
Republican congressional leaders, meanwhile, appear more confident of holding their majority than they did last year, when the Democratic fund-raising blitz began. Thanks to a number of political developments - including the fading fear of impeachment backlash, a relatively peaceful legislative season designed not to create election season fodder, and the resurgent popularity of the party's standard-bearer, Texas Governor George W. Bush - Republicans are no longer talking so much of possible defeat.
Representative Thomas M. Davis 3d of Virginia, head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said last week he is ''feeling a lot better now.''
''We clearly feel a lot more confident about where things are going. The Democrats, they're raising money and sounding cocky,'' Davis said. ''But when you talk to them privately, they know they've got a very tough race.''
It is a struggle over just six seats in a House of 435.
But what sounds quite simple - ''Six seats to a Democratic majority!'' blares the Democratic Congressional Committee Web site - is actually a daunting political puzzle.
Given the traditional strength of incumbents - 98 percent were reelected in 1998 - the real battleground is for the open seats. At first glance, the open-seat ratio appears to favor Democrats: 23 Republicans are vacating their seats this year, compared with only seven Democrats.
But only eight or nine of those open Republican seats are within the Democrats' grasp, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. The rest are in deeply conservative districts. That means that unless Democrats win six of those open seats, and lose none of their own - an unlikely prospect - they will need to unseat some entrenched Republicans, only four of whom are considered to be ''toss-ups'' in swing districts, according to the Cook Report. ''Winning back the House is like trying to lose 15 pounds. The first 10 pounds are easy, and the last five are hard,'' said Amy Walter, who monitors House races for the Cook Report. ''This thing is a total toss-up.''
That is the driving force behind the Democrats' laserlike focus on money, which began almost as soon as US Representative Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island took charge of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 1998.
By the beginning of this year, Kennedy announced he had ''leveled the financial playing field and eliminated the House Republican advantage,'' with some $25 million raised the year before, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. That was three times the amount raised by the Democratic committee in 1997, and more than $5 million more than the Republican committee, setting the pace for what is by all accounts the most aggressive congressional fund-raising season in history.
Kennedy's aggressive effort helped to give the Democrats a much better than expected shot at retaking the House. But even Kennedy admits his fund-raising prowess is only ''critical up to a certain point,'' giving unknown candidates the ability to afford campaign basics, such as television advertising. Beyond that, Kennedy said, there applies a ''certain law of diminishing returns,'' in which voters, faced with two well-financed candidates, base their decisions on local policy concerns and each party's message.
In the face of those realities, Democrats have devised a tough but traditional game plan: casting the House Republican leaders as extremist and inept. In an interview last week, Kennedy attacked his GOP counterparts for their ''ideological jihad,'' reaching back to the government shutdown of 1995 and to the Clinton impeachment two years ago. He conjured up the memory of Newt Gingrich, the controversial former US House speaker who stepped down in 1998.
''We don't have Newt anymore, but his legacy is alive and well in the current leadership,'' Kennedy said.
In early May, Kennedy went so far as to file a civil antiracketeering suit against the third-ranking Republican House leader, majority whip Tom DeLay. Using a legal maneuver often reserved for assaults on the mafia, Kennedy accused DeLay, who is known for aggressive fund-raising, of engaging ''in a scheme to extort political contributions.'' Later, he insisted that the charge, accompanied by a flurry of public announcements, was not motivated by politics. Republicans saw it otherwise.
''I've never seen such an act of desperation,'' Representative Davis said of the suit. ''They're acting the way Republicans used to act.''
Nonpartisan analysts are unconvinced that such a national Democratic strategy will have an impact, if for no other reason than that few Americans are very familiar with either DeLay or the current US House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert. At the same time, congressional elections have traditionally hinged on local issues, absent a national crisis. Political observers also doubt that this year's presidential race will have much of an impact, except in possibly boosting turnout for congressional races.
''This is going to be hand-to-hand combat in congressional districts across the country,'' said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. ''No coattails. No shirttails. All politics is local.''
Early indications suggest that will be very much the case in the 2d District of New Hampshire. And yet, given the mathematical necessity of unseating some Republicans, the race remains a ''top priority'' for Democrats, Kennedy said.
On one side is Brannen, a native of Lyme, N.H., who sells himself as a new advocate for ''education, health care, and fiscal responsibility.'' As a Democrat, he is acutely aware of the changing demographics of the district. With a growing population of new residents in cities like Nashua and Keene - some of them transplants from more liberal Massachusetts - as well as a voting base that supported Clinton in both 1992 and 1996 and elected Democratic congressman Dick Swett twice, Brannen believes it is simply ''a district that ought to be represented by a Democrat.''
On the other side is Bass, a prochoice Republican with a family legacy in New Hampshire politics dating back to a grandfather who was elected governor in 1910. Bass has weathered Democratic opponents since his election during the Republican sweep of 1994; each time, he has prevailed, though never overwhelmingly. ''He has never won by big margins,'' said Walter, of the Cook Report, ''and he was running against really very flawed Democrats.''
''That said,'' she continued, ''he is still going to be tough to knock off. This is Charlie Bass's fourth campaign. He knows the ropes. He knows how to win when he's highly targeted. I would say this is a race to watch.''
