Despite their dreams of recapturing one or both houses of Congress in November, the Democrats seem determined to reprise their poor showings in 2002 and 2004. Now, as then, they are dozing in the campaign's homestretch, like Aesop's hare, lulled by rosy predictions and the premature applause of Hollywood and the mainstream press. Soon, however, they may awake to discover that while they snoozed before the finish line, George W. Bush hunkered down in his tough shell, kept his slow legs moving and inched them out.

The president has had a rough year since his re-election. But the furor is now subsiding, and once again, turtle-like, his poll numbers are creeping forward. The economy continues to grow. Interest rates, unemployment and inflation remain manageable. Gas may fall to $2 a gallon. It matters little whether the president is as responsible for the price decline as he was for its rise — the public feels better all the same.

In hindsight, Hurricane Katrina is increasingly seen as the singular natural disaster it was — made worse by lapses in government at all levels. And too much federal largess, rather than too little, is the new worry.

The line between the supposedly good "multilateral" war in Afghanistan to remove the Taliban and the bad "unilateral" one that ousted Saddam is blurring. Suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices are the terrorism of choice in both theaters. In some weeks, more are killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq. And al-Qaida, unlike the American media, sees both as integrated jihadist struggles against the infidel.

When the smoke cleared in Lebanon, Israel had not lost to Hezbollah — but gained even more support from the American people, according to most recent polls. Nor did the elected Lebanese government collapse. Indeed, rumor has it that Syria, Iran and Hezbollah are much less pleased with the result of the war than Western journalists had supposed. And Iran appears to be backing down somewhat from its nuclear agenda.

America has not been hit again since 9/11. And, perhaps preferring to err on the side of safety, most Americans continue to back interrogations and detentions at Guantanamo. For now, most still believe it is jihadists — not their own president — who pose the real threat to their way of life.

The Europeans are no longer smug in the belief that the Islamists are incited only by the cowboy George Bush. They are weary and increasingly angry over the Danish cartoon hysteria, Dutch murders, French riots, London and Madrid bombings, foiled plots in Britain and Germany, and the most recent threats to the pope. Terrorist communiques allege anger over Iraq — but also Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Gaza, Kashmir, Kosovo, Lebanon, the Philippines, the West Bank, and on and on.

Despite their troubles, the Republicans remain more unified and pragmatic than their opponents. The party establishment stood behind the often anti-Bush Sen. Lincoln Chafee in a tough but successful re-election fight in Rhode Island. In contrast, the Democratic establishment watched in horror as the party's activist wing drummed out their own moderate, Sen. Joe Lieberman, as a turncoat.

In the past, leftist shrillness — whether it was Michael Moore calling Iraqi terrorists "Minutemen" or Cindy Sheehan pronouncing an American president "the world's greatest terrorist" — hurt the Democrats, who came across as amused by the noise of these supportive public megaphones.

Once again, such rhetorical craziness is turning off moderates. A film has just been released imagining the assassination of a sitting American president. On the Democratic side, only Sen. Hillary Clinton has denounced such creepiness; other Clintonites were far more worried only about looking bad in the recent docu-drama "The Path to 9/11."

Democrats denounce the conduct of the war against terror. All well and good — but they also must explain how they would snatch Osama bin Laden from his friendly tribes in Islamic and nuclear Pakistan. They rail against the Iraq war, but they cannot agree on when — not to mention whether — to depart. They lament appeasement of Iran, but they offer no military or political alternative to the ongoing multiparty negotiations.

The Democrats claim that Bush is not protecting us at home and is battling the wrong enemies abroad. But even of those sympathetic to such a message, how many believe that Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy are better suited to fight a war against terror? And where the president is vulnerable — illegal immigration, continual energy dependence, spiraling debt and profligate federal spending — the Democrats' solutions are even more at odds with public opinion.

The result is that Bush, tucked into his shell, keeps lumbering forward, grimfaced — resisting withdrawal from Iraq and warning against Islamic fascism. And the more the Democratic hares yawn and snore — the more this unfazed turtle keeps moving toward the November elections.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Reach him at author@victor hanson.com.