As the 2006 campaign season beckons one important element must be confronted.  Let us call it the 6 percent factor.  While this term might sound like something more akin to Ian Fleming or John Le Carre international intrigue novels, it relates in this case to national intrigue and behind the scenes legerdemain.

Analyze the 2004 presidential election cycle as well as the 2002 mid-term elections and the number assumes momentous significance.  

As has been pointed out by mathematicians such as Dr. Steven Freeman of the University of Pennsylvania and Kathy Dopp of Utah as well as certain pollsters, 6 percent was the disparity level between the result forecast in the race between John Kerry and George W. Bush and that ultimately posted as official.  

Anyone closely watching activities in and around Election Day of 2004 observed a virtual state of panic on the part of Republican commentators, notably Robert Novak, who looked and sounded as if his whole world had been destroyed when he spoke on CNN that fateful evening, over the prospect of a looming Bush loss.  Ohio, Novak reported, which was a necessity for victory, was seemingly doomed.