possible hope for the G.O.P.

Obama has filled his Cabinet with some of his party's top political players, creating congressional vacancies in solidly Democratic states -- and making them potential battlegrounds.

These are tough times to be a Republican, with fewer members in Washington, polls showing strong voter disdain for the party and partisans inside the tent squabbling over who (Chairman Michael S. Steele? Uber-talker Rush Limbaugh?) speaks for the GOP.

But there is a bright spot, thanks to an unlikely source: President Obama.

By stocking his Cabinet with some of the Democrats' top political prospects, Obama has created a number of opportunities for Republicans ahead of the 2010 midterm elections.

In some states, the president stole his party's strongest U.S. Senate prospects. In Illinois and New York, he watched as governors there botched efforts to fill vacated Senate seats, turning those solidly Democratic states into potential battlegrounds.

At this point, few analysts see a serious threat to the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate (though much will depend on the state of the economy in fall 2010). If anything, handicappers say, the party is likely to gain a few more Senate seats, after picking up 14 in the last two elections.