READING ABOUT RAHM

Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, heading Republican efforts to take back the House in 2008, has advised his staffers at the National Republican Congressional Committee to read an account of how the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, under the chairmanship of Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, won the 2006 elections.

The book recommended by Cole is "The Thumpin': How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution" by Naftali Bendavid.

Cole told me he believes Republican operatives should read Bendavid's book because it "shows the Democrats were lucky to win" despite their mistakes. At a point of low Republican morale, Cole thinks the book demonstrates Democrats are not 10-feet tall.

YOUTH FROM PEORIA

Aaron Schock, a conservative 26-year-old Illinois state legislator, is privately boosted by national Republican operatives as their choice in a contested GOP primary next year to replace retiring seven-term Rep. Ray LaHood from the Peoria, Ill., district.

Schock would represent a rightward shift in the centrist representation of the solidly Republican district by LaHood for 14 years and by his old boss, former House Minority Leader Bob Michel, for the preceding 38 years.

Michel spent 20 years in the House Republican leadership, but LaHood's ambitions to become a leader were frustrated by the post-Michel Republican caucus. LaHood considered but abandoned a run for governor of Illinois in 2006.