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• Twenty months before the mid-term elections, Republicans are laying the groundwork to try to capitalize on the defense-playing Democrats, working to recruit strong candidates in Arkansas, Alaska, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia -- all states carried by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney last year. They're also buoyed by history, which shows the party controlling the White House typically loses seats during the midterm of a second-term president.
• "The map looks pretty good" for the GOP, said Greg Strimple, an Idaho-based Republican pollster for Senate and gubernatorial candidates. "If I had a deck of cards to play, I'd rather play the Republican deck than the Democratic deck."
• Indeed, Republicans have only 14 of their seats up for re-election and only one -- Sen. Susan Collins of Maine -- is in a state Obama carried last year. Just two GOP senators have said they will retire -- Mike Johanns of Nebraska and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia -- and they represent states that favor Republicans.
• Democrats say 2014 could be a repeat of the past two election years, when their well-funded candidates benefited from the missteps of tea party Republicans who were nominated in bruising primaries over more mainstream GOP candidates.
• Mindful of those scars, Republicans are watching to see if such polarizing primaries materialize in states like Georgia, Michigan, Iowa and South Dakota. The outcome of those primaries could determine whether the GOP will try to take advantage of Democratic retirements.
• Jim Manley, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., doesn't deny that the spate of Democratic retirements make it that much tougher to keep control in 2014. "The math is very much against Democrats," he said. Even so, he adds, "The real question, however, is whether Republicans are going to keep on nominating extremists or they're going to finally figure out that they've got to go mainstream."
• At this early stage, both sides are focusing mostly on recruiting candidates -- and watching for signs of how the opposition is positioning.
• An early skirmish has emerged in Kentucky, where Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell faces re-election next year and is working to prevent both Republican and Democratic challenges. Among the Democrats talking about running: actress Ashley Judd, who grew up in Kentucky but lives in Tennessee.
• Some of the states that could turn into Senate battlegrounds next year include:
• MICHIGAN: Republicans see a pickup opportunity with Levin's departure even though the party last won a Senate race in 1994. Several Republicans may seek the nomination, including members of the state's veteran congressional delegation, in

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