The first part of the scheme involves the man at the top, whom readers might remember as the (somewhat successful) manager of Obama’s improbable 2008 campaign: Mr. David Plouffe. A boyish, buzzcut logistical whiz, Plouffe departed Obamaland after the election in order to write books, give speeches, and make money. But after Martha Coakley lost to Republican Scott Brown in January’s Massachusetts Senate special election, Obama asked Plouffe—who was always to supposed to assist with the 2010 midterm effort—to take on an expanded role. Since then, he’s been communicating “daily” with the DNC about campaign strategy. Plouffe isn’t on the DNC’s payroll, nor does he work at the White House. He doesn’t answer to anyone but Obama. As such, he’s the only person on the Democratic side with the power to “make the gears move more efficiently,” as Marc Ambinder has put it—to sharpen the message, to tweak the field operation, to decide where best to deploy the president. All from 35,000 feet.

Plouffe’s main goal, though, is to focus on turning out the 15 million people who voted for the first time in 2008—an effort that Democrats believe could wind up affecting the outcome of many of this year’s 70-odd contested races. After the 2008 election, the Obama field operation, Obama for America, was renamed Organizing for America and folded into the DNC. All of its electoral assets—the 13-million-name email list, the hundreds of thousands of volunteers and “community organizers,” the precision Internet tools—came along with it. Now Plouffe and Co. plan to bring those resources to bear on getting 2008’s newbies back to the polls…

Dems are also relying on luck to play a part on Election Day. They see the sudden prevalence of tea party challengers in Republican primaries around the country as something that will ultimately help their candidates win over moderates. The thinking goes like this: if a Tea Partier captures the nomination (as Rand Paul did in Kentucky), it will drive centrists toward the Democrat in the general; if a Tea Partier loses (as J.D. Hayworth is likely to do in Arizona), it still will have forced the winner (i.e., John McCain) further right than he wanted to go.