The 2008 elections are still 11 months away, but it's only natural for political observers to look ahead and notice a certain trend. The narrow Democratic majority in the Senate is poised to get bigger. The same is true of the modest Democratic majority in the House. While there's plenty of presidential-campaign wrangling left to do, the current landscape seems to suggest a Democratic president will be inaugurated in January 2009.

The result will be a Democratic trifecta for the first time since the 1992 elections. And while that would obviously benefit the country, corporate lobbyists, already depressed about losing a friendly GOP congressional majority, are starting to panic -- and get White House help now before it's too late.

Business lobbyists, nervously anticipating Democratic gains in next year's elections, are racing to secure final approval for a wide range of health, safety, labor and economic rules, in the belief that they can get better deals from the Bush administration than from its successor.

Hoping to lock in policies backed by a pro-business administration, poultry farmers are seeking an exemption for the smelly fumes produced by tons of chicken manure. Businesses are lobbying the Bush administration to roll back rules that let employees take time off for family needs and medical problems. And electric power companies are pushing the government to relax pollution-control requirements.

"There's a growing sense, a growing probability, that the next administration could be Democratic," said Craig L. Fuller, executive vice president of Apco Worldwide, a lobbying and public relations firm, who was a White House official in the Reagan administration. "Corporate executives, trade associations and lobbying firms have begun to recalibrate their strategies."

At issue is everything from highway safety to mountaintop pollution to family-leave protections.

As Kevin Drum concluded, "I can hardly wait to see what kind of last minute damage Bush decides to inflict on the Republic as his term in office draws to a close."