Chart of the Day

Very nicely played.

You guys are whistling past the graveyard again

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cookreport.php

Blue-state Democrats are showing little awareness that their party has a problem.

I am becoming convinced, based on this and other research, that although many independent voters are disappointed in specific things that Obama has done, they still hope that he will do well and believe that he might. To be sure, red America has already given Obama the thumbs down. And blue America just wishes he would be more liberal. But it's purple America, the independents who voted for Democrats in the 2006 midterm election by an 18-point margin, that makes the biggest difference right now. Most House Democrats live in blue America and show little awareness that their party has a problem. However, the Democrats' majority is built on a layer of 54 seats that the party picked up in 2006 and 2008 that are largely in purple -- or even red -- America. Democrats ought to keep in mind that 84 of their current House members represent districts won by President Bush in 2004 or John McCain in 2008.

A whopping 48 of those Democrats -- eight more than the size of their party's majority -- are from districts that voted for both Bush and McCain. That America is very different from the Democratic base in blue America, and it sees many major issues very differently.

Resurgent Republic's findings corroborate a growing view that the cumulative impact of Democratic missteps has reached a critical mass, with Obama receiving some damage and with Democrats in Congress and the Democratic Party receiving much more. Critics point to the Troubled Asset Relief Program; the takeovers of banks and auto companies; an economic stimulus package that they see as ineffectual and stuffed with pork; and climate-change and health care reform efforts as all being contributing factors to Democrats' decline.

The 17-point advantage that Democrats enjoyed in the January Gallup Poll (when "leaners" were included) shrank to 5 points in August. Their edge on the generic congressional ballot test has vanished, according to most national polls. For three years, Democrats enjoyed high single-digit or low double-digit leads on this question -- a very good indicator of which direction (and how hard) the political winds are blowing as a congressional election nears.

What we are seeing is an electorate growing just as disgusted with the Democratic majority as it did with the Republican one in 2006. The mounting ethics problems of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., combined with ongoing allegations about House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa., and others on his panel threaten to make matters still worse for their party.

Alabama [et al]
You got the rest of the union
to help you along.
What's going wrong?

Most disturbing for Republicans is the Midwest figure. The Midwest used to either be a GOP stronghold or a 50/50 bellweather. True, these numbers could change in an instant, but I think this chart is evidence that even as Americans become disillusioned with Obama, they have yet to flock to the Republican banner. You can add up the numbers any way you want, without significant support in the West and Midwest there's no way you're returning to power.

As a former Ohio resident, I always thought the Iraq war was the trigger which caused many red cultural voters in the Midwest to shift towards the Democratic party. But what's becoming increasingly clear is that the economic issues are keeping them there. So many people in the Great Lakes region think their government sold them down the river...and though that used to be a bipartisan discontentment, the GOP's recent stand against the auto companies has solidified them as the bad guys in this struggle. I knew a lot of people in Ohio who thought Republican leaders had lost their minds when it came to that.

Yep, 92% of Americans supported George W. Bush in the aftermath of his greatest failure - which was kind of stupid, but shows that Democrats are far more patriotic than Republicans. But look at his approval numbers over time. What you saw was a nice sawtooth waveform on an ever decreasing slope. Why? Because the Republicans are brilliant at games. But the more people are exposed to the reality of Republicans the worse they look.

What the defenders can't seem to understand is that there will be no Iraq war and there will be no Katrina. The problem with supporting a party that hates government is that there is no chance that such a party can govern. Bush didn't take the Republican Party anywhere it wasn't already going.

One day there will be a rational alternative to the Democratic Party. It's not clear if that party will use the name Republican.

Neil Young hit the nail on the head 35 years ago.
Anti-egalitarian slaveholders wanted to rule blacks AND non-slaveholders. Jeffersonian democracy always meant elites were superior and should be deferred to.
The result was that yeoman farmers etc. had to content themselves with the political crumbs and the 'comforting' fact that "at least I ain't a slave" . The result is the Southern GOP keeps saying "Look, a black man!" The lower and middle class whites continue to vote against their own economic interests. The problem is that northern torpor results in more Dems moving South. ( I was 35 years in Rochester, NY. Last four years in Atlanta). Just as antebellum Deep South slave owners worried about slaves bleeding out of the Border South and reducing their political weight, the inverse is happening demographically.

the media coverage of health care makes me sick. Sure let's run footage of crazy people at town halls. Or let's interview the founder of a GOP funded PAC who is having a "grassroots" tea party o a bus.

How about interviewing doctors??????? Hospital administators? Insurance company workers?????

You know what this means: we have to let Olympia Snowe and Chuck Grassley help write health care legislation.

Kevin and other Dems are busy falling into the trap the Republicans did from 2005 onwards - only believing polls that reinforce their prejudices. Neither of these articles I've cited are written by right wing journalists, by the way

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20090919_2367.php

Dems Lose Footing In The Mountain West
Amid a fierce backlash, western Democrats risk being forced to give back some of their recent gains.

Now, however, amid a fierce conservative backlash against President Obama's agenda, Democrats face an escalating challenge to defend those advances in 2010. All signs show the momentum shifting toward Republicans in a region that has traditionally resisted the sort of assertive federal initiatives that Obama has offered on issues from the economic stimulus to health care. "Here in the West, there is a really strong concern about overly intrusive government policies," said Nicole McCleskey, a New Mexico-based Republican pollster. "I think there's a sense that maybe we overcorrected a little in the last election, we maybe went too far to that [Democratic] side, and now we are seeing the bounce-back."

But the unease in these states about Obama's first months, unease that echoes his party's difficulties here during Bill Clinton's presidency, raises questions about Democrats' ability to maintain their support in the Mountain West while pursuing a national agenda that inflames the region's historic suspicion of Washington.