November's coming

Upcoming election may be even worse for the Democrats than projected.

Democrat strongholds in the East may be leading pollsters to underestimate the Republican wave that is coming. Everywhere else in the country, the Democrats are in big trouble.

The generic ballot shows Republicans leading
44%-39%. Besides all of the usual regional crosstabs, we also broke it
out by the type of district. We looked at the sample in the 66
Democratic INCUMBENT districts that Charlie Cook lists as either
toss-up or leaning Democratic at the time of the survey. In that key crosstab of
Swing Democratic Incumbent Seats, the Republican lead grows to 49%-31% on the generic ballot. That is a very powerful crosstab that says the wave is coming.

Among the remaining Democratic districts (Likely/Safe Dem, and open seats), the generic ballot is an unsurprisingly 33% GOP/51% Dem — a sign that the historically safe Dem seat will remain so, while the swing seats will be a bloodbath. By the way, in all of the GOP held seats, the generic is the reverse of the base Dem seats — 52% GOP/32% Dem. Very few, if any, Republican incumbents will be defeated.

Likewise, President Obama’s numbers with likely voters are similar
to the national average — 46% approve/51% disapprove. However, in the Swing
Democratic Incumbent Seats. he has a much worse 40% approve/57% disapprove.

(Keep in mind, many of these Swing Seats are held by Democrats despite the fact
that John McCain either won the district in 2008, or, even if losing,
outperformed his national result.

http://pos.org/2010/09/national-survey-highlights-dem-problems-in-key-seats/

Mood of America

Here’s an interesting article by Frank Lutz. I found this concluding statement to be insightful, especially the part about “Changing their government.”

Ultimately, of course, the success of the Pledge will be determined not
by the results on Election Day, but by what happens afterward. Still, there's a
simple lesson for both parties: The American people aren't just mad as hell.
This time, they're truly not going to take it anymore. They'll keep changing their government until their government really changes. So credit Republicans for putting their Pledge on paper. Now, they will be held accountable to the standard they've set for themselves -- and it's a good one.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/09/24/AR2010092402436.html