Paradise Squandered

I guess the old adage is true. A year is a long time in politics. Less than 18 months ago I held out hope that we would see a solid democratic majority for some time and that there would be a democratic President with a democratic agenda moving the country forward and away from the Bush Cheney nightmare. I expected that we would have no more warrantless wiretapping. I believed we would be discussing an energy policy that included more options that drill, baby drill. I thought a women’s uterus would no longer be considered an object of state interest. I figured that we’d see the end to talk about protecting traditional marriage, whatever the heck that ever was to start out with but basically we’d no longer exclude gay couples from a civil institution and gay soldiers from openly serving in our military.

I thought our future seemed bright.

I thought perhaps we could have a defense department budget that resembled the levels of other democratic countries and that we would have a health care plan that resembled the rest of the developed world. I especially felt hopeful, when I watched the first democratic debate, that one of those folks would be in charge of America again. It was only a matter of which one. Little did I know then, the one I discounted as not really knowing a thing by the time the second debate was over is the one we got. My basic thought about Obama was Vice President material.

Now, our national nightmare continues and The Cook Political Report has just dropped the other shoe. The Cook Political Report has a very good reputation for handicapping elections.

Gallup’s three-night moving average tracking poll, President Obama’s job approval rating in both their August 16-18 and August 17-19 averages was just 51 percent, the lowest level of his presidency. The latter sampling showed his disapproval up to 42 percent, matching his all-time low hit in the August 15-17 tracking poll. The 51% job approval rating is identical to two other polls released in recent days conducted by NBC News and the Pew Research Center. Today’s regression-based trend estimate computed by our friends at Pollster.com from all major national surveys show an approval rating of 50.7 percent and disapproval of 43.7 percent.

These data confirm anecdotal evidence, and our own view, that the situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Today, The Cook Political Report’s Congressional election model, based on individual races, is pointing toward a net Democratic loss of between six and 12 seats, but our sense, factoring in macro-political dynamics is that this is far too low.

Many veteran Congressional election watchers, including Democratic ones, report an eerie sense of déjà vu, with a consensus forming that the chances of Democratic losses going higher than 20 seats is just as good as the chances of Democratic losses going lower than 20 seats. A new Gallup poll that shows Congress’ job disapproval at 70 percent among independents should provide little solace to Democrats. In the same poll, Congressional approval among independents is at 22 percent, with 31 percent approving overall, and 62 percent disapproving.

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