Gallup released a poll recently showing the Republicans with their largest ever generic ballot lead since the firm has conducted polling. The gap is 10 points and, by way of comparison, the ’94 surge that Republicans enjoyed was predated by a 5 point margin. Definitely not a good sign if you’re a Democrat.
In looking at comments and opinion from the corners of the interwebs that I travel, I’m struck by the similarity of tone between Democratic opinions now and the Republican opinions back in 2006 and 2008. It’s a rather pathetic combination of hoping-against-hope and denial. There already seems to be a move to setup a framework to say “Well, yeah they won a bunch of seats, but that ALWAYS happens at midterms. Move along, nothing to see here.”
Considering the giddiness that Democrats had when President Obama was elected and the Democratic majorities were won, I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more discussion of just how they’ve fallen so far so fast. President Bush was just short of loathed when he left office. Republicans were seen as a joke by and large- and not just by Democrats but also by most Republican voters as well. There were opinions left and right on what the future might hold for Republicans.
And now, barely 2 years since Obama’s election, all signs point to a loathing of Democrats.
2 years just isn’t enough time to rejuvenate a political party. New ideas take time, lessons need to be teased out, decisions need to be made as to who the new faces are and what the message is to become. The fact that Republicans are preferred by such a margin can only mean that people are running back to a party that they had, very recently, abandoned in droves.
So if Republicans were that disliked and haven’t had time to change in any meaningful way, how can it be that people are flocking back in droves? The only plausible answer is that Democrats have caused people to run, not walk, back to Republicans. Which also means that, as bad as Republicans are viewed, Democrats are viewed even worse.
I wonder how Democrats will come to view this fall from grace? I haven’t read any Democrat-viewpoint opinion that I’d call honest at this point.
Perhaps after November.