First, a quick explanation.  The above chart is derived from Pollingreport.com.  I averaged all the listed polls for each month (based on last date of polling) from the generic congressional question, congressional and presidential approval, and the right track/wrong direction question.  I made no attempt to correct for the variations between months, number of polls, house effects, etc.  Like I said, it's a rough comparison.  

Still, it is useful because the big picture is clearly visible. All the other indicators are much more negative and much more dynamic than the Democrat's lead over the Republicans in the generic congressional ballot.  Furthermore, they have all moved roughly in unison--worse from September to November, better and roughly stable between December and January, then worse again from February through April.

The end month comparisons--September to April--show the dramatic net movement across this time period, while the comparison of the first two and last two months gives a more tempered view that makes Congressional leadship look better by comparison, but hardly great, considering the total lack of movement from September through February.  A comparison to how these figures look a month from now should be interesting and informative.

The good news is that the Dem's generic congressional lead has finally joined in this last trend, but only anemically so.  Now, it's true that these figures are good by historical standards.  It's equally true that Bush's approval ratings are almost Nixonian.  The point is, the other figures demonstrate that Bush's approval ratings mirror a very broad sense in the electorate that tapers off dramatically when it comes to voting for congress.

The observation that this is normal is arguably quite true.  But these are not normal times, and this comparison strongly suggests that the Democratic political establishment has utterly failed to capitalize on that fact.

As I said to begin with, this is just a rough comparison.  The argument is basically a qualitative one--there should be more movement, but how much more?  Yet, I think it's one more perspective underscoring a POV that's wideshared by the netroots--that Democratic establishment leadership is having virtually no discernable impact in the country at a time when the country is starving for leadership.  This may not be flashy, but it's a terrible indictment indeed.

P.S. Personally, I'm on the extreme left wing of the party. I would blame this specifically on the failure of the DLC-lead "me-too" realignment that occurred under Clinton, and has lead to 12 years of almost complete GOP dominance in Congress.  In fact, the world-wide "triumph" of neo-liberalism (which has produced vastly diminished growth around the world over the past 25 years--see report here [PDF]) is being challenged everywhere--including in the streets of America, with the nationwide May Day  marhces and boycott.  But making that sort of argument depends on a much wider range of data than that presented here. What this data does show is the enormous untapped potential to do something that our party leadership clearly is not doing.