Gallup...I've shit 'em. But ya know the ReThugs are gonna go down fighting. They are planning on doing away with Habeaus Corpus to fight dem nast 'tehhahists'. And well...

We can't jes march into Pakistan and grab OBL, not that Rummy the Dummy, 'DeadEye' and 'The Idiot' wanna catch him in the first place 'cause you see that would piss of the tribal councils there. Plus ya gotta have yer boogey-man to scare the sheeple with.

The End Times approach!

Question is: For who?

My scenario is the Dems take both houses of Congress and then to nothing to Bush. They'll go along to get along.

And then Americans can wake up to the fact that:

Hey, Ho...

Hi, Ho...

They Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall gotta Go!
.

42. Regardless of how you usually vote, do you think the Republican party or the  Democratic party is more likely to ensure a strong economy?  

Result: 50-35 Democratic advantage. That's the largest margin in our favor among 26 NYT polls beginning in 1984. In fact, the only time we've ever polled at 50%. But let's ignore it.

Plenty of good stuff in that poll. The favorable/unfavorable ratings of the Democratic party and Republican party are virtually reversed: 52-40 positive for the Democratic party and 41-52 negative for Republicans. I've noticed for years the NYT always has our favorable number higher than other surveys, for some reason.

57. How would you say things are going for the U.S. in its efforts to bring stability and  order to Iraq? Would you say things are going very well, somewhat well, somewhat badly,  or very badly?

The very badly percentage is 33%, the highest number since the NYT began asking the question in May 2003. That number was between 25 and 29 in the previous five polls since April.

One problem. If you look at the breakdown of who the NYT sampled, it's bizarre. They claim to be only 17% liberals, the lowest number in many surveys. It was 21-25% in every previous sample this year. They favored Bush over Kerry 39-32 in '04, with a full 24% not voting. The party ID drops to 32-30 advantage. Yet the generic ballot edge jumps to 50-35. I don't know. As someone who looks at every available page of the crosstabs in one poll after another, that doesn't jive with other recent surveys. It's got to be an unusually high percentage of left leaning independents and crossover conservatives.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/ nation/la-na-poll21sep21,0,2149217.story ?coll=la-home-headlines

Who the hell knows? Now the CBS/NYT poll may be the outlier. We maintain a 49-39 generic congressional ballot edge according to the LAT but Brownstein says it rests on softening ground, "On virtually every comparison between the parties measured in the survey, Republicans have improved their position since early summer."

Brownstein writes Republicans have doubled their advantage on terrorism and Bush's net negative on the economy has dropped from -21 to -9.

Unrelated, but I'm watching a tape of the Minnesota senate debate and Chris Bowers is right about Mark Kennedy. What a mealy mouth unimpressive weasel. Klobuchar comes across infinitely more genuine, knowledgable, forceful and likable. BTW, Dennis the Menace is running for that senate seat as an independent. Robert Fitzgerald is 29 but looks more like a teenage Jay North.

The New York Times poll and Los Angeles Times poll almost contradict each other so I'm not especially heartened. I've followed Ron Brownstein's analysis of polling data for years and I think he's among the most astute of the whole bunch.

The GOP may be justifiably nervous but so am I -- the general trends in the past month have been toward the Republicans. Could we hold off on the victory lap until AFTER that so-called "wave?"

Diebold.

We can shout about all the polls we want. Feel that joy seep away when you click over to bradblog and realize the weak link in the chain. I truly don't understand how people can be so confident when we can't even trust our votes to be counted.

It's going to be tighter than anyone thought, and the GOP does well in tight elections.

Just my opinion, but I thought we were getting a little giddy there, with talk of turning both houses of congress.

I think we should still hope and work for that, but I'm not sure we should advertise it.

Most independents aren't crazy about either party right now, so it hurts us to act like we have a lock. Buyer's remorse sets in.

Also, the Dems better get negative fast. I'm sorry, but it works.

Also, people figure if they Dems can't even run a tough campaign, how can they get tough on terrorist attacks?

Brownstein even concedes that the slight bump may be related to the 9/11 anniversary. The LA Times/Bloomberg poll hadn't been done since June, so it's hard to see trends. There's no doubt that the GOP is in better straits than June, mostly because conservative Republicans have fallen back into the fold a bit. Also, gas prices are significantly lower than in June - that lone counts for about three points. Still, I wouldn't conclude that the Democratic Congressional lead of 10 points is "softening." It may have been inflated in June. Then again, if the Democrats actually got 10 percent more votes than the Republicans on Election Day, it would be a landslide of historic proportions, with the Democrats picking up 70 seats. Turnout is very important, obviously. But as long as voter intensity  is on our side, our turnout should be good and theirs should be less than 2002 or 2004.

Another issue that comes out in the LA Times poll: Would you support a local Congressional candidate if they support or oppose the policies of the Bush Administration.

39% those who oppose Bush
23% those who support Bush
37% not a factor

That means that voters are treating this as a national election, and the intensity is much stronger in the anti-Bush direction than than pro-Bush. Compare this with 2002 and you will see the opposite.

Also, note the question on resources for Iraq vs. other parts of the war on terror. Over 70% of both Democrats and Independents want to reallocate resources. In fact, across the board, Independents align much closer with Democrats than Republicans.

The only upside for the GOP is the higher numbers re: terrorism. But that can only be a result of the 9/11 anniversary. You have to realize what the anniversary did for many people. It took them back, emotionally, to the days after 9/11 itself. But it's largely past by now. And with Republican infighting on key issues like torture and warrantless wiretapping, it's hard to see the GOP exploiting this effectively. When we're united and they're divided, we win. For the first time on national security issues, they're divided and we're not. I'll take that into November any day.

To me, the most important part of that poll is that most people like their own local representative. Also, the numbers that show people unhappy with incumbents generally won't necessarily translate into Democratic victory. Like it or not, Republican propaganda and the media's continued shilling for Bush will have an effect.

My guess is that the Democrats pick up a few seats but much less than one would expect in the off-year election of a president's second term -- and certainly much less than you would expect given Bush's manifest unpopularity and how everything this administration does turns to shit. And if the Demos don't make substantial gains, we'll hear the pundits and media apologists crowing that this is a big victory for the GOP because they didn't get blown out. (Kind of like a guy who won with 51% of the vote in 2004 somehow got a "mandate.")

In the long run, this may be good for Democrats in '08. The overriding issue then may be the economy, not the war and not terrorism. The economy is perhaps the only issue that the Republicans and the media can't sugarcoat. And we're likely facing a pretty serious recession in '07 and '08. Thus, 2008 may be the election in which the Democrats win the White House and pick up one or more houses in Congress.

Rassmussen continues to show a steady decline for Republicans across the board and they tend to be the most acurate polling company showing a rise then fall over the past two week s in the republican and Bush's numbers