Blogs For Victory

But it is narrowing:

Republican candidates now hold a five-point lead over Democrats in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot, a further narrowing of the gap between the two parties to the smallest margin this year…

…While solid majorities of Democrats and Republicans support their own party, the plurality (42%) of voters not affiliated with either major party now prefer the Republican candidate, while 24% like the Democrat. These findings have remained fairly consistent for months now.

Which indicates that Democrats have managed to shore up their base since the passage of ObamaCare – prior to that, when it looked like no health care bill would emerge, Democrats got very down on their own party and helped propel the GOP to a very large lead in the generic ballot.

Fundamentally, the Democrats remain in a weak position and I don’t see a path to victory for them (“victory” means, at this point, keeping their House losses to 30 or less seats). The only slight hope they have is a strongly improving economy, and that is (a) not happening and (b) wouldn’t have played as strong a role as it has in the past (and, indeed, there is evidence that we are right now tipping back towards recession…though the actuality of it might hold off till past November).

But it should also be kept in mind that this is a very strange year – we’ve already seen long-time incumbents dumped and we’ll see more of them, soon. And this includes GOP as well as Democrat dinosaurs. While the GOP will benefit for the overall election climate, one should not count on anything – people are furious at government and are tired of both parties (though more currently tired of Democrats than Republicans). Literally, anything can happen this year – throw out the rule books and just do what you think is best. And don’t worry too much about polls plus or minus – turn out models might be very off in 2010 (the models would be based upon 2002 and 2006 with additional info fed in from 2004 and 2008…but if a lot of one type stays home and a lot of another time turns out, then close races could be routs and sure losers could win).

The main thing, for me, is that I’m encouraged by the clear willingness of my fellow Americans to challenge the political establishment. Out of that will come the change we need, regardless of what particular events happen on November 2nd of this year.