The Great Bail-Out (The Century Foundation)

[laststeamtrain]

The Great Bail-Out

Bush’s approval rating is now consistently back in the ‘30s and the Democrats have been running strong double-digit leads in the generic Congressional ballot. These trends are being driven by what we might call “the great bail-out”, as not only are swing and independent voters moving sharply away from the GOP, but also a serious chunk of core GOP support. The latter development is truly frightening to Republican operatives and strategists who are only too aware of how dependent their election victories in the last several political cycles have been on rock-solid core support. Take that away and it’s a long way to the bottom.

Here are some data that illustrate the great bail-out.

<snip>

Competence is not a partisan issue.....he way the port takeover was handled reinforced a growing impression among the public that nobody is really in charge in the Bush White House. How could the president not even have been consulted on an issue directly involving national security, Bush's strong suit in the minds of most Americans and especially most Republicans?
<snip>

The most important shifts are taking place among the world of Republican loyalists, which will have big strategic consequences.1 It is reflected in the most recent Democracy Corps poll where defection of 2004 Bush voters to the Democrats is twice the level of defection of Kerry voters to the Republicans. Only 31 percent of voters in blue counties (those carried by Kerry) are voting Republican for Congress, but 41 percent of red county voters are supporting the Democratic candidate. The combined data set shows major shifts in the Deep South and rural areas (even before the most recent controversies), blue-collar white men, and the best educated married men with high incomes....
http://www.tcf.org/print.asp?type=NC&pubid=1234

[MichiganVote]

1. Good. Its about time.

[bemildred]

2. Dimwits are finally getting a clue.

(Yes, I hope I annoyed them. Let them vote Republicans and DINOs again if they haven't been screwed enough yet.)