National Journal's Charlie Cook, doyen of political rune-readers, on the latest numbers:
Just as the economic news was relentlessly negative until the last few days, poll numbers for Republicans were horrific for months. So the GOP should be heartened by the first encouraging polling news it has received perhaps since Lehman Brothers defaulted in mid-September: Republicans have pulled even with Democrats on the generic congressional ballot test, according to a survey by a respected pair of firms.
Many Democratic congressional leaders shake their heads with disdain or in disbelief over what they see as the Obama White House's preoccupation or even obsession with pleasing independent voters by promoting bipartisanship, but reaching across party lines is critical to Obama's success. Independent voters do not like partisanship, whether it is practiced by Democrats or Republicans. If Republicans really have pulled even or slightly ahead among independent voters, that is a very ominous sign for Democrats, an indication that Obama's talking the talk of bipartisanship isn't sufficient and that he and the Democratic majorities on Capitol Hill have to walk the walk.
In the new National Public Radio poll conducted by the Democratic polling company Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and its Republican counterpart, Public Opinion Strategies, 42 percent of the 800 likely voters surveyed March 10 to 14 said that if the next congressional election were held today they would vote for the Republican candidate; an identical percentage of respondents said they would vote for the Democratic one. For several years, Democrats held a substantial lead on this question...
I voted for this president and I regret it. This president so far has given almost a trillion dollars away to corporations, banks, insurance giants and everyone is all too aware of how that is being used - more fuel toward corporate wealth. Actually, it goes beyond wealth when someone gets bonuses of six million dollars after destroying our economy. I can't even imagine that kind of money over the course of my entire life. It's disgusting. And what has our president done for the American tax payer while all our tax dollars are being given out like candy to everyone else. What does the American taxpayer get from the stimulus package? We get thirteen bucks extra each paycheck not to exceed six hundred bucks over the year. And Obama campaigned on the disparity of wealth in America - looks like he is the biggest contributer toward that end.
The problem with Obama has not been his talk, rather it is that there has been too much talk with actions that are diametrically opposed to what he says. Worse, is that he is incompetent in every action he has undertaken except campaigning for his office. We have been drifting the long dusty road to socialism for some time now, with both parties spending like drunks with somebody else's Visa, but Obama was elected to bring about competent socialist change, not incompetent delegation to Reid and Pelosi. Never mind that his resume was the thinnest of any candidate in history for the office of President, he managed the grueling two year race well enough to win. That takes skill and talent, even thought the real test was against Clinton, not McCain. The polls are turning against him not because of what he has said, but for what he has not managed to accomplish: Govern in an coherent, organized and competent manner. He has shown no core values on anything that would cost him popularity and power, and every item on his agenda that has passed has either done so because the Democratic majority in Congress wrote the legislation, or implicitly agreed with the items, like the abortion and gay rights treaties. Without the Congressional majorities, he would never pass anything, because he cannot even get a good team together to formulate policy, unless you count tax cheats for Treasury.