WaPost has some interesting spin on the polls

I found this story off The Washington Post, titled Parsing the Polls: Is a Democratic Wave Building? It is a fascinating little article looking at the roundup of the latest political polls:

In a March Parsing the Polls we looked at the edge Democrats held over Republicans on a generic ballot question, which, in essence, asks: "If the congressional election were held today, would you vote for the Democratic candidate in your district or the Republican candidate?"

At the time, we decided that although Democrats' advantage signaled considerable unrest in the country toward the majority party in Washington, it was too early in the cycle to draw any broad conclusions about what the generic ballot numbers meant for the fall.

The results have certainly changed after six months:

At the time, the average of the last five national polls testing the generic ballot showed Democrats with a 13.4 percent margin. Fast forward six months and that margin has actually increased. Take a look:

Political party approval table from Washington Post

Add those numbers up and the average Democratic generic edge has grown to 14.8 percent -- with 84 days left before the election.

How about President Bush's approval ratings:

Presidential job approval table from Washington Post

Here's the Congressional approval rating:

Congressional approval table from Washington Post

And is the country heading in the right or wrong direction? You decide:

Country heading in right or wrong direction? Table from Washington Post

So is now the time to conclude that a Democratic wave is building that will sweep Republicans out of a House majority in November?

The answer, according to Charlie Cook and Stu Rothenberg, is a guarded yes.

"If you take an average of the last three or four polls, because any one can be an outlier in either direction, you can determine which way the wind is blowing, and whether the wind speed is small, medium, large or extra-large," said Cook. "The last three generics that I have seen have been in the 18 or 19 point range, which is on the high side of extra large. That suggests the probability of large Democratic gains."

"The generic surely reflects voters dissatisfaction with the President and his party and their inclination to support Democrats in the fall," agreed Rothenberg. "The size of the Democrats' generic advantage also can't be ignored. It too suggests the likelihood of a partisan wave, even though it does not guarantee the fate of any individual Republican incumbent."

I will say that the results from each poll in each of the respected tables are all very similar. And looking at those numbers, it tells me that the Republican Party is in deep trouble regarding the short-sighted failed policies they have enacted over the past six years. The Republicans are in control of all three branches of government. They have control of the corporate media. The failures of Iraq, Katrina, the scandals and corruption, or even the jobless recovery are all the responsibilities of President Bush and the Republican Congress--no bipartisanship here with the Democrats. And the American people are starting to realize it.

Consider this little conclusion from the story:

Crunching the numbers, President Bush's average job approval number in the polls cited above is 36 percent while his average disapproval is 58 percent. The average approval rating for Congress is even more dismal -- 29.6 percent and its disapproval is 62.3 percent. Approximately 26 percent of those tested in the survey above are satisfied with the direction of the country while a whopping 69 percent are dissatisfied....

What does this bevy of numbers mean for the fall? It means that the national environment is clearly slanted in Democrats' favor at the moment and barring some sort of major national event will stay that way all the way through November. A slanted playing field has the capacity to bring normally non-competitive Republican-held seats into play -- widening Democrats' margin for error if they hope to take back the House.

I would even go on to say that the Republicans know that they will lose one or both houses of Congress. The goal here for the midterm elections would be to stem the losses using whatever legal, illegal, or unethical means that are necessary. It is interesting to note here that the Republicans seem more eager to tacitly endorse Joe Lieberman's independent campaign for the Connecticut Senate seat over that of Republican Alan Schlesinger. They have tried to legally remove Tom DeLay's name off the Texas ballot, and failed. But at the same time, the Republicans were able to set up a special primary election to replace Ohio congressman Bob Ney on the ballot. And finally, the House Republicans have about $40 million to spend on the House races--so expect a lot of messages on terror fears.

It is going to be a nasty 3 months.