Polling confusion

There seems to be a good deal of confusion among the pollsters today. Gallup reports a strong surge in Bush approval ratings, showing him climbing to an approval rating of 44%, highest in over a year. Further, it shows the Democrats have completely lost their advantage in the generic poll for members of Congress. They are now tied with the Republicans at 48% each. And, the generic polls almost always overstate Democratic support.

On the other hand, Rasmussen shows Bush's approval ratings dropping to 40% along with strong gains for Democrats in many House and Senate races.

Go figure.

Steve Soto at the Left Coaster is right though. The Dems need to find some way to grasp the headlines away from Bush, who has commanded center stage day after day after day.

Bush is focusing on his Daddy Protector image because it's the only selling point he left with anyone, especially the cultists. Bashing the media and Democrats for being against him is Bush’s way to drive up his numbers with the base and get those approval ratings to a safe enough number so that the wingers don’t stay home on Election Day. The president commands all the news cycles, and Democrats lack a single voice of opposition that can get an alternate message into the same news cycle. Neither Harry Reid nor Nancy Pelosi are suited to that task, yet it is critical that both of them designate one member from each house to rebut everything Bush says every day and get the opposing view into the same cycle. Pelosi already made sure that John Murtha responded to Bush’s appearance at the UN today so that his remarks are already being covered side-by-side with Bush’s. Reid needs to find a telegenic designee who can do the same for Senate Democrats right away.

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for Democrats to challenge Bush in every news cycle. There needs to be a national Democrat like Murtha and Joe Biden to get the Democratic viewpoint out there every day, and prevent the White House from sweeping bad news bad news from Iraq under the rug every day, like the news that our military needs to send more troops into Iraq, and that drawdown plans are more distant now than they ever have been. Yet for all his rhetoric today at the UN about wanting to reach out to Islamic nations, Bush has still not called for a regional security and economic development summit to stabilize Iraq and bring its neighbors into the solution and invest in them some responsibility for making it happen. This is something right up Biden’s alley. Democrats need to understand that as the Gallup poll shows, unless voters are reminded of how bad things have gotten in Iraq every day, Bush will be able to convince many likely voters that we were right to invade.