Not as bad as it seems (pro version)

So now that I've read David Atkins piece on generic polling for this year's midterm elections  and stood in the face of how dire it is...I can let my politically manic personality (Obama has been a major disappointment!/Obama is the most unjustly crucified figure since Jesus Christ!; I'm not voting for the mealy-mouth DINO Hillary Clinton in 2016!/If Hillary runs we have a legitimate chance to take back the House!) look at the bright side:

• The same polling that showed Democrats trailing republicans in an election with generic candidates 47-43, also showed Democrats in Congress with a 32% approval rating and republicans with only a 23% approval rating.  I'd say "What the fuck?', but I used it in the negative post and frankly, the psyche of the average American voter is sometimes beyond words.
• 47%-43%?  Pshaw--them's within the margin of error numbers.
• Six months until November 4th--how many people had President Obama losing six months out in 2012?  A lot can change.
• Thanks to gerrymandering, the odds of the Democrats winning back the House this year were pretty much zero anyway.  Further, there's very little chance republicans are going to win by a sixty seat advantage again (let's hope those aren't famous final words), and their margin of seats is really irrelevant.  They march lockstep and whether they have a 10 seat margin or a 40 seat margin they still aren't enacting any progressive legislation in this millennium.
• The Dems are looking at a 50% chance of holding onto the Senate, and considering how favorable the map was for republicans this year, it's nothing short of a miracle.
• As for the who'd be best for the economy polling...I got nothing.  Hell,the only hope we have is to find our very own Liberal Koch Brothers (oxymoron alert!) who can spend billions on ads showing what pre-bad Christmas dinner induced nightmares Ebeneezer Scrooge assholes republicans are.
• The republicans are running on Benghazi (nobody outside of three old farts in Peoria gives a shit) and how bad Obamacare is (the truth seems to be willing out)

Whether this year's midterms turn out to the best of times or the worse of times, one thing's for sure:  I'm gonna lose a lot of sleep over the next six months worrying about it.

Peace,
emaycee

As bad as it seems (con version)

If you're a hardcore Democrat and have been feeling a bit depressed lately, you might want to lock up the razor blades and sleeping pills before you read this piece by David Atkins on generic polling for this year's midterms.  In a nutshell:

• The numbers are the best for republicans in twenty years.
• They lead in the polling 47-43 (i.e., 47% would vote for a Joe Anyrepublican versus 43% who would vote for John Coolguydemocrat).
• President Obama's approval rating is at 44%, and is considerably less than it was in 2010, and if you'll recall, we got our clocks cleaned in the 2010 midterms.
• By a margin of 43 to 39, Americans think the republicans would be better on the economy than Democrats.

By far and away the most disconcerting numbers above are the ones concerning which party would be best for the economy.  Mr. Atkins presciently notes that Democrats in D.C. have spent the last couple of years working on their republican lite chops and allowing previously unheard of cuts to the budget and all that deficit reduction chatter certainly isn't going to fire up the troops.

What makes it even more problematic for me is that we are only five and a half years away from Bush the Lesser leading the charge on utterly destroying our economy, republicans promised jobs in 2010 and have done nothing to help create any, House republicans won't even so much as allow a vote on an unemployment extension, and Senate republicans just blocked a chance to vote on increasing the minimum wage.

What the fuck?

All in all, it's enough to make me wonder what in the hell I was thinking when I quit smoking three years ago.

Peace,
emaycee