Polls versus Checks

Over the last few weeks the pollsters have given us the opportunity to what the RCP blog calls 'seasickness' - on the one hand the "generic" congressional vote polls and the president's approval numbers have seemed to recover somewhat. The generic poll seems to be at dead even. The president has broken into the mid-40 numbers. On the other a new poll on Congress says that a mere 25% of the voters believe the body is doing a good job. ( I am frankly surprised that the number breaks double digits.)

So what is political junkie to do? As I have suggested to one of my good friends who has this kind of addiction, look to the larger issues not the day to day polls. Here are a couple of impressions about 5+ weeks before the election. #1 - the voters are annoyed at Bush and the Congress. There are a whole raft of reasons - many of which I think are short sighted. #2 - They do not like the Iraq policy, they think the economy is stalled, they think Congress is a den of thieves. #3 - On the other hand they look at the democrats and they see a couple of things - they think their cut and run policy is probably as troubling as the president's stridency on terrorism (I think in the end they prefer the president's stridency to the democrat's cut and run), the dems do not seem to have followed through on their plan they announced with fanfare in July (a plan is not a list). #4 - the dems should be annoyed that the UN General Assembly opening happened so close to the election - having Chavez and the other loons rant on our soil will not sit well. It even may help to reinforce the president's view on terror. The reaction to the Pope's university speech I think will also reinforce the dangers in the world. #5 - But the GOP should not be complacent if it wants to win. Their fund raising seems to have picked up and they will need lots of dough - although strangely, I am not sure that the ads in this campaign will make much difference - a lot of the undercurrents in the election will not be able to be reduced to 30 second spots.

So what happens in November? At this point were I forced to choose (and I do not have to until November), I think the election will be a lot closer than most of the main stream media think.