"DEMOCRATS SUCK LESS" MESSAGE RESONATING WITH NEW YORK VOTERS

The New York Post thinks it has dire news for President Obama:

NY turns negative on Bam

... A stunning new survey gives the president a negative approval rating in the Empire State for the first time, with just 45 percent approval and 49 percent disapproval among voters, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll.

That's a sharp turnaround from June, when Obama's New York popularity was a healthy 57-38.

In the 2008 presidential election, Obama carried New York with 63 percent of the vote....

Then you read on and discover this:

But according to Quinnipiac, Obama in his re-election bid next year would still take 49 percent of the vote in New York state versus a generic GOP challenger's 34 percent.

So New York voters think Republicans suck more. Which they do. I'll take that.

****

By the way, if you go to Quinnipiac's own write-up of the New York poll, and then to the write-up of the previous poll, you see that Obama's numbers have gone down in most groups a moderate amount -- but among men, they've plummeted. In the last poll, New York men approved of Obama's job performance 57%-39%; now it's down to 38%-56%. (Among women, the drop was much less, from 56%-38% to 52%-43%.)

A 19-point drop among New York men in less than 7 weeks? What's up with that? Is this about blue-collar male anger as the economic downturn drags on? Is it about wanting to see toughness at the negotiating table? Are we going to see this in polls nationwide?

And on that Obama-vs.generic-Republican question, New York men are more pro-GOP now (now: Obama 42%, GOP 39%; in June: Obama 53%, GOP 30%), while New York women are slightly more pro-Obama (now: Obama 56%, GOP 28%; in June: Obama 53, GOP 31%). One gender seems to respect strength while the other is turned off by intransigent brattiness, I'd say.