THE ECONOMY IS THE DEMOCRATS' KATRINA

There's a lot of miserable news for the Democrats in the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (Journal story here; MSNBC story here; poll numbers here)...

Republicans have solidified support among voters who had drifted from the party in recent elections, putting the GOP in position for a strong comeback in November's mid-term campaign, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll....

Republicans have reassembled their coalition by reconnecting with independents, seniors, blue-collar voters, suburban women and small town and rural voters... Those voter groups now favor GOP control of Congress...

... but the highlighted numbers below (click to enlarge) point to their biggest problem, one they're going to have a hell of a time reversing (assuming they even have the will to reverse it):



Nine years ago, 47% of Americans thought Democrats were on the side of average Americans and 29% thought they favored big corporations -- an 18-point advantage for "average Americans."

Now it's an 18-point advantage for fat cats. However inaccurate the old perception may have been, the Democrats needed it, and they've lost it. I don't know if they even want to get it back, but they're risking long-term minority status, starting in the next couple of election cycles, if they don't get it back.

Look, you can give the vast majority of the goodies to the fat cats and a lot less to ordinary people when ordinary people don't need that much. But when people are hurting, the reality needs to match the FDR-like rhetoric. You have to deliver for ordinary Joes. And the current crop of Democrats didn't. That failure is the Democrats' Katrina.

When ordinary Americans feel they're being screwed by Republicans, as they did in 2006 and 2008, they're willing to ignore the GOP's well-crafted, poll-tested wedge issues. But now voters feel let down by Democrats -- and Republican issues and frames are coming to the fore, according to this poll:

Even after the recent -- and highly publicized -- oil spill in the Gulf Coast, that’s the overwhelming sentiment from the public, with six in 10 Americans supporting more offshore drilling, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

In addition, a majority believes that the potential economic benefits of offshore drilling outweigh its potential harm to the environment....

Nearly two-thirds of Americans back Arizona's new controversial immigration law....

... a majority of Americans (52 percent) say they are willing to give up personal freedoms and civil liberties to prevent another terrorist attack. And another majority (51 percent) approve of using racial or ethnic profiling to combat terrorism....

Oh, and voters' #2 concern (after job creation/economic growth) is the deficit.

Democrats have had a year and a few months to blunt the appeal of GOP talking points on these issues (and yes, I know that the president's approach on deficits and drilling has been GOP Lite). Instead, they pissed away the better part of a year on a health-care bill that's helped virtually no one so far and that most Americans think is awful, even if they don't know why. This could turn out to be a GOP decade, and it's because there are people on rooftops all over America, and Democrats haven't rescued them.