Quick Change

This latest CNN Poll is a perfect illustration as to how public attitudes can change when it comes to politics. According to the poll, voters now favor the Democratic Party over the Republican Party by a margin of 40% to 39%-a whopping one percent difference. It's not really been that much of an uphill struggle for the GOP, as they have just been steadily climbing, while the Democrats have been going downhill fast.

In January, the Democrats lead the GOP by twenty-five percentage points, but by August, their favorability margin had reduced to a still respectable ten percent. Now, at one percent, the polling difference is well within the statistical margin of error.

It gets even worse for the Democrats. Ordinarily, it is easy to exaggerate the significance of such polls. While most respondents might display a generic dislike of one party over another, in a great many of these cases, their anger and dislike will not translate into significant problems for their own incumbents, whom more often than not they tend to judge as an individual, as opposed to just another party apparatchik. This time, however, there might be a great deal of disruption and turnover. It so happens that the two regions where polling respondents have expressed the most dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party is in-the Northeast and the Pacific Coast, the two major traditional strongholds of Democratic Party support, at least insofar as the liberal wing of the party is concerned.

Next comes another zinger-

The poll also indicates Americans are split on which party they trust more to handle major changes to the country's health care system. Forty-three percent say they trust congressional Democrats more on health care reform, with four in 10 feeling Republicans would do a better job. The 3-point margin for Democrats is within the survey's sampling error.

There is one crumb of potential bad news for Republicans, however, in that most respondents expressed a preference for the concept of a "public option" in the formulation of a national health care reform bill. According to the poll, 53% of Americans approved such an option for the establishment of a government run insurance plan to compete with private insurers.

Seeing as the Democrats did finally agree scrap the public option component of their health care reform plan, this might seem to be a moot point, but as I said in an earlier post, if the American health care situation worsens, and this is perceived as due in large measure to failure to provide for a public option, look for the Democrats to paint the Republicans as responsible for derailing the provision.

Naturally, they will portray this as a transparent attempt by Republican lawmakers to look out for their friends and lobbyists in the health insurance industry at the expense and to the detriment of the health care system in general, and the American people who are dependent on, and even oppressed in large measure by the current problems inherent in the system. And certainly, while the health insurance industry has a legitimate stake, just as do all other facets of the industry, this will be seen as a charge that might not be wholly without merit, particularly when Democrats have their own favorite whipping boys, such as Joe Liebermann, to point to as sterling examples of such seemingly unbridled cronyism.

It's something to think about. After all, things have changed this quickly with Obama just in office for roughly eleven months.

Well, there is exactly that much time left until the 2010 mid-term elections. You should never assume you have the championship wrapped up just halfway through the season.