Michael Barone - Opinion (usnews.com)

Astonishing news on the generic ballot question. Pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that Democrats are currently ahead of Republicans by only 40 percent to 39 percent. Given that this generic ballot question over the years has tended to understate Republicans’ performances in actual elections, one gathers that if the 2010 election for House seats were held today, Republicans would win or come close to winning a majority of seats—which is to say, they would gain about 40 seats. By way of comparison, they gained 52 seats when they won their majority in 1994. This result may just be a momentary blip, which will pass away as quickly as it appeared, and we are a long, long, long way from the November 2010 elections. But if I were a Democratic member of Congress in even a marginally marginal district, I would be just a little bit worried. And if I were a conservative cheerleader against the Obama/Pelosi stimulus package, I would be concentrating less of my fire against the three Republicans who supported the Senate version and more on Democratic members of the House and (at least those who are up for reelection in 2010) the Senate.

How about both? In fact, I think it is necessary to excoriate both, because we are out to destroy bad policy, whether it is supported by the GOP or the Dems - so leaning hard on Dems while giving fake Republicans a pass is simply hypocritical, not to mention counter-productive.

I don’t want Barack Obama to fail because he’s a Democrat. I want him to fail because he espouses horrid policies. Why would I feel any different about a Specter, a Snowe, or a Collins who does likewise?

Barone can’t help himself, of course. He thinks the game only involves which party is in power, not what that party does with the power it achieves. If Obama changed nothing about himself or his policies except for his party affiliation, Barone would probably vote for him.

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