Polls like none he's seen before

John Zogby is one of the America's most well known and most respected pollsters. He says the polls he is seeing today are different. "I have never seen a number like that since I've been polling," he says. What is he referring to? He is referring to the massive backlash against George Bush and Republicans. He is referring to the polls showing that 70% of Americans don't like the direction of the country. He says that as it now stands the Republicans are at risk of losing control of the Senate, the House of Representatives, numerous state houses and many gubernatorial seats as well.

Zogby says, "Republicans are swimming upstream, they have a hell of a lot work to do in what could be a big Democratic year." He says that dissatisfaction with the war has lost the Republicans what they considered their ace in the hole: the terrorism issue. But the Democrats are winning only be default: "they have nothing to say that matters to anyone in the United States today." Republicans are seen as moving in the wrong direction and Democrats don't matter. But between a nothing and a threat people prefer the nothing. So Democrats may reap some real benefits.

America is ripe for a new political movement. The Democrats certainly have the potential to secure a landslide if they would find some principles other than those that have turned off voters for the last several decades. If they could combine Clinton's balanced budgets and welfare reform, couple it to a reduction in the size and scope of government, adopt a non-interventionist foreign policy, keep their commitment to social freedom, and repeal mesures like the Patriot Act and No Child Left Behind Act and numerous other misnamed legislation, they could have an unprecidented victory. My concern, however, is that they will merely think that not being Bush is good enough.