It's a Long Way To November

From The Washington Post today:

Democratic leaders, increasingly confident they will seize control of the House in November, are laying plans for a legislative blitz during their first week in power that would raise the minimum wage, roll back parts of the Republican prescription drug law, implement homeland security measures and reinstate lapsed budget deficit controls.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said in an interview last week that a Democratic House would launch a series of investigations of the Bush administration, beginning with the White House's first-term energy task force and probably including the use of intelligence in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Pelosi denied Republican allegations that a Democratic House would move quickly to impeach President Bush. But, she said of the planned investigations, "You never know where it leads to."

In recent days, Democratic confidence has been buoyed by a series of polls indicating that not only is Bush growing increasingly unpopular, so are Republicans in Congress. An Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Friday found that 33 percent of the public approves of Bush's job performance, the lowest rating of his presidency. And only 25 percent approves of the job Congress is doing, a figure comparable to congressional approval ratings before the 1994 elections that swept Republicans to power.

The AP-Ipsos poll found that 51 percent of Americans say they want Democrats rather than Republicans to control Congress. Only 34 percent favor Republican control.

"We have to be ready to win," Pelosi said, "and we have to tell [voters] what we will do when we win."

[Emphasis mine]

I hate to burst Minority Leader Pelosi's bubble, but you have to tell the voters what you will do before you win. That is apparently a concept the Democratic Party fails to embrace, or even recognize, for that matter.

It's curious to me that a body whose overall approval (25 percent) is lower than the President (33 percent) can make claims of ineffectiveness on the part of the President. I can't find a link to the transcript, but this is the same point driven home by Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics while on Bill Bennett's Morning in America radio program last week.

While the AP/Ipsos poll also shows if the election were held today 51 percent of Americans favor Democratic control of Congress and 34 percent favor Republican Control, the election isn't being held today and a lot of things can change between now and November either way. History has proven it.

I'm not discounting the fact that a lot of conservatives, including myself, are concerned about the direction the GOP has been heading, but if the only position the Democrats can articulate is the guarantee that regaining control will bring about a series of investigations of the Bush Administration, they will quickly find out they are on a road to nowhere. It's familiar territory for the Democrats to be sure, but its territory that offers no change in scenery. Voters want "What will you do?” not "Who will you screw?".

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Tags: Politics, Polls, AP/Ipsos, Bush, Washington Post, Elections, House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi