A recent poll by the Democracy Corps shows that although support for Repugs is slipping, support for Democrats is slipping more. Although 56% of respondents say the country is headed in the wrong direction, 43% have warm feelings towards the Repugs while only 38% have positive feelings for the Dems.
Dem pollster Stanley Greenberg told the CS Monitor that he attributes the Dems decline to voters' perceptions that Democrats have "no core set of convictions or point of view."
http://search.csmonitor.com/search_content/0629/p02s01-usmb.html
Gee, with a couple of Joes like Biden and Lieberman on our side, is it any wonder? No one expects Biden to vote against the credit card industry's interests but he's got to stop is attacks on party unity. Does he seriously think he has a chance to be elected president?
The one tiny silver lining in the poll is that 48% of respondents said that if an election was held today they would vote for a Dem versus 43% who would vote for a Repug.
http://democracycorps.com/reports/surveys/Democracy_Corps_June_2005_Survey.pdf
David Sirota has a great analysis of the poll results:
Sirota attacks the "arrogant and timid Democratic operative/adviser/elite class" that thinks it can continue to fool the middle class with "empty rhetoric" will continuing to vote against it's interests. He cites a familiar list of recent sellouts by certain Democrats of what should be the party's core values: the bankruptcy bill, the class action bill and the confirmation of Rice among others.
Sirota concludes:
"And that leads us to the bottom line that the GOP knows so well: no amount of rhetoric can outweigh authenticity and conviction. This is not about embracing a more "liberal" agenda - it is about actually making principles dictate policy decisions, instead of continuing to be a party that is about nothing other than thumb-in-the-wind political calculation. The sooner our side learns that, the sooner we will really be headed back to the majority."
http://www.davidsirota.com/2005/06/why-public-believes-dems-stand-for.html