The Obama Administration has come under fire from the Professional and the not-so-professional Left for many reasons over the last two years. The main thrust of the criticism boils down to an argument that the White House should have been bolder in its rhetoric, more aggressive in its negotiations with Congress, more expeditious in withdrawing from conflicts overseas, more progressive in its choice of advisors, more strident in its use of executive authority, and more robust about its efforts on economic recovery.
Administration supporters counter that Obama has a long list of progressive accomplishments, and dispute whether any of these proposals were even possible given the state of the Congress, corporate control of campaign finance, and the dysfunctional press corps.
But in the end, none of these arguments are the most relevant for judging Obama’s success or lack thereof. Results are what matters: not only legislative results, but political ones as well. And one result in particular should be cause for heightened alarm: Gallup now shows a record advantage for Republicans in the generic congressional ballot: a 50-43 lead over Democrats.
Half of the registered voters polled by Gallup say that if elections were held today, they'd vote for the Republican candidate in their districts.
The GOP's edge -- 50 percent versus 43 percent who say they'd for the Democrat -- is the largest so far in 2010. Click on the chart to see a larger view of the distance Gallup graphs between the two parties.
"A strong Republican showing this fall would be consistent with Gallup's recent research indicating that the party of a president with approval ratings below 50% tends to suffer heavy seat losses in midterm elections," writes Gallup's Jeffrey M. Jones. "The Republicans' larger lead on the latest generic ballot coincides with a new low weekly job approval average of 44% for President Obama."
This is not to say that progressives and Democrats of all stripes should panic and head for the hills. First, all politics is local, and the GOP is fielding some truly abysmal candidates, some of whom (like Sharron Angle) would normally waltz to victory in this environment but whose own insanity weaknesses may pull them underwater even in this Republican wave year. The fact that generic Republicans do better only helps when those Republicans are, well, generic rather than your local Tea Party crazy. Second, voters don't much like Republicans, either. Third, the numbers should shift somewhat as Democratic partisans begin to become more engaged once campaigns hit full swing. Fourth, some of this imbalance may be localized to the South and the Mormon Belt, where it may be "wasted" from an electoral point of view.
That said, the generic ballot highlights what is perhaps the greatest mistake the Obama Administration has made: allowing the Republicans to get up off the mat in the hopeless pursuit of bipartisanship.
It is arguable that, from a purely legislative point of view, what the Obama Administration has accomplished is historic, and even that it was the best that could be done given Congressional and other impediments. Sadly, however, voters do not vote for laundry lists of legislation.
It is arguable that there is little the Obama Administration could have done to stop its slide in approval, given the state of the economy in the wake of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and the unrelenting assault of the Republican noise machine. Unfortunately, stopping an economy from teetering into collapse doesn't warm the hearts of voters nearly as much as getting decent paycheck after years of un- or under-employment (and, sadly, it's impossible to beam the lessons of The Big Short into the head of each voting American.)
What cannot be argued, however, is that there was any need whatsoever to help the GOP rescue its own brand from the doldrums to which the Bush Administration had relegated it. The GOP has, if anything, only gotten more extreme since the days of the Bush Administration, nor has it changed it tune on corporate warfare against the middle class by even a grace note. John Boehner is just as out of touch and repulsive a human being as Mr. Now Watch This Drive.
The Obama Administration read the polls and listened to the focus groups tell them that Americans wanted Washington to "come together to solve the nation's problems." What it failed to understand was that the solving problems part is the important one. The "coming together" part is seen as a means to an end, not as an end unto itself. By so diligently pursuing a spirit of bipartisanship, the Obama Administration not only potentially diluted more progressive legislation that could have done a better job solving America's problems, but it did something perhaps even less forgivable: it allowed Republicans the room to breathe, to rebrand, and to position themselves as, if not a positive in the mind of the voter, at least as the lesser of two evils.
There is still time to correct this mistake. President Obama has begun to turn up the political heat on the GOP, and to remind voters that our opponents are still the party of George W. Bush and his base. That focus will be indispensable if the Democrats are to retain control of the House and Senate.
But no matter the political makeup of America on November 3rd, the most important lesson the Obama Administration needs to learn as it moves to 2012 is a simple one: do not, under any circumstances, give political breathing room to an opponent that is doubling down on your destruction in pursuit of corporatocracy. Getting results for Americans in need is more important than bipartisanship.