The political consequences of this head-in-the-sand approach are becoming obvious. The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza reports that "[n]ew data from Gallup shows that independent voters now favor a generic Republican candidate for Congress over a generic Democratic candidate by 12 points, a trend that appears to be tied to their feelings about President Barack Obama."
"In more than 6,000 interviews conducted in June," Cillizza relayed, "46 percent of Independents said they would support a Republican candidate while 34 percent said they would vote for a Democrat."
"In April and May, Gallup polls showed Republicans with a 10-point edge among independents on the generic ballot while in March it was an eight-point margin," Cillizza concluded.
The American electorate has assessed the president's incompetence on the economy and now the Gulf spill, his dithering in Afghanistan and his desertion of Israel, his bullying of GM and its dealers and shareholders in favor of his union pals, his "economic theory" as evidenced in the abuse of TARP and the economic waste of the stimulus, and they have concluded that the only "right direction" we are headed in is towards the November election.
Even cemented-in incumbents like Chuck Schumer have got to begin to worry that the president's combination of epic incompetence and ideological extremism could spell electoral doom for them as well as dozens of House Democrats.