NPR Poll Spells Bad News for Democrats

Over the weekend I triggered a bit of a firestorm of debate with a post I did on The Bilerico Project that addressed the continual betrayals of LGBT Americans by President Obama and Congressional Democrats. Regardless of one's views on the merits of LGBT voters sitting out the November, 2010, elections, the issue I raised in terms of the disillusionment of Democrat voters is real - very real in fact. Yet the Democrats refuse to realize that disillusionment is what happens when campaign promises are broken or when the promised legislation ends up as some piss poor reflection of what voters wanted. A new NPR Congressional Battleground Poll ought to be spreading terror among many incumbent Democrats facing serious challengers - yes, Glenn Nye, I mean you in this group - yet elected officials like Virginia's Senator Jim Webb continue to feel that the Democrat base can be lied to and thrown under the bus - often not even graciously. As I have stated before, from my perspective we are now seeing at the national level the same thing that occurred in Virginia in 2009: enthusiastic and motivated Republican base opposed to a disillusioned and apathetic Democrat base. If Democrats refuse to vote and act like Democrats, rightly or wrongly, people only remember the broken campaign promises, not what the GOP opponents MIGHT do. Here are some highlights on the poll findings:
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The results are a wake-up call for Democrats whose loses in the House could well exceed 30 seats. In the named-congressional ballot in the 60 Democratic districts, Democrats trail their Republican opponent, 42 to 47 percent, with only a third saying they want to vote to-relect their member. In the top tier of 30 most competitive seats, the Democratic candidate trails by 9 points (39 to 48 percent) and by 2 points in the next tier of 30 seats (45 to 47 percent). On the other hand, the Republican candidates are running well ahead in their most competitive seats ( 53 to 37 percent). As we saw in the special election in PA-12, Democrats will have to battle on a seat-by-seat basis — that has shifted these kinds of numbers this year.
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The effort by individual campaigns will have to push against walls that seem very hard to move at this point. We tested Democratic and Republican arguments on the economy, health care, financial reform and the big picture for the 2010 election. The results consistently favored the Republicans and closely resembled the vote breakdown. Democrats are hurt by a combined lack of enthusiasm and an anti-incumbent tone.
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Bottom line? The Democrats need to convince their base that having Democrats in office leads to a different result. In the case of LGBT voters, Democrats have delivered almost nothing. Add to that the ineffective health care "reform" passed this year, and there is little reason to be enthusiastic. The Democrat incumbents have no one to blame but themselves.