Good News for the G.O.P.

It's a little too early to tell. Polls are really "snapshots" of opinion and not longitudinal interpretations of the national mood. Still, 3 polls out this week should make Obama and the Democrats nervous:

• The Gallup poll finds that Americans describe themselves as having gotten more conservative in recent years:

Americans, by a 2-to-1 margin, say their political views in recent years have become more conservative rather than more liberal, 39% to 18%, with 42% saying they have not changed. While independents and Democrats most often say their views haven't changed, more members of all three major partisan groups indicate that their views have shifted to the right rather than to the left.

Independents, notably, say their views have grown more conservative, rather than more liberal, by a two to one margin.

So far in 2009, 40% of Americans describe themselves as conservative; conservatives outnumber liberals by more than two to one. So how does one explain the Democrats' gains in the last two election cycles? I'm tempted to say that the definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" are moving to the left as fast as people's self-descriptions are moving to the right. But Gallup also tested views on specific issues, and found that, with some exceptions, Americans have been moving to the right on an issue by issue basis, too. For example, the percentages saying we should favor the economy over the environment and that health care is not the government's responsibility have grown since 2004.

As we've written more than once, voters tend to turn to the "outs" when they become fed up with the "ins." It appears that not too many voters were fed up with the Republicans because the party was too conservative. Nevertheless, there was enough dissatisfaction with Republican governance that the other guys got a shot. It seems reasonable to expect that the Democrats might wear out their welcome sooner than the Republicans did, since, in addition to the usual grievances that accumulate and erode support for the party in power, the Democrats are taking the country in a direction where the voters don't particularly want it to go.

• If the Rasmussen survey is correct, Barack Obama's standing with voters is tanking. (Rasmussen's presidential tracking survey is a "likely voter" poll.) Today, for the first time, Obama's "approval index" stands at -5, as 37% of voters express strong disapproval of his performance, while 32% strongly approve. Of the four categories--somewhat approve, strongly approve, somewhat disapprove, strongly disapprove--"strongly disapprove" now represents a plurality. Obama's downward trajectory seems sure to continue as long as the Democrats push more unpopular legislation in Congress. From Obama's political standpoint, perhaps the best thing that could happen is for Congressional Democrats to fail to enact cap-and-tax, government medicine, further "stimulus" or anything else of more than symbolic significance. Then, when the economy recovers in due course, Obama could take credit and his approval with voters presumably would rebound. But Obama, Pelosi and Reid still seem determined not to let the opportunity offered by an economic crisis "go to waste," no matter how much it hurts them with voters.

• From Michael Barone: The latest Quinnipiac poll from Ohio shows Barack Obama's job rating at just 49%-44% positive, down sharply from 62%-31% in early May. That's a sharp and surprising drop. In the race for the Senate seat left open by Republican George Voinovich, Republican Rob Portman is running better than in previous Quinnipiac polls. He now trails Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher 37%-33% and Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner 35%-34%. In three previous Quinnipiac polls this year Portman trailed both of them by an average of 39%-31%, so this is also a significant change. Other previous polls showed similar results. What to make of this? This is just one poll, and thus a possible outlier. But if the trend it suggests is in fact real, this suggests trouble for Obama and the Democrats in the industrial heartland.