That Pesky Enthusiasm Gap Again

Greg Sargent notes Gallup's latest poll numbers showing Democrats don't even like Congress, and don't particularly want to see them re-elected.

Forty-six percent of Dems say most members of Congress deserve to be reelected, and a surprisingly high 41% say they don’t. The number is much better for Dems when they’re asked if their own member deserves to be reelected (58% of Dems say yes). But this makes the overall point clearer: While Dems like their own representatives, they’re strikingly disillusioned with the Dem-controlled Congress’ overall performance.

That's not good, folks.  I would have liked very much to see a follow up question to those Dems who said that most members of Congress do not deserve re-election, and that is "Which party would you like to see in control of Congress after the election?"  If the answer among Dems was "the Democrats" then the real problem is that many Democrats don't particularly think Congress is progressive enough, which is noteable.

If the answer among Democrats is "the Republicans" then yes, the Dems are really and truly screwed in 2010.

More data is needed.  The first pass however is not looking very good for the Dems this fall at all.  They will lose seats, the question is how many?  Republicans are going to vote against Democrats no matter what the Democrats do.  Tacking to the right will be a mistake.  At best, it will cost Democrats the same number of votes among independents gained that they will lose from demotivated Dems, and it will be a wash compared to the much larger and motivated Republican base.

The only way to limit the damage is to prove that the Democratic agenda works, and that means motivating the base to turn out by proving the Dems in Congress did something worthwhile.