NOVEMBER, 2010, ALL OVER? – AT 9:21 A.M. ET:   Superlative political analyst Michael Barone is looking at the polling data coming in, and finds today's political map remarkably similar to the one that was drawn just before last year's elections.  From the Washington Examiner:

My Examiner colleague Conn Carroll notes that Gallup’s polling over the last six months shows Barack Obama with an approval rating over 50% in only 11 states, with 169 electoral votes (Conn has 173, but I think he’s including Maine where Obama’s job approval is right at but not above 50%). They include just three of the ten largest states, California, New York and Illinois. I find these results highly congruent with the popular vote for the House in November 2010, the subject of my July 21 article in american.com. The popular vote for the House, I argued, has become a good proxy for party and presidential standing since the mid-1990s.

What’s interesting here is that the list of states where Democrats carried the popular vote for the House in 2010 looks very much like the list of states where Obama’s Gallup job approval has been over 50% this year.

The Gallup 50%+ list includes only one state where Republicans carried the 2010 House popular vote, New Jersey, and the vote was very close there. It doesn’t include the four states where Democrats carried the popular vote but Obama’s approval stands at 50% or below: Maine, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington. But,...Obama’s Gallup approval tends to be very close to the Democratic percentage of the House popular vote last November.

Tentative conclusion: the balance of opinion remains very close to where it was in November 2010.

COMMENT:  Obviously, this can change.  But Barone's report underlines the opportunity the Republican Party has going forward to the 2012 election...if the party can pull itself together, nominate an attractive presidential candidate, and come up with a rational program that isn't self-destructive.  Those are big challenges for a party that works hard to lose elections.

The danger:  The Republican Party is becoming as ideological as the Democratic Party, and rigid ideology has never been attractive to the American voter.  We are an idealistic nation, not an ideological nation.  Reagan understood that, which is why he could pursue a conservative agenda while never appearing to be an ideological parrot or an uncompromising martinet. 

August 9, 2011