The most recent Fox News poll contains several interesting data points:
*Only “43 percent of voters say that they would vote to re-elect President Obama if the 2012 election were held today, down from 52 percent six months ago, from April 22-23, 2009.”
*“Looking ahead to the 2010 Congressional election, for the first time this year the Republicans have the advantage: 42 percent of voters say they are more likely to back the Republicans to provide a check on President Obama’s power, while 38 percent say they would vote for the Democrat to help the president pass his policies.”
*“Majorities of Democrats, 53 percent, Republicans, 78 percent, and Independents, 61 percent, agree the country is more divided these days. All in all, 64 percent of Americans think the country is more politically divided today — that’s more than twice the number who say it is not more divided, 31 percent.”
All in all, this is bad news for the president. It doesn’t mean things can’t change; in fact, they will — for better or worse. But it does mean that right now the tide is running fairly strongly against Obama and the Democrats. Obama has not been quite the transformative president his supporters thought he would be — at least not in the way they imagined. He is, however, reviving the hopes and spirits of the GOP in a way that almost no one anticipated.