Adding to that Scheiber post Pod linked to below, Mickey Kaus has a good summary on the decline in the Democratic wave (scroll through the mockery of Sullivan). It seems like there’s going to be a big argument — if Dems come up short — about how much to blame John Kerry for his asinine-90 dirty bomb attack. I think Kerry definitely deserves some blame for the downtick in those polls. But, as Mickey notes, the wave started petering out before Kerry’s “botched joke.” In other words, people were having second thoughts about the Dems generically before Kerry irradiated himself. Kerry may have manifested their concerns nicely, but should the Dems really come up short, you’ll see lots of folks blaming Kerry while downplaying the possibility that when American voters actually start paying attention to the elections in earnest, the Democrats suffer.
Anyway, I don’t think any of this latest polling suff is proof that the Dems are going to fizzle-out, not by a longshot. But I think it’s interesting to think through some of these what-ifs in advance.