Memo to the Dems: Where the Hell Are You?

Buried at the bottom of a Washington Post/ABC News poll - the headline is "President's Rating Falls to New Low", as if that was much of a surprise - is a piece of polling data that is likely to be twisted and denied by the friends and patrons of the go-along, get-along DLC:

     "The survey also provided bad news for Democratic
     leaders, who are judged as offering Bush only tepid
     opposition. Slightly more than half of those surveyed
     expressed dissatisfaction with congressional
     Democrats for not opposing Bush more aggressively.

     "Self-identified Democrats were particularly impatient.
     More than three in four said congressional Democrats
     have not gone far enough to oppose Bush on Iraq or
     on administration policies in general.

     ""Somebody needs to speak up," said Michelle
     Burgess, 41, a home health aide in St. Louis. "Enough
     is enough. I don't understand why we're over there
     in Iraq or what he's doing on other issues. There
     are too many lives being lost."

     "Independents were similarly dissatisfied with
     Democratic leaders for not challenging the president
     over the war and other issues, with six in 10 saying
     Democrats have been too meek."

The raw data is linked on Political Wire:

   34. Do you think Democrats in Congress have gone too far
   or not far enough in opposing:

   Too    Not far    Right
   Far    enough    Ammt
   a. the war in Iraq
   37      53           4
   b. the nomination of John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court
   38      38           7
   c. Bush’s policies in general
   37      52           6

What I find particularly interesting about this is that the pro-Bush and anti-Bush forces, those leaning strongest left and right, have always tended to plateau at about 37-38%. And in this poll, that's exactly where they are. Those who think the Dems have gone to far in their opposition (the core republican true believers) - 38% (another reason that Bush and his team are so nervous that many polls have them right at 40% approval, he's lost almost everyone but the kool-aid drinkers). Meanwhile, on the other side, you have those on the left who see the boogeyman in John Roberts, clearly no Thurgood Marshall, but also not the worst thing that could have happened. They top out at, that's right, 38%.

That leaves a middle ground - the so-called sensible center - of about 24-25% of the electorate. And a full 75% of that center thinks the Democrats either don't stand up to Bush enough (or do it just about right) on the war in Iraq and his general policies.

Leading Democrats in Washington - espesically the conflicted pentateuch of Kerry, Biden, Clinton, Bayh and Lieberman - are running to the press to endlessly state that Democrats need to prove that they have the toughness in foreign policy to lead America. You need to show guts, balls, gravitas, chops, etc.

But while they salute and kiss up to the DLC, a majority of Americans have come to the conclusion that they're afraid to stand up to the failed presidency of George Bush. And if you can't and won't stand up to him, how could they ever trust you to stand up to Osama bin Laden?