Worthwhile David S. Broder Piece

Broder has been almost notoriously non-partisan in all this, while waiting for Washington to stop its hopeless partisan nut job. But lately, he's sick and tired of it and letting it show. From today's WaPo "Ending the GOP Majority: Will Voters Pull the Trigger?":

The voters have been pointing a symbolic gun at the Republican regime in Washington for many months now. All that remains is for them to pull the trigger on Election Day.

When you examine the latest round of preelection polls, what is striking is the stability of public attitudes over the preceding months. In this week's Post-ABC News poll, for example, President Bush has a job approval score of 39 percent, with 60 percent disapproving. Eleven months earlier, in November 2005, the scores were identical.

In between, Bush got up as high as 47 percent and fell as low as 33 percent. But at no time did more Americans approve of his job performance than disapprove.

The public has shown similar consistency with party support for Congress. In the latest poll, Democrats lead Republicans, 54 percent to 41 percent, among registered voters. In November 2005 the Democrats led 52 percent to 37 percent. The margins are almost identical.

To take one more example, look at the broad question of the overall direction of the nation -- right path or wrong track. In this latest poll, by a margin of 66 percent to 32 percent, people said "wrong track." Last November the comparable numbers were 68 and 30 percent.

Of course, this assumes that the voting equipment will allow an accurate vote: an assumption that few veterans of elections 2000, 2002, or 2004 are unlikely to make.