Chuck Todd: Barack Obama about to do Carter-like Damage to Democrats on Foreign Policy

HotAir.com:

There’s plenty of evidence to support Chuck Todd’s conclusion, and not just on foreign policy, either. The new host of Meet the Press told the Morning Joe panel today that the new NBC/WSJ polling on issues shows that Obama really may be the second coming of Jimmy Carter … and that’s bad news for the Democrats:

Earlier, I wrote about the latest in the series of cratering poll numbers for Barack Obama and how it would impact his ability to restore confidence in his leadership. The NBC/WSJ poll numbers have more interesting data on domestic issues, especially in the context of the upcoming midterms. Obama’s leadership and popularity have become a boat anchor on Democrats’ hopes to avoid a GOP wave this November, but those aren’t the only problems facing the President’s allies in the midterms.

First, the generic ballot question looks better for the GOP than it has since the last election, but only marginally. Republicans have a 45/43 lead, about the same as last month’s 44/43, and the numbers for both parties are within the narrow range we have seen in this series all year. That doesn’t take into account likely voters, though, only registered voters. This poll doesn’t have any explicit enthusiasm tests, and for some reason NBC/WSJ isn’t testing for voting likelihood on these questions, even though the midterms are less than two months away.

The big problem for Democrats is on the issues. Democrats have wide lead on their traditional issues, including environmentalism (+27, but the lowest since 1992), abortion (+15), and health care — which is only at +8, when it was a +36 in January 2008. Republicans lead on their traditional issues too, such as national defense (+38) and the federal deficit (+18), both highs for this series — but those issues are more relevant in polling. Even more relevant than those are the economy, for which Republicans have a +10 advantage. In the 2006 midterms, Democrats had a +13 advantage. On taxes, Republicans have a narrow edge at +4. On the issues that matter most to voters in this cycle — the economy, taxes, national security — Republicans are peaking while Democrats are fading.

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