A Democratic loss is not exactly a Republican victory

As the indispensable Jay Cost has been pointing out—no longer at Real Clear Politics, though, as he’s moved on to write for the Weekly Standard, where among other things he’s doing a column every weekday morning called “Morning Jay”—the polling numbers for President Obama and the Democrats (and doesn’t that sound like a ’50s rock band?) are bad and getting worse, to the point where the party is starting to throw incumbents overboard. In fact, it’s gotten so bad for the Dems that expectations are starting to become a problem for the GOP, prompting some Republicans to start trying to deflate them.

And for good reason, because as big as the bullseye is across the Democrats’ collective back, the electorate isn’t really any happier with the Republicans. As Cost notes,

There is great turmoil that the two political parties have been (so far) incapable of handling, and the public is still casting about in search of competent leadership. I think something similar happened between 1974 and 1982. The country is unsatisfied with the state of the nation and has so far disapproved of both parties’ performances. But in a two party system, there is no choice but to swing back and forth until folks finds leaders who are up to the job.

In other words, the folks who are saying that this is about an essentially conservative country coming back to the party that better represents it aren’t really on the point. I do think the US tilts right of center, but not by a whole lot, and the electorate we’re seeing isn’t pro-Republican—it’s anti-both-parties and anti-government. Any Republican politicians who are looking forward to getting back in power and going back to business as usual should think long and hard about this warning from Scott Rasmussen:

Voters are ready to deliver the same message in 2010 that they delivered in 2006 and 2008 as they prepare to vote against the party in power for the third straight election. These results suggest a fundamental rejection of both political parties.

In other words, as I’ve been saying, this isn’t really about one party versus the other, it’s about people across the ideological spectrum versus the parties. That cracking, booming sound you’re hearing is the sound of the fissure widening between our rulers and the rest of us—which in our system means that they won’t keep being our rulers much longer if they don’t wise up. Which they probably won’t . . .