Bush @ 42% in CNN and USA Today/Gallup polls

Bush on the rise again...See John Podhoretz's column in the NY Post.

The drumbeat is constant: We haven't seen numbers like this since 1994, when the GOP swept into power. Or even: We haven't seen numbers like this since the slaughter of Republicans in 1974, in the wake of Watergate.

After all, everybody is certain that, after Election Day, Democrats will hold a majority of governorships for the first time in six years. Surely the Republican reckoning in Washington is at hand. Surely . . . surely . . .

Don't be so sure.

The chief evidence Washington wise men are using to adduce an upcoming earthquake derives from some very unfavorable polling. President Bush's approval rating is only 37 percent, according to the Real Clear Politics average of all major polls. That's about the same number recorded for the GOP in the "generic ballot" question - where pollsters ask whether people intend to vote for a Republican or a Democrat, without offering a candidate's name.

Plus, the "right track-wrong track" numbers - based on whether people say the country is on the right or wrong track - are running nearly 70 percent against the current direction.

But there are real questions about the validity of this kind of polling, not only as window on coming events, but also as a political indicator altogether. First, there's the question of who is being polled. Midterm elections feature very low turnout - nationally, somewhere around 30 percent. Those are very committed voters, what pollsters call "likely voters."

It's very expensive and very difficult to try and poll only "likely voters" during a non-presidential election, and most polling firms don't even bother. Most polls this year don't even screen for people who describe themselves as "registered voters."

So these polls may reflect real public anger, but they're highly questionable as a gauge for what voters will do.