The Republican Party is in trouble. Polls have shown for well over a year now that voters, dissatisfied with Republican rule, have been seeking a change in the makeup of our Congress, more and more voters, likely and registered, desiring a Democratic Congress. Which is one reason why we see Mr Bu$h campaigning in apparently threatened districts that heretofore have been considered “safely” red country. These are districts that have been judged loyal in the Bu$h years, and as always Mr Bu$h’s appearances are in front of carefully vetted audiences. These public appearances are calculated to produce two effects: provide positive public images for the icon of a party and a man brutally tarred with the results of their criminality: scandals piled on top each other, in the last few weeks coming too fast to be easily absorbed into the public subconscious. The second purpose is to shore up sagging and failing incumbent campaigns.

Thus we find reliable Republican shill Adam Nagourney writing in yesterday’s NY Times of a tightening of polls, showing almost-miraculous Republican gains in generic polls that have consistently been bad for the Republican Party over the last 12 months and growing worse by the week:

The announcement [Saddam’s death sentence] out of Baghdad came as polls suggested some gains for Republicans. A Pew Research Center Survey released on Sunday found that the number of likely voters who said they would vote for the Democrats was now 47 percent compared with 43 percent who said they would vote for Republicans. Two weeks ago, Democrats had an edge of 50 to 39. A Washington Post-ABC News poll found a similar tightening.

These kinds of polls, about the so-called generic ballot, measure national trends and do not necessarily provide an accurate measure of what is happening in individual House and Senate races.

It’s all public relations, of course. Flooding the airwaves and print media with pictures and stories about Mr Bu$h appearing in front of reliable crowds is a necessary part of the cult of personality so often seen in dictatorships. These appearances present the façade of an unflappable politician still deeply adored in the heartland, and provide some of the narrative to explain the sudden tightening of polls, which in turn will be used to discredit the exit polls in the aftermath of surprising Republican victories in districts that were showing Democratic Party preferences of 12 to 20 points.

In apparent contradiction of the “resurgent Republicans” myth currently being presented, we find CNN reporting yet more Bu$h unpopularity:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush's popularity has dipped to 35 percent, according to a new CNN poll, with 41 percent of likely voters saying their disapproval of his performance will affect their vote in Tuesday's elections for control of Congress.

Sixty-one percent of the 1,008 adult Americans who responded to the Opinion Research Corp. poll said they disapproved of the way Bush is handling his job as president, according to the survey. The poll was conducted by telephone Friday through Sunday.

These actual polls are quite specific and in direct contradiction to the polls cited in Mr Nagourney’s polemic : Mr Bu$h is unpopular, his policies are unpopular, the Iraq war is unpopular, and by extension the Republican Party is unpopular. Polls can be unreliable because there can be a deliberate or accidental bias in how they are formulated, but when you consider the totality of polls taken under all circumstances over the last 12 months they show a specific trend of favoring a Democratic Congress.

Atrios, reporting this CNN poll on his blog, adds:

Also, I couldn't find it online, but they just reported that their generic ballot has Democrats up 58 to 38.

These are just some things to remember in the aftermath of November 7th if we find universally despised politicians like Rock Santorum and George Felix Allen miraculously pulling out a victory.