While multiple recent polls have found Newt Gingrich leading in dozens of states, Mitt Romney has managed to retain his big lead in New Hampshire.

Democrats and Democratic leaning independents are not enthusiastic about voting in the upcoming Presidential election according to Gallup polling. There is some very bad news for President Obama and the rest of the Democratic Party when it comes to the issue of base engagement in the upcoming election.

I’ve spent much of the past twenty-four hours dealing with local Democratic Party functionaries who were trying to shout me and a few other folks down over this issue. Instead of wasting time trying to get people like me to say that the yellow liquid being trickled on us all is just rain and not urine, they would be better served trying to figure out how they can convince the vast apolitical majority of Americans to get into the voting booth — you know, the people who don’t follow the politics of Supreme Court justices but care mightily about their pensions — without being able to honestly deploy the “we’ll save Medicare and Medicaid” hole card.

It is never a good idea to get focused on the politics instead of results of your policy. When you do you wind up making bad policy and still get hammered politically.

The good news for Democrats is that the poll found Republicans have squandered most of the advantage they had in 2010. Since January the percentage of Americans who disapprove of House Republicans job performance has surged from 48 to 59 percent. Democrats now also lead Republicans in the generic ballot 46 to 45.

Corporatist Democrats have a sweet scam going. Even when they lose an election, they still win.

Just in case the incredible political success Republicans experienced in 2010 after they were able to frame Democrats’ health care law as cutting Medicare didn’t make the point abundantly clear, a new Gallup poll reminds us that Americans really want their Medicare left alone.

The notion that Democrats lost the 2010 midterms because liberals weren’t clapping loudly enough isn’t supported by the evidence. Democrats lost because they lost independents by 15 points, and independents don’t care what liberals think.

This has to be the shortest honeymoon in the history of American politics.

Voting for the new health care law was extremely damaging to Democrats’ re-election prospects in 2010.