The most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll (PDF) found that 57 % of Americans based, on their own personal experience, don’t think the economy has began to recover. Only 42 % feeling it has began to recover and among that group 81% feel the recovery has been weak.

The fact that so few Americans actually feel the economy has recovered highlights the point Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg has been making about the serious failure of Obama messaging over the past few years

Administration officials are trying to make us forget that President Obama promised to start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in July 2011, but that might not be so easy: Stan Greenberg suggests that continued escalation is likely to draw a primary challenge.

When all the House races are finally called, Democrats will have likely lost, on net, roughly 62 to 65 seats. It was a true Republican wave, and the results were worse than you would have expected, even considering the poor economic conditions and the fact that the President’s party tends to lose seats in the first midterm. In light of these huge losses, two big Democratic strategists, James Carville and Stan Greenberg, are pointing out that Obama’s messaging leading up to the election was utterly unhelpful to his party.

The core message being delivered by the President actually persuades people to vote for Republicans over Democrats.

No one political operative, no matter how powerful, brilliant, or stupid, can destroy a political party. The elected Republicans who were in power when they caused or failed to respond correctly to our country’s most serious disasters are the people who destroyed the party.

Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg predicts that if the 2010 election were held today, it would be bad enough for Democrats to be 1994 all over again. Don’t act surprised. Rahm promised us this would happen: