Commentators are slowly but surely catching up to the idea that the dynamic for 2010 will be different from the dynamics for 2008 and 2006.  This isn't to say that the GOP will take back control of the House in 2010, but substantial gains are increasingly easier to defend.

The latest evidence of this comes from National Journal's latest House rankings.  NJ ranks the House races most likely to switch hands as follows:

1.  LA-02 (Cao)(R)

2.  DE-AL (Castle) (R)

3.  IL-10 (Kirk, Open) (R)

4.  PA-6 (Gerlach, Open) (R)

5.  VA-5 (Perriello) (D)

6.  NJ-02 (Teague) (D)

7.  AL-02 (Bright) (D)

8.  ID-01 (Minnick) (D)

9.  FL-08 (Grayson) (D)

10.  MD-01 (Kratovil) (D)

11.  NY-23 (McHugh, Open) (R)

12.  OH-01 (Driehaus) (D)

13.  CO-04 (Markey) (D)

14.  OH-15 (Kilroy) (D)

15 (tie).  WA-08 (Reichert) (R)

15 (tie).  MS-01 (Childers) (D)

I think this is pretty much spot-on.  LA-02 and DE-AL are likely goners for the GOP; even if Castle runs for re-election, it is unclear whether he can hold this seat in the face of a very strong Democratic challenger.  I think the situation in IL-10 and PA-06 are somewhat less dire for the GOP than these rankings indicate, after all the GOP has quality candidates in each who fit the district's mold well, and Republicans managed to win here in atrocious GOP years.  I also think that the addition of Reichert is a bit gratuitous; I think just about any GOPer who survived the last two elections is going to have their seats as long as they want (or until they are redistricted out of existence).

Anyway, this is quite the change from the last few years, when lists of seats likely to switch hands had so many Rs that reading them made you sound like you were at a pirate convention.

There is a need to correct some of the media misanalysis regarding Barack Obama's standing in public opinion polls.

First, let's clarify where Obama stands in the public's mind. Obama's approval rating has declined to the low 50s, according to several recent polls. The rate of that decline is larger and faster than many presidents, such as George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, as I detailed here. Obama's approval rating was average over his first half-year in office, and he stood eighth out of the 11 modern presidents on the date of his six-month anniversary in office, as I detailed here.

With this in mind, here is how respected reporters are digesting these numbers. One example from Politico's Ben Smith:

After months of showing sky-high job approval ratings, polls from major newspapers and from the Pew and Gallup organizations this week gave Obama the lowest numbers of his presidency…

The rub is that Obama has not had “months of showing sky-high job approval ratings.” Ben, who can turn a story faster and better than most anyone, is hardly alone in mischaracterizing the data.

Gallup polling is the historical benchmark. Based upon Gallup, I detailed here how Obama's approval rating was average on, and over, his first 100 days in office. To be even clearer, and to let the numbers talk, I did a second post here detailing his standing numerically at 100 days.

In fact, even after just one month in office, this was one of my column leads:

Here's a fact that will probably shock you: Americans today have the same level of confidence in President Obama as they had in W. after his first month in office. According to Gallup, Obama's public approval rating currently stands at 63 percent, only a point above George W. Bush in late February 2001.

I also wrote then, to be explicit about Obama's late February standing:

Obama's popularity today, by Gallup's measure, is a few points higher than Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan at the infancy of their presidencies. He precisely matches George H.W. Bush. And excluding Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson who took office amid tragedy, and therefore earned staggeringly high early approval, Obama is notably shy of other new presidents. Jimmy Carter and John Kennedy had more than seven out of 10 Americans behind them at the close of their first February in office.

The point was then, chill out on the Obama hyperbole. It was not true to fact. Ironically, I suspect Obama's strategic circle now wishes they helped tamp down that early hyperbole.

A couple weeks later, in mid-March, pollsters Doug Schoen and Scott Rasmussen reiterated the point in a Wall Street Journal column headlined: "Obama's Poll Numbers Are Falling to Earth." Here is their blunt lead:

It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama's high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration.

A few days later, I first highlighted the public's partisan view of Obama. Below is the lead of that column:

The public approval of Barack Obama breaks along stark partisan lines, mimicking George W. Bush at the same point in his presidency.

The headline on that piece was: "Can Obama Hold the Center." It was clear in mid-March, due to this divide, Obama would rise and fall with independent voters (this too took awhile for the political press to digest).

About two weeks later, the Pew Research Center published a small report stating that the public had a more partisan view of Obama than of W. Bush.

In response, I attempted to sober some of that hyperbole; it was in this case over-critical of Obama. I detailed here how, in reality, Obama and Bush's partisan gaps were about the same.

Still, for those not paying attention, I noted:

It was indeed clear within weeks of Obama's presidency that he would not escape the gravity that grounded Clinton and Bush.

Now, let's return to the present. Time's Michael Scherer, another talented writer, followed up on Ben's post with a post titled “Barack Obama Polls Like Normal Presidents.” He generally agreed with Ben's take on the data.

The problem is that we have known Obama polls like "normal presidents" since late February.

I suspect that Dwight Eisenhower benefited a great deal from Harry Truman's plummeting poll numbers. In this same vein, Obama benefits from the decline of George W. Bush in the polls. This likely skews some of the analysis. That W. followed a president who was received through a highly partisan lens, and struggled early on, only further skews our frame of reference.

But the media played a big role in crowning Obama a historical figure. The political media played a big role in misinforming the American public of their purported lofty view of this president. Therefore, we are responsible for the supposed shock at Obama's average standing.

Breaking news from the Hartford Courant.

Apropos David's column on the coverage of the "birther" story, go check out Talking Points Memo.  This is the influential liberal web site, you'll remember, that won a prestigious journalism award for its coverage of the Attorney General firings controversy in 2007.

As of Wednesday afternoon, of the 51 posts TPM since Sunday morning, forty of them have been written by the site's founder, Josh Marshall. Of those posts written by Marshall, 30% of them have promoted some aspect of the "Birther" story.

(Incidentally, at least a dozen others highlight/ridicule various unflattering aspects of Republicans like Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, David Vitter. Marshall even goes so far as to highlight an affair by a Republican State Senator from Tennesse)

Just to put Marshall's editorial judgment in context, he devotes three times as much coverage to the "birther" story than he does to covering the developments on health care.  How's that for serious journalism?

Ironically, Marshall started his birther blitz with a post on Sunday saying, "Now, I don't want to get into all the claptrap about the birth certificate. Because the whole story is just unadulterated, raw nonsense." Amen, Josh.

Robert Gibbs yesterday: "Look, the President doesn't spend a whole lot of time focused on polling....We don't poll.  I think the DNC polls.  The President isn't fixated on the ups and downs in polling."

Washington Post today: "Polling Helps Obama Frame Message in Health-Care Debate."

The story contains a choice quote from "top advisor" who says, "I mean, I'm looking at polling, like, all the time."

This is bit of a touchy subject, but since the President has declared we're currently in the middle of another "teachable moment" on race and the Attorney General has urged me not to be a coward when it comes to discussing the issue, I figure I might as well dive right in.

A few months ago I was struck by this illustration of Condi Rice by Edward Sorel that appeared on the Vanity Fair web site:

Now, it goes without saying that editorial cartoonists drive home their arguments using lines instead of words: caricature and exaggeration are the tools of the trade. And it's also not a particularly stunning revelation to say that some liberals cartoonists have no qualms resorting to overt displays of racism when it suits their ideological needs.

Secretary Rice, who was at the time the most powerful African-American woman in the world (perhaps excluding Oprah), certainly bore the brunt of such treatment; she was called a "house nigger" in a cartoon by Ted Rall; Garry Trudeau had President Bush give her the nickname "Brown Sugar" in one of his Doonesbury strips; and syndicated cartoonist Pat Oliphant walked away with the booby prize for this:

It would be unfair to say all - or even most - cartoonists treated Secretary Rice this poorly. On the other hand, Oliphant was hardly an exception. In cartoon after cartoon, both in America and around the world, Rice was portrayed in the worst possible light. (See a sample of what I'm talking about here.)

Now stop and imagine what would happen if a cartoonist at a major media outlet were to draw a similar rendition of Michelle Obama with all of her features exaggerated in the most unflattering - and, let's be honest, racist - way.  The person would would be drummed out the business in days - if not sooner.

But, unlike with Secretary Rice, there are no such unflattering cartoons of Michelle Obama because no one dares draw them. Instead, we get cartoons like the following by Ed Wexler from a recent issue of US News & World Report:

If you sift through the editorial cartoons on Michelle Obama, you see much the same thing (I've collected a few examples here). Indeed, the only cartoon that even comes close to being unflattering toward Michelle was a deliberate piece of satire by Barry Blitt that ran on the cover of the New Yorker in June 2008. And we all remember the hand wringing and gnashing of teeth that caused among liberals who couldn't believe anyone would do such a thing.

For a media establishment that constantly pats itself on the back for its devotion to tolerance, diversity, and racial sensitivity, it's a rather striking double standard applied to two of the country's most prominent black women.

A new Research 2000 poll commissioned by Daily Kos finds no major slippage in President Obama's favorability rating, currently at 62 percent. But via his Twitter feed, Kos reveals the results of a question added about whether Americans believe the president was born in the United States.

The result: 77 percent said yes, while 11 percent said no and 12 percent weren't sure. But a plurality of Republicans was more skeptical: 42 percent said they thought he was born here, while 28 percent think he wasn't and 30 percent weren't sure. There's also a regional disparity: 93 percent of Northeastern respondents said he was born here, while only 47 percent of those from the South thought so.

In a Congressional ballot test, 39 percent said they'd like to see more Democrats in Congress, while 29 percent want more Republicans.

The survey of 2,400 was conducted July 27-30, with a margin of error of +/- 2 percent.

Barack Obama's public approval rating has fallen faster than presidents from George W. Bush to Jimmy Carter, based on a RealClearPolitics review of historical Gallup polling.

Until Obama, Carter was the last president to begin his term in the high 60s. Carter first polled at a 66 percent approval rating. He did not reach Obama's present territory until mid September, when he hit 54 percent.  Carter fell lower in late October--51 percent. And that fall occurred after the Carter administration was branded with scandal, following the Bert Lance affair.

Gallup reports today that Obama has a 52 percent public approval rating, a new low. Yesterday's three-day Gallup average was 53. The day before, 54. Feels like a slow bleed is underway. Obama may soon recover. Presidents do. But these are bad numbers by historical standards.

Obama began his presidency at 68. He hit 69 the following day. That means he's dropped 16 points since day one.

So in less time than Carter, Obama has fallen more.

And Obama's bad numbers are fairly uniform. In the past day alone, NBC News/Wall Street Journal and the Pew Research Center have shown similar results.

Both W. Bush and Bill Clinton reached the low 50s sooner than Obama. W. Bush hit 53 in March; Clinton hit 51 within a month of his inauguration. But W. Bush and Clinton began their presidencies with approval ratings about 10 points lower than Obama. And indeed, Obama has therefore fallen faster than W. Bush as well.

Clinton's presidency was going far worse than Obama's at this point; Clinton hit 37 by early June 1993. George H.W. Bush also began low, at 51. But he did not return to that floor until October 1990, at 53 percent--more than a year after Obama.

Ronald Reagan began his presidency low as well, at 51. He too did not return to that low until after Obama, in mid September (it's worth noting that over that period Reagan was boosted by the assassination attempt).

In other words, Obama's got problems. Health care reform has come up against the rocks and the cop and prof race debacle has also likely taken some toll. Then there is the unemployment rate, almost assured to soon reach double digits.

Richard Nixon was in office more than a year before reaching the low 50s. Lyndon Johnson did not fall that low for several years. Others like John F. Kennedy floated far higher for his 1000 days. And Dwight Eisenhower did not hit the low 50s until 1958.

In the end, approval rating also concerns symbolism. Once a president falls below 50 percent he can no longer say he has the majority of the public behind him--a knockdown blow for a president's legislative ambitions.

When it rains it pours. The opening graf from the write up of the new Pew Research survey:

Barack Obama's approval ratings have suffered major declines. The president's overall job approval number fell from 61% in mid-June to 54% currently. His approval ratings for handling the economy and the federal budget deficit have also fallen sharply, tumbling to 38% and 32%, respectively. Majorities now say they disapprove of the way the president is handling these two issues. The new poll also finds significant declines over the last few months in the percentage of Americans giving Obama high marks for dealing with health care, foreign policy and tax policy.

Obama's approval in the RCP Average is now 53.6%.

Jon Ralston of the Las Vegas Sun takes umbrage with John Ensign's statement last Friday that because of a report that an ethics complaint has been filed withe the Senate, he's "been advised not to publicly comment further at this time." Raltson writes:

Well, that settles it. No more questions because … the senator says no more questions. End of story.

Is this man serious? Can he actually believe that releasing this unsolicited statement, which contains not a scintilla of new information, absolves him of any responsibility to answer basic questions about a scandal of his own making?

I know what the blinded partisans are saying: Leave him alone. He made a mistake. Let him get on with doing his job. (Besides, he votes right.)

But that argument fails to consider this is not merely about an affair, even an especially repugnant one with a staffer whose husband worked in Ensign's office and was his best friend. This is not simply about that “mistake” but about a U.S. senator who believes he can stiff-arm the public about what appear to be payoffs to cover up his transgressions.

I agree with Ralston. As I wrote three weeks ago, let's see the proof to back up the claim that the Ensign family routinely made such generous payments to other friends and family members. Otherwise, it sure looks like this was hush money carefully crafted to avoid scrutiny.