A troubling sign from seniors

There are telling warning signs for Democrats, and Republicans as well, in the new Washington Post/ABC News poll. Though it focuses largely on the embattled effort to reform the nation's healthcare system, the poll measures voter sentiment on government and the two parties in general, particularly that of seniors, and finds the public is down on the president, the Democratic Party and the GOP.

The poll counts more independent voters than at any time in the history of this poll — at 43 percent of respondents. What's more, roughly one-third of those polled said they do not trust either party to handle the nation's largest problem in the coming years.

Seniors are abandoning the president and his party in the wake of the contentious healthcare debate. In June, the poll found seniors trusting the president far more than Republicans in Congress — a margin of 62-24 percent. Just three months later the poll found 44 percent of seniors siding with Republicans, compared to 39 percent supporting Obama. Majorities of seniors supported Obama throughout his first months in office, according to the poll, but now his overall approval with seniors stands at 38 percent.

As for healthcare, this poll shows that reconciliation — the procedure Democrats may use to pass a partisan bill with only 51 votes in the Senate that would spark strong protest from the GOP — would be a politically dangerous choice. More than 7 in 10 respondents, with majorities in both parties, said Democrats should craft a healthcare reform plan that can attract some Republican votes. Half of those polled said the Democrats have made a good-faith effort at bipartisanship, but 62 percent of those polled said the GOP had not. In addition, while half of the respondents say both sides can be faulted for the negative tone of the debate, of the rest, twice as many blame Republicans.

This is the kind of data Democrats must reverse to survive the midterm elections next year. Seniors are the most loyal voting bloc, and they will turn out in droves to vote against the president's party if they are critical of his policies next year at this time. But Republicans should read Ross Douthat's New York Times column today to remind themselves that until they are more proactive instead of reactive, positive instead of negative, and leading instead of following conservative commentators, it will be hard to win back a majority.


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