E Pluribus Unum

From the Pew Poll (Jan. 4-8):

[T]he Democratic Party holds a sizable advantage over the GOP as the party better able to handle the country's most important problem. Fully 41% believe the Democratic Party can do a better job of handling the nation's top problem, compared with 27% who say the Republican Party. This represents a major shift from a year ago, when the public split about evenly on which party could better address the most important national problem.

It's an unusual question because the "most important problem" is not pre-identified. But, with the exception of security/terrorism (more about that in a minute), the Dems out-poll the Republicans on issues like Iraq, foreign policy, domestic and economic issues. I suspect the terror issue is still strong for Bush because he has devoted the most time scare-mongering it.

Clearly, if Democrats could convincingly say, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," they could go a long way to showing that the Emperor has no clothes.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: Pew has Bush's approval/disapproval at 38/54, unchanged since December's poll.

P.S. Rasmussen has Bush at 44/55, a change of net -10 points since Christmas. Worse yet for Bush are the "strongly approve/strongly disapprove" numbers -- 23/39.

Blecch. So much for "Bush is roaring back!" I guess there aren't enough military academies for him to give speeches at, eh?