If you follow this blog even occasionally, you're probably familiar with the truism that people don't vote for things, they vote against things. Like all simple rules, it's probably not 100% correct 100% of the time, but it's true enough to help understand what would otherwise be confusing behavior on the part of the electorate. In fact, if you need some way to understand the way voters are behaving in this cycle, you really don't need to look any farther. People are voting
against Democrats, not
for Republicans; it's just that this is a two party system and voting against one requires casting your vote for the other.
For example, a new
New York Times poll [pdf] shows that 51% disapprove of President Obama's performance on the economy and 55% would vote out (i.e., against) incumbents. And then it gets interesting.
Greg Sargent, The Plum Line:
But the internals show the public disapproves of the GOP even more (68 percent), overwhelmingly thinks the GOP lacks a clear plan to solve our problems (72 percent), and opposes GOP policies like extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich (53 percent)...[CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
