A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

I keep hearing all of these stories stating that the Republican Party has no chance of taking Congress back or even making significant gains in the 2008 elections. I'm almost prepared to believe in such pessimism.

And then, I read this:

A new Gallup Poll finds Congress' approval rating the lowest it has been since Gallup first tracked public opinion of Congress with this measure in 1974. Just 18% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, while 76% disapprove, according to the August 13-16, 2007, Gallup Poll.

That 18% job approval rating matches the low recorded in March 1992, when a check-bouncing scandal was one of several scandals besetting Congress, leading many states to pass term limits measures for U.S. representatives (which the Supreme Court later declared unconstitutional). Congress had a similarly low 19% approval rating during the energy crisis in the summer of 1979.

Americans' evaluations of the job Congress is doing are usually not that positive -- the vast majority of historical approval ratings have been below 50%. The high point was 84% approval one month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when Americans rallied behind the federal government. Since then, Congress' approval ratings have generally exhibited the same downward trajectory seen in those for President George W. Bush. Currently, 32% of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing as president, a far cry from the record-high 90% he received in September 2001. Bush's current job approval rating is just three percentage points above his lowest.

There was a slight interruption in the downward trend in congressional approval ratings at the beginning of this year when party control changed hands from the Republicans to the Democrats following last fall's midterm elections. In January 2007, 35% of Americans approved of Congress, a significant increase from the 21% who approved of Congress in December 2006. That December rating tied the lowest in the 12 years the Republicans controlled Congress from 1995 to 2006.

But that "honeymoon" period for the new Democratically controlled Congress was brief, as its job ratings dropped below 30% in March 2007 and have now fallen below where they were just before the Democrats took over.

I have to think that stories like this will embolden Republicans as they work to recruit candidates. Few people will not at least be tempted to take on a Congress with 18% approval ratings. To be sure, individual candidates may stand higher in esteem, but an 18% approval rating will pull down a number of vulnerable candidates, thus at least whittling away at the Democrats' majorities in both chambers.

It's too early to determine anything certain. But it's not too early for Republicans to start planning on how to take full advantage of the Democratic Congress's diminished standing in the public eye.