Jobless Rate Dominates
The unemployment rate that's hovered at or above 9.5% for 14 months is crowding out any positive news, said Bruce Oppenheimer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
"It spreads a dark cloud across anything else that you're doing," Oppenheimer said. "This won't be a good election for Democrats."
The poll reveals the failure of the Democrats to communicate their achievements even within their own party and the opposition's triumph in painting the Obama administration as a failure, particularly on economic issues.
"The administration has said for a long time that the best politics was doing the right thing," says Steve McMahon, a Democratic strategist. "It requires a lot more. These numbers show that the best politics is selling what you're doing."