POLL DANCING - AT 7:32 A.M. ET:  I've noticed that the number of articles devoted to President Obama's decline in the polls has increased dramatically this week.  This, from The Politico:

In a potentially alarming trend for the White House, independent voters are deserting President Barack Obama nationally and especially in key swing states, recent polls suggest.

Obama’s job approval rating hit a — still healthy — low of 56 percent in the Gallup Poll on Wednesday. And pollsters are debating whether Obama’s expansive and expensive policy proposals or the ground-level realities of a still-faltering economy are driving the falling numbers.

But a source of the shift appears to be independent voters, who seem to be responding to Republican complaints of excessive spending and government control.

A Dem operative drives in the spike:

“This is a huge sea change that is playing itself out in American politics,” said Democratic pollster Doug Schoen. “Independents who had become effectively operational Democrats in 2006 and 2008 are now up for grabs and are trending Republican.

“They’re saying, ‘Costing too much, no results, see the downside, not sure of the upside,’” he said.

COMMENT:  Do you hear the music?  Do you hear that beat?  An opportunity is opening for conservatives.  Will they seize it, or come up with nothing but platitudes?  It's time to devise realistic, attractive alternatives, like 1994's Contract With America. 

Of course, a dramatic lift in the economy can turn those poll numbers around.  But conservatives must leave nothing to chance.

July 9, 2009