Top political analyst Charlie Cook recently wrote that "the situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and congressional Democrats". (source) Anyone who has been paying attention has got to agree and those who pay close attention are expecting double-digit losses in the House come the 2010 mid-term elections.

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Meanwhile the latest polls in the New Jersey gubernatorial race show Republican challenger Chris Christie leading Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine by 10 percentage points, 47% to 37%. (source) That's roughly the same margin as polls in July and early August despite a new attack ad by Corzine's campaign which seems to be more about Mr. Christie's physical appearance than a minor income tax discrepancy.

And then there's Virginia's gubernatorial race in which Republican Bob McDonnell leads Democrat Creigh Deeds 49% to 42% despite the dredging up of a 20 year old college thesis written by Mr. McDonnell which espoused his conservative beliefs. In a statement responding to questions about his thesis Mr. McDonnell said "Virginians will judge me on my 18-year record as a legislator and Attorney General and the specific plans I have laid out for our future - not on a decades-old academic paper I wrote as a student during the Reagan era and haven't thought about in years." (source) From his continued lead in the polls it looks like he's right.

But the bleakest number of all for the Democrats is the approval rating of President Barack Obama which is now consistently at or below 50% no matter which poll you believe. According to David Brooks in his recent New York Times op-ed piece entitled "The Obama Slide", "All presidents fall from their honeymoon highs, but in the history of polling, no newly elected American president has fallen this far this fast." (source) And he doesn't seem to be falling alone.