Demagogue

A new poll has quite a few dismal numbers for Bush/GOP, however, it turns out that they're not too different from his old numbers in October. Ho-hum.

However, there are a few parts of the poll that piqued my interest because they justify my occasional optimistic thoughts about a progressive future for this country-- from Matt Yglesias:

Interestingly, the poll doesn't find much support for the notion that a dash to the right on cultural issues is the way out. They asked "which party comes closer to sharing your view on abortion" and 45 percent said the Democrats to just 35 percent for the Republicans. They asked "which party comes closer to sharing your view on the legal recognition of gay couples," and the Democrats got 42 percent to the GOP's 37 percent.

So am I delusional to think that these are surprisingly good numbers for abortion and gay rights? Go ahead, tell me, I can take it.