Glimmers

I'm always reluctant to gauge voter sentiments six months before a vote, but Dan Balz finds things looking up in the latest WaPo/ABC poll.

The current story line for Election 2010 took shape in the period beginning last summer and running through the first month of this year. That's when Obama's approval ratings fell, and tea party activists became the symbol of discontent. It is also when the health-care battle exposed much that the public found repulsive about the legislative process. And of course, there was Scott Brown's shocking victory in Massachusetts.

Since then, other things have happened. The health-care bill, whose demise would have been devastating to the Democrats, became law (though under the most partisan of circumstances). That hasn't changed public attitudes on the measure, which remain hardened and evenly divided, but it has pushed that debate off center stage, to the relief of the White House. In its place has come financial regulatory reform, an issue where Democrats are playing offense, Republicans are playing defense and a bipartisan outcome remains possible.

Meanwhile, a number of indicators show that an economic recovery is underway, a recovery that might be stronger than anticipated. Unemployment remains stuck closer to 10 percent than the 8 percent ceiling the administration promised long ago. But other measures might give people confidence that better times are coming.

For his part, Obama appears to be warming to a battle with the opposition. His moment of truth came after the Massachusetts election, when he was faced with the question of whether to scale back on health care in hopes of attracting Republican votes and assuring passage of at least something, or going for broke in a partisan brawl. He chose to fight. Since then, the president has appeared more comfortable with a posture of confrontation, when necessary, than he was when he first took office.

In the Post-ABC poll, there were a handful of indicators that, if sustained, could change the political climate -- but only if the Democrats can find a way to keep them going.

It's helpful to remember that Mitch McConnell and Republicans in Congress are no smarter than they were when they lost their majority in the 2006 midterms. The filibuster of finreg this week may well prove, at least temporarily, to have been an unnecessary mistake -- especially if they offer up an "alternative" that isn't all that different from the Dodd bill. Obama and Dems still win if a bipartisan bill passes.

UPDATE: Exactly:

The Democrats want to have a tough financial reform bill as an accomplishment, and they also want Republicans to oppose reform unanimously so they can show that the party is carrying water for Wall Street. The two goals are in tension. The sweet spot is for Republicans to spend several days opposing reform in a high-profile fight in which Democrats attack them as Wall Street stooges, and then cave in and make a bipartisan agreement. What I don't understand is why the GOP is letting the Democrats have the best of both worlds.