Polling suggests Americans are more liberal

Often with polling, certain questions get buried for whatever reason. With recent polling of President Barack Obama, there's been a steady pattern of a president losing the support of the American people. Many attribute this to his being "too liberal."

They'd be wrong.

A CNN research poll shows that Barack Obama's approval rating among the American people is dipping below the 50 percent margin, with 47 percent approving his work as president thus far and 51 percent disapproving.

But when you break that poll down more, when you look at the reasons behind WHY his approval rating has dipped, it's clear that Americans want him to be as liberal or more liberal than he is being.

46 percent of Americans believe he is being "too liberal." 39 percent of Americans believe he's "just right," while 13 percent believe he's "not liberal enough.

This means that 52 percent of the American people are as liberal as, or more liberal than, the president. America is NOT a "conservative" nation, as some talking heads would have you believe. It's a very evenly divided nation, to be sure, but the American people are leaning more to the left as of today.

The same poll shows that registered voters would pick the Republicans to lead Congress following the midterms. But among all Americans (which includes non-registered voters), the numbers flip flop: when you ask ALL Americans what they want, they want the Democrats to lead.

Additionally, of those who are registered voters, 37 percent said they might change their minds by the midterm election -- which means it's still anyone's ball game.

The discontent with Democrats is being popularized in the media as well. But among registered voters in the country, about the same amount believe that Republicans in Congress don't deserve re-election either. 58 percent of Americans wanted most Democrats out, while 55 percent wanted most Republicans out as well.

And according to an MSNBC poll, Republicans are only "winning" in one region: the South. In all other regions, they're not -- in the Northeast, the Dems are leading by a huge margin (55-30 percent), in the Midwest by a decent margin (49-38 percent), and in the West, it's a statistical tie.

So what's this all mean? First: Americans are liberal. At the very least, the country is more liberal than others would like us to think we are. A majority of us believe President Obama and Democrats are working either at just the right amount of "liberal" or could even go further. Second: the media's hype over the impending Democratic destruction this fall is overblown. Even if the Democrats lose seats this fall, it's likely not going to be to the extent we're being told it'll be -- Reagan had a lower approval rating than Obama currently has, and he only lost 27 seats in the House (Democrats need to lose 39 seats to lose power).

In short: We are not doomed. Unless the sour mood continues between now and November, with a catastrophic event thrown into the mix that will damage Democrats even further, things will probably remain relatively the same, as far as who will run Congress in January 2011.