MATT YGLESIAS LOOKS AT THE POLLS:

Bush has net negative approval ratings on the economy, on foreign policy, and on Iraq. You would think that would be fatal, but it was the same in late October. Generally speaking, the picture is the same throughout. The numbers make the president look very, very, very weak. But he looked just as weak right before the election, and obviously it didn’t work out. The upshot, I think, is that the Democratic Party’s political problems are really about the Democratic Party and not their opponents. 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.

Which is all by way of returning to my long-time hobbyhorse — to wit: The Democratic Party’s political trouble is explained almost entirely by the fact that the country does not trust it with national security. It may be possible to weasel into office through some other contrivance, but Democratic positioning on both culture and economics is already reasonably successful. Bush is not wildly popular. The obvious growth area is trying to convince people that Democrats can do national security properly.

This is exactly right. It seems to me that the best hope for the Democrats is for Bush to be so successful at foreign affairs and national security that by 2008 nobody cares anymore.

UPDATE: Reader Larry Weintraub emails:

You forget the more obvious option: For the Democrats to coalesce around a viable National Security policy that the public believes in.

It’d be enough for voters like me (well, specifically, for me), exactly the ones Matt is talking about who voted for Bush but are, domestically and socially, Democrats.

It would probably be enough for me — I’ve been hoping for it for over three years — but it seems increasingly unlikely. Unless they’re smart enough to nominate “the most uncompromising wartime President in the history of the United States,” anyway. . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: Of course, there’s always the possibility that the NYT poll is just wrong. Or, put another way: “Anyone who relies on the Times and CBS to explain what American voters are thinking deserves the inevitable losses which result.”