The latest Opinion Dynamics poll (.pdf) cited yesterday on this site offers an important insight into the electorate: Americans, by close to a four to one margin and regardless of political stripe, believe that it's more important for the Congress to focus on problems here at home than problems abroad. Even with these numbers, however, GOP leaders are giving up completely on their domestic agenda ahead of the midterm elections, as Jonathan Weisman reports today for The Washington Post.

Congress will return to Washington this week with the Republican majorities in both chambers at risk and GOP leaders planning to turn the floors of the House and Senate into battlegrounds over which political party can best protect the country from terrorists and other security threats.

But in devoting the few remaining legislative days almost exclusively to security issues, Republicans will leave major domestic tasks undone, including President Bush's prized immigration overhaul and long-promised legislation to toughen the restrictions on lobbying after a wide-ranging corruption scandal. No budget plan for 2007 will be completed. Promised relief for seniors struggling with their Medicare prescription drug plans will have to wait. And as many as eight of the 11 bills needed to fund the government will not be passed before the November elections.

If Republicans want to run without any recent successes on the domestic policy front and with so many pressing domestic issues still on the table, let them go right ahead. While terrorism is still a potent issue for many voters, it's clear that, even in the wake of the disruption of the alleged plot to blow up British planes bound for America, terrorism no longer has the power to scare voters into voting Republican.

And while the dearth of domestic policy successes will not necessarily lead the Republican base to vote Democratic this fall, without further progress on issues like immigration and tax cuts or the appointment of more rabidly anti-choice jurists to the bench, it's quite possible that conservative voters simply won't go to the polls en mass as they have in the past two elections, which could spell real trouble for the Republican leadership in Congress.