Democratic leaders in Congress finalized the $20 billion college aid package yesterday and sent it to the White House for signature.  The President is expected to sign it.  Some are calling it the largest investment in college education since the 1944 GI Bill.

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In recent weeks the press received by Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Congress as a whole has been significantly less up beat than during the first part of the year when the House was blazing through the 100 Hours agenda. With less glowing press, the Democrats and Speaker Pelosi would naturally find their support among the American people on the decline, right? Well, apparently not, judging by some recent polling commissioned by two of the most respected players in the establishment political media.

This afternoon The Hotline, along with partner Diageo, released its latest round of polling (.pdf) on a range of topics (more political than potent potable), the results of which show continued strength of the Democratic brand, both in Congress and on the presidential level.

Congress' approval rating stands at 37 percent, up six points from January (.pdf), while Congress' disapproval rating stands at 52 percent, also up slightly (three points) from January. While these numbers are not terribly great, they are better than those of President Bush, whose approval spread stands at 35 percent, with 61 percent disapproving. Speaker Pelosi's approval numbers are even stronger than those of the Congress as a whole, with 44 percent of registered voters giving her positive marks and just 31 percent giving her negative marks, both numbers up from January when she clocked in with a 33/23 positive spread.

On the question of whether voters are happy or unhappy that the Democratic Party gained control of the Senate and the House last November, voters come out of the positive side by a 55 percent to 29 percent margin. Independents remain strongly in favor of Democrats in this regard (50 happy/26 unhappy), and even one in five Republicans (20 percent) say they're happy the Democrats, not the Republicans are in control of both chambers of Congress. By and large, these numbers echo the findings of the latest survey commissioned by the Cook Political Report (.pdf), which indicated that by a 28 percent to 18 percent margin, registered voters believe the country is better off with the current Democratic Congress than it was with the previous Republican Congress -- numbers that were effectively unchanged from February when voters voiced the same sentiment, though by a 30 percent to 16 percent margin.

Getting back to the polling from The Hotline, the Democrats are continuing to hold a strong lead on generic presidential balloting for 2008 -- not necessarily a sign of things to come in the race for the White House but certainly a sign of what voters think about the two major parties today. In the latest poll, 47 percent of voters say they would vote for the Democratic nominee for president if the 2008 election were held today while just 29 percent admit they would back the Republican nominee. These numbers are not dissimilar to the findings from January, when the Democrats held a 44 percent to 26 percent lead on the same question.

In short, these numbers only serve to underscore the conclusion already alluded to by the 2008 Democratic presidential candidates' significant fundraising lead over the Republican candidates: There is significantly more excitement on the Democratic side today than there is on the Republican side and, in fact, while the Democratic brand appears to be fairly strong the Republican brand is in near shambles. Things can still change, but for now the situation looks quite dire for the GOP and surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly) rosy for the Democratic Party.

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It is becoming abundantly clear that the effort being made by the Democratic Congress is not good enough.

Time is slipping by and there is no coordinated, consensus effort to engage the issues of Iran, Iraq, or impeachment. Democratic leaders like Murtha who try to lead are quickly marginalized.

Meanwhile, Scooter Libby's trial has placed on the record attested to by jury verdict the pure fact of Bush and Cheney having lied us into war. Speaker Pelosi? Senator Reid? Anything you want to do here?

Crickets.

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Politicians like to be in the majority.  That's a given.

After the 1994 Republican sweep, two Democratic Senators and a few Democratic Congressmen switched parties.  Part of it was to be in the majority, and part of it was to bolster their own chances for reelection.

It's been a long time since we had a Republican switch parties.  Even before they took control of Congress, there weren't a lot of Republicans who switched to the Democratic Party.  The last I can remember is the Congressman from NY-01 who switched and then lost in the Democratic primary.

But will we see some now?  I heard a rumor today that a Republican Senator (not sure who) has made a deal with the Democrats to switch parties after the election.  If it were true, that would give us a 52-48 majority (or 51-48 if you don't count Lieberman.)

Any thoughts?  On a personal note, a state Senator here in Tennessee who was elected in 2002 as a Democrat and switched parties in 2004 lost his bid for reelection last night.  That was great.

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