Opinion polls are rightly understood as a snapshot of public opinion. They can swing wildly from month to month. How else could one imagine George H.W. Bush losing the election to Bill Clinton when a scant 18 months prior he was in the high 80's of public approval? We have that same Bill Clinton to remember for making polling a formulator of policy, if not any significant legacy.
The Dems for some time now have been expressing concern about Iraq. Not the concern that you've come to know over the last couple of years that actually references how the war in Iraq is proceeding, but a concern as to how their prior statements regarding all being gotterdamrung will play given the positive news out of Iraq. Senator Reid has been rather quiet of late, no? Madame Pelosi, not a peep. What could be responsible for putting the quietus on those two previously voluble Democrats. Well, week after this, General Petraeus is comin' to town.
A couple of months ago this visit looked to be merely cannonfodder for the Dems presidential ambitions. More and more, it is shaping up to be the greatest setback to Democratic ambitions since a marine named North appeared. Wise old Dems, the kind like Carl Levin with thirty years in, have already backed their jibs, heaving to, awaiting further developments. Why? shouldn't they just bury the rest of the Bush presidency and get on with it? Perhaps they know what this article explained some time ago:
http://www.kxmb.com/News/Nation/144557.asp
I'd be little surprised to see substantially different poll numbers a few weeks hence. This is only cause for depression among those with no actual alternative ideas on how a war against a fascist Islamism should be waged and nothing but polls to pep up their morning gruel. The American people's fickleness should not be mistaken for obtuseness.