We could be crying in 2008 Polling site Rasmussen Reports has an interesting fact of the day. 48% of people trust Democrat leaders in Congress more than they trust the president on 38% and don't knows on 14%. You would have thought from this that the next Democrat candidate for president is going to be a shoe in.

Well it might just not be so. Firstly now that the democrats have some power in Washington they can start to get blamed when things go wrong. It may have been a great night but winning the mid terms may make it more difficult to win the presidency in 2008. Though having more state governors and Lt governors is going to help clamp down on the electoral shananigans of the Republicans.

Second that poll was putting the Democrats up against president bush who will not be running in 2008. Indeed the two leading candidates for the Republican nomination McCain and Giulani are on the opposite wing of the Republican party from George Bush and will certainly try to disassociate themselves from the worst parts of the Bush legacy. They also have slight leads over Clinton, Obama and Gore in polling. The gap is not insurmountable epecially this far out from polling day but we do need to get things into perspective, unless the democrats raise their game there could very easily be another republican in the whitehouse in '08.

Giuliani's key asset is his actions in 9/11 but it would be wrong to assume that these were not without flaw as extensively documented here. The Democrats should not be afraid to attack him remorselessly over his actions on that day because that is the sole reason that he is even viewed as a contender.

The president may well be about to increase US troops in Iraq though not in the numbers that could have a dramatic effect. This will put McCain under alot of pressure as he is an adovocate of increasing US troop numbers in Iraq.

There is also the very strong argument that it is time for a change. That the next president should not be a republican and that america is going in the wrong direction. I think that the best hope of a new america is Obama but we should hear what he has to say some more on policy as that is ultimately where it's at. He has the highest approval rating among the Democrats though not by much but unlike Hilary the numbers of people who disaprove of him are much smaller.It could well be time for America's first black president.  ¶ 3:48 pm