LIBERAL BLOG MYDD has commissioned some professional polling. Here’s the first installment, and here’s a writeup by Mystery Pollster, who lauds the transparency and openness involved, with all the data being put online.

UPDATE: Reader Rachel Walker emails:

I just finished reading MyDD’s opinion on polls. As a liberal I was rather disturbed with the blogger’s wish that Bush’s approval rating was in the 30’s. Does that mean he is so unimpressed by our own party that the only way we could win is to make Bush look bad? With such an attitude, we don’t look so great either.

It’s such whiny and desparate behavior that leads me to more centrist and conservative blogs than anything Kos or DU related. It seems to me liberals have forgotten to be liberal (tolerant, polite, yet firm in belief), and such behavior is why many people, though they do not like Bush or some conservative ideas, tend to distance themselves from the left. I know that’s the reason for me.

Well, wishing for the other guy to go down is natural, I think. I was mostly interested in the poll for its transparency, and because I think it’s good to see blogs out there doing this kind of thing.

That said, I think that lefties are over-focused on Bush, and that the GOP likes it that way. Bush’s numbers may be down (though they seem to be trending up on Rasmussen at the moment, for reasons that aren’t obvious to me; the filibuster talk, perhaps?) — but it doesn’t matter. Bush isn’t running again. The next GOP candidate will run on an “I’m not Bush, but you can trust me on security more than the Democrats” platform — as the elder Bush did in 1988. The Democrats’ Bush-hatred just plays into that strategy. If they were smarter, they’d be building up some people of their own, which among other things would involve keeping them out of the fray of Bush-bashing. The only candidate who seems to fit that bill is Mark Warner, but I suspect the Kos/Moveon crowd won’t like him.