Sign "O" the Times

War on women, yo:

Women have moved in the GOP’s direction since September. In last month’s AP-GfK poll, 47 percent of female likely voters said they favored a Democratic-controlled Congress while 40 percent wanted the Republicans to capture control. In the new poll, the two parties are about even among women, 44 percent prefer the Republicans, 42 percent the Democrats.

This is just one poll of course, so we can’t read too much into it — although the overall numbers are even worse, if perhaps not as shocking:

Among all adults, 38 percent say they’d like the Democrats to wind up in control of Congress, to 36 percent for the Republicans. But the GOP holds a significant lead among those most likely to cast ballots: 47 percent of these voters favor a Republican controlled-Congress, 39 percent a Democratic one. That’s a shift in the GOP’s favor since an AP-GfK poll in late September, when the two parties ran about evenly among likely voters.

Democrats don’t win ties, not in the midterms. Even a small edge for the GOP can result in big wins, as we saw from the polls leading up to 2010.

But what I find most interesting is how much voters seem to be preferring this GOP. The GOP in 2014 is not the party of Reagan. Hell, it’s not even the party of Gingrich. This is a party in turmoil, and yet the Democrats have been so soiled by President Obama’s non-performance that Americans are telling pollsters, “Hell yeah, we want the Republicans.”

Imagine what the Republicans could do at a time like this, if they spent less time alienating the grassroots and more effort winning over independents and vacillating Democrats.

On second thought, don’t — the contrast with reality is too depressing.