NEVER "SPLIT" A LUNCH TAB WITH DAVID BRODER:

Nation Again Split on Bush: As 2004 Nears, President's Policies on Iraq, Economy Divide Voters (David S. Broder and Dan Balz, November 2, 2003, Washington Post)

Two years after a surge of national unity in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States is once again a 50-50 nation, shaped by partisan divisions as deep as ever that stand between President Bush and reelection. [...]

Three years after one of the closest and most bitterly contested elections in U.S. history, the nation is again polarized over the performance of the president. Bush's Republican supporters see him as strong and decisive, a man of good character and moral convictions. His Democratic detractors believe that, at home and abroad, he is leading the country in the wrong direction.

Democrats, however, are virtually invisible as an effective opposition to a president who commands center stage. Even many loyal Democrats complain that their party has no strong leaders and no alternative vision to Bush on either foreign or economic policy. The nine Democratic presidential candidates have made almost no impression on voters outside the few states with early caucuses or primaries next year. Most voters cannot name more than one or two of the candidates.

Bush begins the campaign year with an overall approval rating of 56 percent, according to the new Post-ABC News poll. That number is good by historical standards and masks sharp differences between Republicans and Democrats. Eighty-seven percent of Republicans approve of how Bush is handling the presidency, while 24 percent of Democrats approve -- a 63-point gap in perceptions. Independents narrowly approve of his performance, splitting 52 to 47 percent.

Given how nakedly partisan he's become himself, this is perhaps as close as the once-respected Mr. Broder can come to reporting the central fact in a story anymore. A poll that shows a first term president at 56% approval in his third year, a number that his own story notes is high by historical standards, would seem hard to spin as showing a 50-50 nation. What he apparently means is that the country is back to a point where Democrats almost universally disdain the President. That this leaves Mr. Bush with 56% of the nation on his side--despite two years of war and three of economic troubles--would seem to be the big story. The partisan divide may be back, but the partisans aren't evenly distributed any more. Mr. Bush presides today over what would appear to be a Republican-trending country.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 1, 2003 11:50 PM