Even if this is a fluke (most generic ballot polls show the Democrats trailing the Republicans by 5-6% percentage points), and even allowing for the fact that many of the Democrats are craven cowards and closet Republicans (or would have been Republicans in the 1970s, before the Republican party went off the rails with Reagan), this still is sobering evidence of the desperate condition this country is in.  Think about it:  less than two years after eight years of war and financial ruin orchestrated by Republicans, most voters would prefer Republicans again.   What would the Republicans have to do to really discredit themselves with an electorate this brain-dead and impervious to evidence?   Launch a nuclear holocaust?  The "short memory" phenomenon is, of course, not just an American one; we have all seen pictures of Russians carrying photos of Stalin, though at least that seems expliciable (if no less irrational) by a perception that Stalin represented order and power.  But Republicans can not even claim that.