Pelosi: The GOP’s midterm buzz is all hype; CNN poll: GOP by three on generic ballot

She doesn’t have many endearing qualities but I’ve always been fond of Madam Speaker’s almost cheerful lameness in pushing her party’s talking points. Remember her chuckling over how much of a liar Obama’s been on health care before robotically insisting that this has been the most transparent process evah?

She’s outdone herself.

In a fundraising e-mail to Democratic supporters, Pelosi said that the Democratic agenda is moving the country forward and the Democrats toward victory this fall.

“Republicans are in full-blown ‘spin mode’ attacking the president and claiming he has lost support,” she wrote. “But that is just hype and hyperbole. You and I know better — together we are moving America forward.”

Sounds good. Back in reality, for only the third time in 15 years of CNN snapshots, Republicans are out to a three-point lead on the generic ballot. Hardly a big lead, though, right? Wrong:

Forty-nine percent of Republicans questioned in the poll say they’re extremely or very enthusiastic about voting this year, up 6 points from November. Thirty-one percent of Democrats say they’re enthusiastic, down 11 points.

“Democrats face a huge ‘enthusiasm gap,’ and that gap is growing,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “But the poll indicates that roughly half of all registered voters may change their minds between now and Election Day, so there is plenty of time for the playing field to change.”…

The poll paints a … picture in more competitive districts, those where the incumbent won with less than 55 percent of the vote in 2008. In those districts, the poll indicates Democrats are currently facing a 27-point deficit, with 59 percent of registered voters in the competitive districts now saying they would vote for the Republican candidate for U.S. House if the election were held tomorrow, and only 32 percent that they would choose the Democratic candidate.

27 points. Meanwhile, Cool Hand Luke’s promising to turn the midterms into, um, a referendum on health care. Maybe he … wants the GOP to take back Congress? It did wonders for Clinton.

No worries, though, lefty readers. Once he and Axelrod go out there and sell it — for real this time, not the way they’ve been selling it for the past eight months — it’s all going to turn around.

Update: Okay, sure, The One’s numbers are in the toilet right now, but that’s only because he’s having a rough patch, right? He’ll recover! Charlie Cook: “[N]o president in [the past] half-century has seen his approval rating go up, even as much as 1 point, between the end of his first year and the eve of his first midterm election.”

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