He sets the scene thusly:

Imagine sitting in Washington’s Verizon Center, listening blissfully to Carole King and James Taylor, thanks to a fast-thinking friend who managed to score four floor seats. For 50-somethings, it’s a nice place to be. Then, as the concert is winding down, four pages of poll tables of a just-released survey pop up in your BlackBerry. They are jaw-dropping numbers, not inconsistent with what you had been thinking — if anything more a confirmation of it. But the dramatic nature of the numbers brings the real world of politics crashing through what had been a most mellow evening.

…although I’m not entirely certain why the evening should be spoiled in the first place. It’s excellent news.

What harshed Charlie’s mellow here was this NBC/WSJ poll (H/T: Michael Barone) showing a two point lead on the generic ballot for the GOP among registered voters.  Worse – from the Democrats’ point of view – the surveyors found that the voters most enthusiastic about the upcoming election were 2008 McCain voters, while the ones least enthusiastic were 2008 Obama voters*. Coupling the two trends, Charlie concludes:

…the recent numbers confirm that trends first spotted late last summer have fully developed into at least a Category 3 or 4 hurricane.

Given how many House seats were newly won by Democrats in 2008 in GOP districts, and given that this election is leading into an all-important redistricting year, this reversal of fortune couldn’t have happened at a worse time for Democrats.

Indeed.  Speaking of redistricting – actually, speaking of Republican Congressional blowouts – the Republican Governors Association is well-positioned to dominate the November elections.  This should be good news for insurgent Republican candidates hoping to catch Charlie Cook’s prophesied wave…

Moe Lane

*The Democrats are supposedly planning to counter this by pushing for 2008 Obama voters to return to the polls for 2010.  This will do… pretty much nothing for beleaguered incumbent Democrats in districts that McCain won in 2008, but it will help Obama in 2012, which is really all that matters to the Democratic party right now.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.