Chris Cillizza reports:

Some neutral observers and senior strategists within the party have begun to believe that the national political environment is not only similar to what they saw in 1994 — when Democrats lost control of the House and Senate — but could in fact be worse by Election Day. …

Combine the similarities between 1994 and 2010 on the generic ballot and presidential approval with a clear intensity gap between the Republican base (fired up to vote) and the Democratic base (less so), and Democratic strategists are worried that they are watching history repeat itself.

Sort of like conservative outlets have been explaining for months now, I suppose.

As Pete has aptly detailed, this in part explains the unhinged quality of the left’s rhetoric. Members of the left are infuriated and bewildered that the grand shift to a center-left nation proved as illusory as Obama’s political brilliance. But in voicing their fury, do they depress the base even more? Perhaps. But they will certainly poison the atmosphere for any potential for moderation and compromise by the surviving Democrats after November. “How can they co-operate with the crazy, Islamophobe cosnervatives?!” the left will rail.

The meltdown may not simply be electoral for liberals. They will need to figure out how to regroup and cope with a country so stiff-necked as to reject what they are peddling.