Mara Liasson on Fox News Sunday had some no-nonsense analysis for Democrats about the upcoming elections:

The reason that the president’s overall job approval rating has been going down is because he’s been losing independents, which he had won in 2008. Now, history tells us that presidents’ job approval ratings generally drift downward over the course of a midterm election year, so it’s unlikely that it’s going to be, even at this point, mid-40s [i.e., the number of House seats will likely be enough to flip control of the House] in November. … He wants to make it a choice between the Democrats’ ideas and the Republicans’ ideas — he needs to have that underpinning of things going in the right direction. Even if the unemployment rate absolutely is 9.7 percent, not good enough, the trend line has to be positive. And the fact that we’ve had two months now of lagging job growth — I think the administration really was counting on, little by little, things would be looking like they’re getting better, and they’re not.

At this point, it is not simply conservative media outlets and Republican operatives who are predicting massive Democratic losses. It is becoming the accepted wisdom that the Democrats are in for a pummeling. That, in turn, will likely depress fundraising and turnout. Soon Democrats will be arguing that a loss of only one house of Congress is a “victory.” But whatever the spin, if the trend lines continue, Obama will suffer an immense blow to his political standing, and he will face a Congress made up of Democrats with no reason to support him, and Republicans with every reason to go on the offensive. It is an outcome unimaginable by even the most optimistic conservatives 18 months ago.