Two big balloons popped over the weekend. The Bears were routed at home by Miami, and those Super Bowl reservations already made by their fans now seem a bit premature.

And that Democratic wave in the polls that Stuart Rothenberg and Charles Cook have been surfing too? It might be a ripple.

New national polls by ABC/Washington Post, Pew, and Gallup, now show Democratic advantages in the generic Congressional vote of 6%, 4% and 7%, respectively . Now, that might not sound all that good if you are a GOP partisan, but compared to deficits  5—10% higher just a few weeks back, it is an important sign of  late movement.

So too, the Rasmussen daily tracking of Bush's approval rating has shown sharp improvement in the last week. Today, the approval/disapproval numbers are 45—52, for a 7% deficit  . The deficit was 17—18% a week ago. Rahm Emanuel, the