I must admit to being a bit of a CNN junkie.

We have it on all the time in the newsroom here at the Times-Union and I check in from time to time at home.

So I am pretty in tune to CNN's programming. Many times I have seen political analyst/correspondent Bill Schneider on American Morning doing what he does best - analyzing the latest Gallup poll.

Lately, at least for the past few months, he has been analyzing how poorly W is perceived by the public.

He would explain that W's job approval ratings were in the low 30s - according to the latest poll numbers - and then tell us why.

That, certainly, is legitimate news.

Usually, you see this a couple times a month, which is when the polls come out.

These programs on CNN are out-of-sight, out-of-mind for me. I notice them when they're broadcast, but I don't anticipate them or remember when they're supposed to be on.

So when Tuesday rolled by this past week, I didn't think about or miss the Bill Schneider "latest polling data shows" bit on CNN.

But there wasn't one.

Imagine my surprise, however, when while browsing the Internet on Wednesday I found this little nugget from USA Today.

WASHINGTON - Amid falling gas prices and a two-week drive to highlight his administration's efforts to fight terrorism, President Bush's approval rating has risen to 44% in a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. That's his highest rating in a year.

The poll also showed likely voters evenly divided between Democratic and Republican candidates for Congress, 48%-48%. Among registered voters, Democrats had a 51%-42% advantage.

Now, color me skeptical, but isn't that news?

But allow me to be fair. Maybe CNN did a story on this. Maybe I was in the restroom or something. That's highly unlikely, because they usually run stories over and over.

But maybe they only ran this one once while I was getting a coffee refill or something.

So please, gentle readers, let me know if any of you saw this on CNN.

My guess is, you didn't.

(I also looked over the Associated Press wire that streams into our servers via satellite. Nothing.)

I have a simple question. Why, after months of telling us how unpopular W is, wouldn't news organizations tell us when thereÊis an upward bump in his numbers?

Regardless, W's bump in the polls is evidence of something I wrote about a few weeks back.

In that column, I offered Democrats a little political advice. I told them they needed to stop hating W so much and stop pandering to the fringy, leftist, Michael Moore, moveon.org crowd.

They seem unable to pull that off.

They have allowed their hatred of W to blind them to some pretty obvious political realities.

So then they do dumb things like go after Wal-Mart.

All manner of prominent Democrats say they want Wal-Mart to provide higher wages and better healthcare to its employees.

Problem is, legions of Americans - not the least of which are Wal-Mart's 1.3 million employees - love Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart saves them money and the Demo plan would force Wal-Mart to raise prices.

Wal-Mart has a plan.

This week there was this report from "The Hill," a newspaper for and about Congress:

Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer, is planning to launch a voter registration and education campaign this fall targeted at its 1.3 million employees in an effort to combat growing criticism from Democrats and labor unions. ...

... Wal-Mart's voter registration and education programs could be among the biggest in the country, though not as big as those of its labor union opponents. The AFL-CIO, for example, has nearly 13 million members.

The company's decision appears to be a response to several high-profile Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and four 2008 Democratic presidential hopefuls, who participated in a labor-organized anti-Wal-Mart campaign this summer.

The company appears poised to expand its efforts to all its employees and to follow up by encouraging them to register to vote and giving the information they need to cast ballots on Election Day.

And for whom do you suppose these newly registered voters will cast their ballots?

Bush's poll bump came as terrorism was making headlines.

There was that foiled plot to blow up jetliners headed to the U.S. from Britain; the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks; weeks of focus by W and the GOP on terrorism and whether Democrats can protect the country; W moving 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed out of a "secret CIA prison" to Guantanamo to stand trial; revelations that interrogations of Mohammed and other terrorists have provided information that helped thwart other terrorist plots, and W selling his wiretapping and detainee proposals to Congress.

During this period, the Demos were looking anemic with regard to the war on terror.

The result?

The new poll found likely voters more prone to vote for candidates who support W on terrorism, 45-28 percent, and evenly divided on those who support and oppose W on Iraq.

A 55-42 percent majority in the poll supported W's policy of wiretapping phone conversations between U.S. citizens here and suspected terrorists in other countries without getting a court order.

For the first time since last December, a majority of people polled did not say the war in Iraq was a mistake. They were evenly split 49-49 percent.

And likely voters were evenly split between Democrat and Republican Congressional candidates.

All the while, the economy is holding and gas prices are falling.

Two months ago, I thought the midterm elections this November were going to be a landslide for Democrats.

Today, I'm just not so sure anymore. [[In-content Ad]]