The good news for Democrats: there's plenty of time for improvement.

The bad news: this is starting to look like one of the most ineffective, unproductive, Congresses in memory. Approval of Congress overall has fallen to 22 percent. Speaker Pelosi's approval rating among Californians has fallen to 35 percent. House leaders cannot corral moderate Members into supporting legislation to make it harder to conduct surveillance of suspected terrorists. Inter-party and intra-party fights dominate every policy issue. And Congress has fallen further behind on the simple business of running the government than at any time in the last 20 years. Half of the bills signed into law this year are measures to name courthouses and other federal facilities. Even padded with those largely meaningless measures, this Congress is on pace to enact fewer laws than any one since 1973--which at least had impeachment of the president to deal with. Democrats have announced that they plan not to spend so much time in Washington next year, which led one House moderate to warn that Speaker Pelosi won't hold the majority in 2009 unless Democrats start to accomplish... something.

Some argue that Democrats are not in as much electoral danger as it may appear, since voters are not especially enamored of Republicans right now, either. However, it's worth noting that before the 2006 elections, just 29 percent of voters thought Congressional Democrats were doing a good job. It was public dissatisfaction with Republicans that gave Congress to the Democrats, not approval. Another year like the one Democrats are having now, and who can predict what the result will be?