Earlier this week I was having dinner with a noted pollster when the topic turned (naturally) to Obama and the Democrats — how bad was November looking? I argued that the hype over the coming Democratic debacle was both totally premature and wildly overblown. Surprisingly my polling pundit agreed. We both understood two things about the electorate — they have very short memories (Bush’s approval ratings are back up!) and care almost exclusively about one thing: their pocket books. And so, November is a lot farther away than the babbling bobbleheads of cable news let on.

This morning all of our smartphones and email inboxes were filled with alerts from the papers — the economy is growing and the recession really seems to be over. Of course it “officially” ended six months ago but we long ago lost any belief in economists or their data. But note what the stories this morning said — consumer spending led the charge. Look at the Wall Street Journal’s lead graph:

The U.S. economy’s expansion slowed at the start of 2010, but the rise in consumer spending which drove it bodes well for the future.

If consumers are spending more they are by definition feeling better about the economy and that generally translates into feeling better about the current people in power. Not always, but generally and that bodes well for the Dems. Not that you’d know it from the news. While we can fully expect Maddow and Olbermann to point this out it’s unlikely we’ll be hearing anything from Fox or CNN any time soon about this because it doesn’t fit their narrative.

The political spin cycle now runs 24/7 and the cable nets have become video versions of the blogosphere — fast, furious and fundamentally useless as sources of journalism. Unless by journalism you mean the minute-by-minute chronicling of the rumor mill. So the storyline for now is set — the Democrats are headed for disaster in November, Obama is on a roll (until he isn’t), the Republicans are having an existential crisis and the Tea Party brigade holds all the cards. Nice story if any of it held water. Like much of what passes for news on these “news” networks, this story has shreds of truth that have been repurposed to build a simplistic, almost fictional, tale of political intrigue. The problem is people actually believe it’s based on reporting and facts, when it’s pretty clear it is not.

For junkies it’s fun to get caught up in the daily drama but let’s see what all these polls say in September. If the jobs picture is improving then as the GDP is now (and jobs are almost always a lagging indicator of economic conditions), history indicates that Democrats will probably lose seats in Congress, but not control over either or both chambers. So instead of watching the blowhards on cable, check in each month with the jobs report. It’ll tell you way more about what November holds than the ferocity of the Tea Baggers.