You’ve probably seen a hundred stories talking about how unpopular Congress is. But if Scott Rasmussen’s generic ballot poll is to be believed, it isn’t really because of Tea Partiers or the institution’s more conservative lean since the election of 2010. In Rasmussen’s latest survey of likely voters, Republicans lead by eight points on the generic ballot, 44 to 36 percent. At this point in 2009, Rasmussen’s surveys had Republicans leading by four points on the generic ballot.

What does that mean? Nothing. Anything could happen in the next year. Even if we had dozens of other polls showing a similar trend, we could not use them to extrapolate an outcome for 2012.