There's a backdraft of chatter about the fact that the president's joint address to Congress next week will come uncomfortably close to the anniversary of the speech President Clinton gave at the same lectern on the same subject in September of 1993. But it's worth remembering just what happened in 1994.

First it is important to remember how much of what happened in 1994 had little to do with the health care debacle. The pre-1994 Democratic majority was heavily represented by long-term incumbents from what had over time become heavily Republican states and districts. Incumbency masked the vulnerability. But so did the fact that the Democratic Congress had gone so long without having to face those inherently skeptical electorates when a Democratic president, with big plans, was in office. That configuration was bound to create cross-cutting wave that would sweep away many of those office-holders. For all the myriad factors that went into that disastrous mid-term, and there were many, I've always thought these were the key factors.

Still though, the health care debacle, coming just before the election (really catastrophic timing) played a big role. So why?

It wasn't just that President Clinton managed to stir and galvanize the ire of right. Nor was it simply that 'failure' on health care reform convinced independents and non-ideological swing voters that Clinton couldn't get things (somewhat irrespective of what those 'things' were) done. And it wasn't even that giving up on health care reform demoralized Clinton's supporters. The key was that Clinton managed to do all three things at once. And together, they spelled catastrophe.

Again, whatever happens over the next few months, one big saving grace the Democrats have is that there's a year rather than a few months until the mid-term election. But that same kind of confluence of events is already the unspoken, sometimes unrecognized, backdrop to the current moment.

The decline of the president's approval numbers are often seen as a proxy for rising opposition to his plans. But a closer look at the polls shows something more like the tripartite action I noted above. The president is losing support in the right, center and left all at once, but for different reasons. Yes, there's rising opposition on the right. But the president's base is also getting demoralized. And the impression that the president is hobbled, can't get bring the opposition to heel or get his supporters on board, is making those fabled swing voters think he just can't get 'things' done.

Much is different from 1994. But the one thing the president cannot afford is to bum out all three groups at once. One? Sure. That's inevitable and not a problem. Two, maybe. But not all three.