Do you think it can go any lower? It’s at 9%! Reid blames Bush (of course, to the left everything is Bush’s fault):

“Any time you have a president that is down so, so far in poll numbers, it drags down a city councilmember. It drags down any elected official, including us, and we recognize that,” Reid said when asked about Congress’s rating.

But the president’s numbers are in the 30’s, so if Congress’ rating was tied to the president, wouldn’t it be much higher.
A better leader would have said that they are dealing with unpopular issues and the base is expressing it’s disapproval and a smarter partisan would have shifted the blame to McConnell and complained about obstructionism and being unable to pass popular legislation.
I was thinking that maybe a lot of the disapproval was coming from the hard left who are ticked off over FISA and Iraq war funding but then I read this:

Voters not affiliated with either party are the most critical of Congressional performance. Just 3% of those voters give Congress positive ratings, down from 6% last month. Sixty-three percent (63%) believe Congress is doing a poor job, up from 57% last month.
Just 12% of voters think Congress has passed any legislation to improve life in this country over the past six months. That number has ranged from 11% to 13% throughout 2008. The majority of voters (62%) say Congress has not passed any legislation to improve life in America.

I think Reid should have stuck to obstructionism, it would have been more plausible and fit better with the polling data.

If the Republicans were smart (a huge stretch, I know) they would run ads touting the fact that the Democrats are the ones who refuse to drill for oil (which is becoming pretty popular now). And when they do they should address the issue of how long drilling would take (some are saying seven years, not ten) and the impact to the futures market that the news would have. And how far off alternative energy is and how much it would cost each of us to switch to the new energy source (I would assume that we would all have to buy a new car, wouldn’t we? Or is the answer to this problem more trains? Bicycles? Skates?).
They should also run ads letting the public know just who will be paying more in taxes (and how much) if the Democrats win the House, Senate and presidency. Obama’s saying that those under $250,000 won’t have their taxes raised and that’s a lie and he knows it. Rangel has said that Congress will not be renewing any of Bush’s tax cuts and there were many tax cuts in there for people making under $250,000. The Republicans better plaster the airways with Rangels words, he’s been quite vocal about it and they should have plenty of sound clips for a 30 second commercial.
They should also make sure that the general public knows that it’s the Democrats who are in charge of Congress and aren’t getting anything done. Let them own the numbers.