Wednesday's NBC/WSJ poll is a depressing read.

Bush at 29% approval. Congress at 23%. Nineteen percent believe the country is headed in the right direction.

Neither party's presidential field seems to be catching fire.

The GOP field is flatter: Rudy Giuliani leads with a mere 29%, Fred Thompson at 20%, followed by Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain at 14%.

One could argue that Sen. Hillary Clinton is holding a strong lead with 39%, ahead of Sen. Barack Obama with 25% and John Edwards with 15%.

But LiberalOasis would argue that Sen. Clinton is more of the default choice right now, not a choice that is getting people excited. Her polls have simply held steady all year (she was at 40% in March).

She hasn't really done much to earn or solidify support. It's more that her rivals have not succeeded in making a case that they are more deserving of the nomination than the most well-known candidate.

What does this all mean?

The problems facing the world loom larger and larger. Yet no one seems to be stepping up and dealing with them head on, leading to mass frustration.

With the politicians looking smaller than the problems we face, everyone is suffering in the polls.

What politicians need to realize is on Dubya's watch, these problems will only get worse.

In particular, as former Israeli government official Daniel Levy lays out, we're facing a "Middle East Civil War Trifecta" in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.

And "each of these conflicts is, in part, the pushback against the neocon transformationalist agenda for the Middle East."

Politicians, particularly at the presidential level, are generally afraid of getting ahead of the public.

They are talking more sharply about the Iraq war because the polls are overwhelmingly against it.

But, for example, there are no polls saying 70% of Americans would support engagement with democratically elected Hamas government officials willing to move towards recognizing Israel.

So Democrats narrow the extent of their foreign policy critiques and alternatives.

Normally, it would make political sense not to wade in to such thorny, complex matters during a campaign.

But these are not normal times.

There's a huge opening for someone to comprehensive lay out how exactly we should change foreign policy course and reverse the spread of sectarian violence, with solutions that match the magnitude of the problems at hand, without regard to polls.

That's the way to turn these poll numbers around.