First post here after lurking for a while...It's hard to tell where it comes from, but you must admit they have turned it into quite a political talking point (or just surly attack...) recently, concidently about the same time that things really started to go bad in Iraq, with gas prices, with Katrina, et al.
Now, they habitually call the democrats the 'doom and gloom' party, the party of attacks and no ideas, the 'depression' party...you have probably seen these and more. Not that it's all untrue, or that the retorhic is much better on the democrat side, but to say people are being horribily pessimistic when they are at least pretty close to the truth is just silly.
Of course the best is from Tom DeLay who has the balls to call democrats the 'party of personal destruction'.