A race to the bottom
Press-Register | October 19, 2007
THE PUBLIC'S opinion of Congress has fallen so low that we need Mark Twain at his most cynical to express it.
"Suppose you were an idiot," Mr. Twain wrote. "And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." He also wrote that "there is no native criminal class except Congress."
Americans today are in a very sour mood about politics in general, and Congress in particular. Mark Twain would understand the public's disenchantment.
According to the latest Reuters/Zogby poll, the approval ratings of both Congress and President Bush have fallen through the floor. The president received good marks from only 24 percent of those surveyed. But he's riding high compared with Congress. The congressional approval rating was an astonishingly low 11 percent.
That's the lowest level of public support for Congress ever recorded. Incumbents in the House and Senate knew they were in trouble last fall, when the approval rating of Congress dipped below 20 percent in the Reuters/Zogby poll. And, indeed, a few weeks later, voters swept dozens of Republicans out of Congress, giving the Democrats control of both the House and the Senate.
Why was there no honeymoon for the victorious Democrats?
President Bush's political troubles aren't hard to explain. His support has been eroded by the long, grinding war in Iraq and consumers' nervousness about high gas prices and a slumping housing market.
But how did this Congress become the most unpopular Congress in history? The answer is obvious: People voted for change last fall, and they don't believe they're getting it.
Corruption was a key issue for Democrats in the 2006 election. But the Democrats' congressional leaders haven't been able to pass sweeping ethics reform measures. Some Democrats who talked about ethics began looking for loopholes when the issue of ethics reform landed on their plate.
Although the Iraq War remains unpopular, the Democrats' leaders haven't impressed many people with their efforts to oppose it, which seem to be based more on political calculation than conviction.
Finally, the Democratic Congress hasn't accomplished a great deal -- unless you count bashing the president daily and trying to get Rush Limbaugh thrown off the radio. The voters signaled they wanted less partisanship, but they got an even more virulent form of it from the likes of Sen. Harry Reid.
Pollster John Zogby says most Americans now question "how relevant this government is to them." That's bad news for Democrats and Republicans.
