Americans like Pelosi and the Dems in Congress

Great Debates
1

Or so says the WaPo/ABC poll.


4. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Nancy Pelosi is handling her job
as Speaker of the House?

            Approve                   Disapprove                  No opinion
4/15/07       53                          35                           12
2/25/07       50                          31                           18
1/19/07       54                          25                           21

Meanwhile, Bush has an approve-disapprove of 35-62. Awwwww.

Even better, she’s a far more popular Speaker than Newt Gingrich ever was:


Compare to: Newt Gingrich
11/7/98*      38                          58                            4
7/12/98       41                          44                           15
5/12/98       41                          44                           15
1/19/98       40                          52                            7
4/24/97       26                          62                           12
3/9/97        33                          61                            7
9/15/96RV     39                          54                            7
1/7/96        30                          61                            8
11/19/95      27                          65                            8
6/8/95        35                          50                           15
3/19/95       37                          48                           15
3/5/95        38                          51                           11
1/29/95       40                          48                           12
1/4/95        35                          37                           28
12/20/94**    35                          43                           22

Just warms your heart, doesn’t it?

And the Congressional Dems are popular too:


7. Do you approve or disapprove of the way (ITEM) are doing their job?

4/15/07 Summary Table

                                  Approve    Disapprove    No opinion
a. the Republicans in Congress       39          59             2
b. the Democrats in Congress         54          44             2

While the Congressional Publicans aren’t.

It’s worth comparing this to how people feel about Congress as a whole:


3. Do you approve or disapprove of the way the U.S. Congress is doing its job?

              -------- Approve --------   ------- Disapprove ------    No   
              NET   Strongly   Somewhat   NET   Somewhat   Strongly   opinion
4/15/07       44        8         36      54       25         29        3
2/25/07       41       NA         NA      54       NA         NA        5
1/19/07       43       NA         NA      50       NA         NA        8

It’s almost as if people knew there were two parties in Congress. Congress as a whole - people think it’s doing kinda so-so. They like the Dems, but the Pubbies - not so much.

IMHO, this is the genuinely interesting fact worth pulling out of this poll. People have been saying, over the past few months, “Look - people don’t think all that well of Congress.” No, they’re kinda so-so about Congress. But almost nobody’s asking about the Congressional Dems and Pubbies separately from Congress as a whole, and that skews the perceptions.

This isn’t the first poll in the new Congress that’s had that result. In early February (Feb. 8-11), a CBS poll showed “Congress” with 32-52 job approval/disapproval, but Congressional Dems with 54-35 approval-disapproval. (Cong. GOP was 41-49.)

Around the same time, there were two polls that just asked about the parties and not about Congress generally. A poll by Harris (Feb. 2-5) showed Cong. Dems with 41-52 a-d, and Cong. GOP with 26-69 a-d. Another by USA Today/Gallup (Feb. 9-11) showed Cong. Dems at 41-50 and Cong. GOP at 33-59. And one more poll, Pew (Feb. 7-11), asked just about Congressional Dems and got a 41-36 a-d.

(Links to polling data on Congressional Dems and Congressional Republicans.)

Meanwhile, approval ratings for Congress as a whole have been in the 30s and occasionally the low 40s.

So nobody should be making much of Congress’ mediocre approval ratings, at least not as a proxy for the new sheriff in town. People really do like the Congressional Dems a lot more than they like Congress as a whole, and clearly like Pelosi too.

One more:


9. Who do you think is taking a stronger leadership role in the government
in Washington these days, (Bush) or (the Democrats in Congress)?

                                    Both     Neither       No
            Bush     Democrats     (vol.)     (vol.)     opinion
4/15/07      34          58           2         4          2
1/19/07      36          56           1         3          3

Sweet. Taking some stands is good for the Dems.

2

Interesting, what’s the debate?

3

Is this good news, or great news? I"m leaning to “good”, there’s a long, long way to go.

4

Is this a debate or is it witnessing? :stuck_out_tongue:

-XT

5

Yeah, I can’t wait til the day when one of the two-parties wins permanently and the other disappears forever, I’ve known that was just around the corner for years and years.

6

I suppose the debate would be,

  1. Do the people, at present, support the Congressional majority as against the president, particularly WRT foreign and military policy?

  2. If so, what does it matter? Regardless of whether this is a “republic” or a “democracy,” aren’t our officials elected to do what they think is best for the country by their own lights, not what the polls say the people want at the moment? Once the election is done, it’s done, and then the officeholders are on their own. The proper balance of power and the proper division of functions between the executive and legislative branches should be determined by the Constitution as interpreted by the courts, irrespective of which party controls either branch and irrespective of how much public support the administration or the Congressional majority has at any given time. Right?

  3. But what does this portend for the 2008 elections, congressional and presidential?

7

All valid points, and none raised by the OP.

I think so, as much as one can surmise such a thing from polling + other indicators. What this all means in the long run is hard to say, wasn’t too long ago the Republicans were winning decisive congressional victories despite popular impression being they were on the way out. The public is fickle.

Definitely yes. But elected officials tend to want to be reelected, so more often than not they’ll do what they believe is going to help them get reelected, not what they believe is right. It keeps them accountable to the people, but works to contradict the whole reason we don’t have direct democracy in the first place. The idea was supposed to be, you pick someone who is more qualified than an average Joe to work at legislating/governing as a profession in hopes that they can make better decisions than those of the mob.

That things look good for the Dems. Hard to say how it will all pan out of course, as is always the case.

8

Ah…a debate!

I don’t believe so. IMHO (and its just that), I think such polls show dis-satisfaction with the Republicans…not necessarily satisfaction with the Democrats. Or, I suppose another way to say it is…the Dems are the lesser of two weevil’s. At the moment. :stuck_out_tongue:

Right. Not that this is realistically what will happen, mind. :stuck_out_tongue:

Nothing…or maybe a better way to put it is, gods know. I doubt these kinds of polls are more than Dem porn at this point. I don’t think they reflect how things will go in 2008…necessarily. It will all hinge on a few things. A) WTF is going on in Iraq next year. B) Whats the economy doing? C) How closely associated is the Republican candidate to Bush and the current administration…or, more importantly, how closely can the Dems associate the candidate with Bush et al? D) Who will the Dems throw up (and I use that term advisedly :wink: ) as their main mellon?

I don’t think that what the Dems in Congress do or do not do in the time before the next election will matter as much as the above…or will really be that much of a factor in the next Presidential election. YMMV of course.

-XT

9

I’ve seen some polls that say while Republicans are firmly behind the President and GOP Congresscritters (to the tune of 80-19 a-d), Democrats are much more critical of Congress, saying that Pelosi, Reid, et al., are not being forceful enough with Bush in ending the war.

10

Well, you won’t find that in the DoI nor in the Constitution. Nor in The Federalist Papers, AFAIK, though I have no doubt whatsoever Hamilton and Madison would have agreed with that statement without reservation.

11

Probably true, but that comes down to the same thing – popular support for the Congressional majority as against the president.

12

Tom Paine had better kung fu than either of those aristocratic weenies.

13

Thomas Paine did not attend the Constitutional Convention. (Nor did Jefferson, who was ambassador to France at the time.)

14

True enough. The problem being, Bush ain’t running again. :stuck_out_tongue:

-XT

15

I sometimes wonder what kind of constitution we would have ended up with, if they had been in attendance.

16

Federalist Paper No. 10 touches on it in a roundabout way, in arguing that the greatest threat to democratic forms of government are factions (defined as small groups of like-minded, powerful types who do not have the country’s best interests at heart.)

In Federalist Paper No. 57 Madison advocates the election of “men who possess the most wisdom to discern, and…pursue, the common good of society.”

17

Thomas Paine would never have been elected to the Constitutional Convention–Jefferson might have, but it’s questionable, if he had been, he would have been ostracized as a radical and have had little say in the proceedings.

The Constitutional Convention was so successful because America’s most prominent moderates actually forced compromise by reigning the more radical elements on both side in.

18

The sentiment is Burke’s, though.

19

Was anybody?

20

Well, that’s one strike against it . . .