Trouble in the trenches

A just-released AP-Ipsos poll on public satisfaction with Congress has some intriguing findings, the most intriguing of which is that lawmakers are, beyond doubt, lagging well behind the public's demand for an end to the Iraq war.

The good news is that the public's general approval of the Democratic Congress has crept to 40 percent. Or perhaps "skyrocketed" is a more felicitous choice of words, given that last year a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll registered an abysmal 16 percent approval of the Republican Congress. So while it's true that Congress had virtually nowhere to go but up, the gain from 16 to 40 indicates something more than just general satisfaction with the change in name tags.

The House leadership claims that its movement on domestic legislation accounts for most of the uptick, citing bills passed, as the speaker did, "to make our economy fairer, to make our country safer, to make college more accessible [and] health care more affordable."

That's all well and good, but one hopes the leadership doesn't honestly believe the public could even begin to tell you what tax-garbled progress Congress made in making college more affordable -- I know I couldn't -- and is consequently doing handsprings over the good news. That's simply the stuff that self-congratulatory press releases are made of, winding up on page B16 of newspapers that no one reads anyway.

My utterly unscientific guess is that most of the uptick has come from launching those nasty investigations that those nice Republican Congressmen keep warning Democrats about in terms of overreach. Don't go there boys! There's danger! in them oversight hills.

However what the public genuinely cares about, what it's following when it bothers to follow Congress at all, is what lawmakers are doing (or not) to put an end to U.S. involvement in Iraq. And it's here that trouble is slowly being spelled for the Democratic majorities, for they appear to be positioning themselves way behind the eight ball.

"On the issue of Democratic handling of Iraq -- 40 percent approve, 57 percent disapprove." Those overall numbers are nearly tolerable, given the war's factious effects and the public's historical birthright of disdaining Congress, no matter what. Yet a closer examination reveals looming problems that can only loom worse, absent some radical change in Congressional direction.

"Support is lower among self-described political independents, who deserted Republicans in last fall's elections to give 57 percent of their votes to Democrats. Now, only 32 percent of them register approval of the job Congress is doing; 36 percent favor the way Democrats are handling Iraq.

"Even anti-war Democrats seem slow in warming to the new majority in Congress. While 59 percent of that group approve of the way their party is handling Iraq, 39 percent disapprove."

That four in 10 antiwar Democrats disapprove of their own majorities is bad enough, but that only one in three Independents is satisfied borders on the politically devastating. These are the formerly wooed and indispensable swing voters, and they're already swinging away in droves.

The troubling specter is not so much that Independents will flip Republican in 2008; it's that they'll simply give up in disgust over the ineffectual political process and stay home. Subtract their marginal vote, then subtract any statistically significant portion of increasingly dissatisfied antiwar Democrats, then add a motivated Republican base, and you've a formula for electoral disaster.

In sticking to their guns of a timetabled withdrawal, backed by a funding withdrawal, Congressional Democrats may not emerge in one triumphal, war-ending stroke. But they would at least achieve balance with overall public sentiment. Nevertheless they give every indication of folding. One wonders what poll -- what democratic expression of vexation -- the Democratic leadership is reading.

Comments

[Rich Miles]

Do you really post at 4:30am? I thought I was the only one who did that....;-)

To the point. I don't wish to engage in the Republican habit of forgiving the poor behavior of "our" people (as so accurately cited in your April 5 'Crackpots on willy-dust' post, PM), but I do wish to say this: while I'm mildly disappointed in some things the Dems have done since January - Carl Levin's remarks about not defunding the war last weekend are a case in point - I also am quite pleased and proud that congressional Democrats are starting to show some spine on a LOT of issues that have lain unaddressed for pretty much all of the past 6 years.

While I don't disagree with the essential subtext of this post, that pussyfooting around on the Iraq issue is never going to be a winning strategy for Dems, I humbly suggest that for once, we on the Left try to subsume our need for instant gratification, and give the poor buggers some time.

I mean, after six years of being effectively shut out of government, and with a freshman class of varying quality (as they all are), are we to ask the new Dem barely-a-majority to fix EVERYthing in two months' time?

Yes, Iraq is an urgent issue, and no one wants all our soldiers home and out of that meatgrinder any quicker than I. But it's not all simply to the Dems' say-so, as should go without saying.

There is a highly-resistant White House and minority party, and there are still such things as Fox News and other rightie media outlets maintaining, as one of their marching morons did last week, that "Americans don't WANT all these investigations." And finally, as you rightly point out, most Americans don't pay ANY attention to these things, and of those who do, a significant number of them pay attention only to Faux Noise.

So yes, the Dems need to be careful not to get lured into the "we can't be beat in '08" trap. But perhaps we can give them a little bit of time?

I may weaken my own argument with this last observation, but articles such as yours, in which a devotedly leftist writer is, this early in the game, criticizing the Dems for not having the answers to all the world's problems in the first two or three months, only serves as ammunition for the Foxites who already believe that sort of thing, and live only to see that folks like us do too.

Other than that, very nice column.

[Vic Anderson]

I'll tell what folderpoll the DEM "leaders" can expect from 2008 independents: flocking to Tancredo. At least he can secure our borders against illegals, including the terrorists and weaponry embedded among them; attacking US civilization!

[Rich Miles]

PM, is Vic one of your regular trolls, or did he just drop by special to make a senseless remark for my benefit, since I'm new to your site?

Vic, you poor scared little mousie of an alleged man...I feel so sorry for you. If you think Tancredo can or will protect anything other than himself, if you think he's anything more than a blowhard riding in the back of a political bandwagon, then there's nothing to be said for you. I wish you luck with those demons you're clearly fighting.

[Vic Anderson]

Actually was just repsonding to PMs last paragraph of DEM folding and polling; but now that it's brought up, as a 37 year veteran on the DEM frontline, I can sure recognize a case of trench mouth when I encounter it.

[David R. Remer]

This poll is way too early and far too shallow in its inquiries to make it meaningful regarding what happens in 2008.

This article astutely points out that the future of elections in America belong to Independents to determine. But, Independents are growingly voting on results, and with just over 100 days of Dem's being in charge of Congress, results are still meager and hard to come by.

As for depth or shallowness of the poll, they didn't ask those disappointed Dems and Indies if their disappointment is at the steps Dem's have taken, or the lack of results of those steps to date.

Additionally, in 2008, there will be the comparison test. If I vote for an incumbent will anything improve? If the answer is no, then Dem's have a problem. On the other hand, what voter who voted Republican incumbents out of office in 2006, can justify voting Republicans back in, in 2008?

There is a lot of road to cover before the 2008 election, and the GDP numbers for later this year are predicted to be down around 2%. If that decline in our economy has any staying power, voters will vote their pocketbooks and job security, and that tends to be a pretty independent voting block as well as an anti-incumbent one.