If the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll is on the right track--which only 1 out of 5 Americans believe the country is--the GOP can exhale and then hug its abysmal approval ratings all the way to its reswearing-in ceremonies in 2015.
Republicans have perfected all the governing arts of incompetence 'cept one: they have a demonic talent for making everybody sick to death of politics--just about everybody, that is, but their base, which thrives in sulfurous turmoil, abundantly supplied by the demonically talented. To do aught good never will be our task/But ever to do ill our sole delight. I can't recall if that's from Milton's Arch-Fiend or the GOP platform.
But, as Sebelius said yesterday ... Whatever.
It's working.
Sure, the NBC/WSJ poll finds Republicans' positive rating at a net-negative of 31 percent. For them, though, not to worry, really, for "the poll also shows that the political gains that Democrats made during the shutdown have eroded somewhat"--italics mine--as in cut in half, from an 8- to 4-point advantage on the question of who should run hell's asylum next time.
Meanwhile, "Obamaβs approval rating has declined to an all-time low as public frustration with Washington and pessimism about the nationβs direction continue to grow."
These are the electoral classic of a pox on both houses, which to the GOP's delight will only fester into a monstrous indifference to the midterms--unless President Obama and congressional Dems start showing some goddamn passion in reversing the trend.
I'm not big on "passionate" politics myself, but for the love of Mike that's often the realistic imperative of this ad-populum racket. Republican pols "get" that, hence they serve up passion in spades and thereby animate their base. Most Democratic pols? They're busy conducting support groups for the grievingly bullied. It's pathetic, and more than that, disheartening, and even worse, ill-motivating.