The Verdict Is In: Americans Detest The Democratic Congress

Gallup has polled 1000 adults on the performance of the Democratic Congress on a number of key issues. The results were absolutely abysmal,

Terrorism
Pleased: 17
Neutral: 35
Disappointed: 31
Angry: 16

The economy
Pleased: 12
Neutral: 35
Disappointed: 41
Angry: 12

Government reform
Pleased: 12
Neutral: 33
Disappointed: 41
Angry: 14

Healthcare
Pleased: 12
Neutral: 28
Disappointed: 43
Angry: 17

Iraq
Pleased: 11
Neutral: 20
Disappointed: 43
Angry: 25

Immigration
Pleased: 8
Neutral: 27
Disappointed: 39
Angry: 26

The federal budget deficit
Pleased: 7
Neutral: 32
Disappointed: 44
Angry: 16

A few points worth noting.

#1) This is a poll of adults and I’ve found, as a general rule, polls of likely voters tend to be much more accurate and at least 5-7 points more negative towards the Left. That means these numbers are probably even worse than they appear at first glance.

#2) Gallup is treating the “neutral” designation as a positive. In other words, they combine “Disappointed” & “Angry” to get the negative score and “Pleased” and “Neutral” to get the positive score. However, that seems to be a bit of a reach. Saying you’re “Neutral” on someone’s performance is, by definition, neither positive or negative. It’s a middle category. Again, that means these numbers are probably even worse than they appear at first glance.

#3) Happily, amongst Independents, there are more people “Disappointed” & “Angry” with the Democratic performance than those that are “Pleased” and “Neutral” on every single category.

The biggest problem for the Democrats is, in my opinion, the fact that they got into office running as “UnRepublicans.” The problem with that is even though the Democrats managed to win in 2006, they didn’t have a big positive agenda for people to rally around (beyond the silly little 100 hour agenda) and they didn’t improve on the performance of the Republican Congress in any of the areas that they criticized them on.

* They slammed the GOP for not being bipartisan, but when they got into office, they ratcheted up the level of partisanship to a far higher level than it had been under the GOP.

* They slammed the GOP for spending too much money, but when they got into office, they started shoving through pork with both hands.

* They slammed the GOP for not being ethical, but when they got into office, they deliberately thwarted any real ethics reform.

* In addition, the Democrats have accomplished almost nothing and seem much more interested in having symbolic, but meaningless votes on Iraq, than they do about getting anything done.

Worse yet for the Democrats, there don’t seem to be any real accomplishments on the horizon for them and in 2008, very little seems likely to get done. So, if it’s bad now, it’s likely to stay bad all the way until the election in 2008.

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