Lame Duck Congress Gets High Marks From Voters
Two weeks out, it’s apparent that the American public is generally pleased with the outcome of the end-of-2010 Lame Duck Congress:
Americans overwhelmingly welcomed the flurry of lawmaking between the lame-duck Congress and President Obama last month — but they’re hedging their bets on whether the duck keeps quacking.
Seventy-seven percent in this ABC News/Yahoo! News poll say it was good for Obama and Congress to agree to lame-duck legislation on tax cuts, unemployment benefits, gays in the military, the START treaty and aid to 9/11 responders. That includes majorities across the spectrum — 91 percent of Democrats, 79 percent of independents and 62 percent of Republicans.
Whether it lasts is another matter: Whatever the lame-duck session achieved, Americans divide evenly on the chances Obama and the Republicans in Congress will work together on important issues in the year ahead. Forty-eight percent are optimistic about it — just 14 percent “strongly” so — but about as many, 46 percent, are pessimistic about the prospects for political cooperation.
Yea I’d go with the pessimism, folks.
I think the point that is missing in the analysis that may work to the detriment of the GOP is this: the frustration of voters expressed in the November elections was NOT dislike of the Democrats, but of the apparently complete paralysis of Congress.
In other words, the GOP acts as if they have a “mandate” at their peril.
Unlike the regular-session Congress, the lame-duck session Congress actually, you know, did stuff. That’s bound to draw more attention than spending nine months arguing about one bill.
It’s also worth noting that Obama’s approval numbers appear to be spiking, even as the right is busily crowing about the midterm results. Things can change very quickly in politics.