About That Congressional Approval Rating
by tgirschSeptember 2nd, 2008
I know I’ve said this before in comments, most recently here, but I think the “congressional approval rating” is a really stupid metric, useless by any measure. I’ve got the gospel-of-John-esque hubris to quote myself:
And Biden is old school democrat, which, based on congressional approval, is not polling that well these days.
I hear criticisms like this a lot, but I think they’re mostly vacuous. For starters, the congressional approval rating is based a lot on what the congress has or has not successfully gotten done. A lot of the stuff that the congress hasn’t gotten done was because the GOP has been filibustering the shit out of everything (something that was horrible, awful, evil obstructionism when the Democrats were doing but is now somehow okay), and because the “blue dog” wing of the party still has too much influence given the razor-thin margins in Congress.
This isn’t to say that the Democrats in congress walk on water or haven’t done stupid things — of course they don’t, and of course they have! It’s just that the approval rating of congress, in and of itself, doesn’t tell us a damn thing about public opinion on Democratic and Republican policies. Do people “disapprove” because they don’t like the policies the Democrats are pursuing? Or do they “disapprove” because the Democrats aren’t moving away from GOP positions quickly enough? (My bet: Both, in roughly equal measure, depending on who’s answering the question. Partisan Republicans and partisan Democrats are likely to be very unhappy with what congress has done and/or failed to do, and for very different reasons.) So if we’re going to do a fair comparison here, we need to figure out why people don’t approve of congress, something these polls never seem to do, because that would be, you know, hard, or something.
But the more fundamental problem is that such polling treats congress like a whole, single entity, as opposed to the giant cluster f–k that it actually is. Ask the same people who “disapprove” of congress how they feel about their congresscritter, and I bet the approval rating for that moves into the positives, even if modestly. Oh, my congresscritter is okay, but congress as a whole blows.
Categories: Politics |
I just love it. For how many months now has the US Congress’ low approval ratings been lower than George Bush’s. It’s great. It was Nancy Pelosi who said that she would be for bipartisanship then trys to limit the GOP from having any imput on legislation. That’s why, in many cases, the GOP held up some work. Because, Nancy wanted to roll over the GOP and not work with them. But, also, let’s look at some of the reasons why the US Congress has such a low approval rating. Nancy Pelosi and 110th Congress have failed to deliver what the people have wanted for some time like - Energy Independence. She went on vacation instead of taking up a vote on domestic drilling. So, she dropped the ball. That’s not the GOP’s fault. She played games with the money for the US troops over in Iraq and Afghanistan with all of those non-binding resolution votes and it was the Democrats in Congress that called for a early withdrawal from Iraq even as our mission wasn’t complete. Can you believe it? That’s helping the enemy. It was the Democrats (like Maxine Waters D-CA)in Congress that have called for a Nationalionalization of Oil Companies. Can you say Socialism? It is the Democrats that say their for job creation; then, vote against most if not all free trade pacts that do create jobs for Americans. It was Obama and the Dems that voted against CAFTA and Columbia pacts. It is Obama that wants to redo NAFTA. And, that’s a pact that was put together by a Democrat former president (Bill Clinton). Don’t blame the GOP for the faults and failures of the Democrats in Congress. They deserve the low ratings they are getting.
Fred, don’t you have something better to do? Like go stand in a public space adorned with a picture of a mangled fetus? Or maybe just go shoot yourself?
NAFTA was initiated by Canada’s Mulroony, Geo. H.W. Bush, and Mexico’s Salinas. NAFTA was pushed by free traders. Signed in 1992 subject to ratification by each country. Facts, just facts.
(I now understand, “Fred” is Kozlo)