one hopes that Dems take these numbers to heart before it's too late...

I'm not happy with this lot by any means.

Term limits.

That's right. The president with the lowest approval rating in a generation has made the Democrats in Congress his bitch. How is this even possible? I think they're cowards--that's what I think. And I think they're setting themselves up for defeat in 2008. They're smug and calculating and complacent, and it wouldn't surprise me at all to see the Republicans come from out of nowhere to kick their butts in '08.

someone needs to teach the democrats that "compromise" does not mean that the person you are negotiating with gets everything they want.

is it possible that the mainstream media has rendered the playing field so unbalanced that the democrats simply do not have any power, even when they are in the majority? that certainly seems to be the case at this point.

if i were pelosi or reid, i would have sent bush the same bill over and over again until he signed it, then i would have gone on every station in the country telling everyone that bush does not support the troops because he won't fund them.

how simple is that? why were the dems to weak to pull off that very simple trick?

It's useful to keep in mind that this poll involves everyone: Bushlovers who automatically hate a Dem-controlled Congress, government haters in general, and liberal/left indies and Dems who think the leadership is not getting enough/anything done. When you take all these factions into account, approval ratings of around one-third seem unsurprising. Note that "moderate" approval seems to be holding steady.

That said, congressional Dems are suffering from blighted expectations. After the election there was a mood of real optimism among the liberal/left that things were really going to change. Instead we see caving on Iraq, impeachment off the table, no serious moves toward real electoral reform, and abject timidity on pretty much every issue that voters wanted them to take on. Seems to me the heart of the problem is that Dems have decided that they shouldn't bring up any big issues or new ideas unless they have support assured before they've even defined them. Since that ain't gonna happen, they doom themselves to always appearing to give away the store.

Americans are ready for change, but the Dems seem to think that selling them is somebody else's job. If they keep playing Rothenberg's poison violin they'll end up performing "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and OUt" on the Capitol steps come 2009.

I think the Democrats lack the organizational skills that the Republicans have. They don't know what to say in public and they don't know when to say it. And Harry Reid has never known when to shut the hell up. The Democrats are uncoordinated and sloppy and I think it really hurts them politically.

I realize the Republicans' lock-step adherence to the party line and the day's talking points is unappealing to most liberals, but the fact is, it's very effective. The Democrats can't put together a united front and they don't know how to play hardball. And they SUCK at negotiation and strategy. They NEVER should have gone to the White House to talk about the Iraq funding bill before they voted. They should have INTENTIONALLY made the situation adversarial, because it would have been the president who would have lost the public in that case. Instead, they went up to the boss's office for a meeting and came back and wimped out. They look like a bunch of spineless idiots--it's as simple as that.

"After the election there was a mood of real optimism among the liberal/left that things were really going to change."

I don't think it was limited to the liberal/left. I think most of the country was hoping the Democrats would prove that they aren't totally full of crap. Unfortunately, the Democrats are now well on their way to proving exactly the opposite. I think a lot of people were looking for change and hoping that the Democrats would deliver, and everyone's either disappointed, or they've simply had their suspicions confirmed. It really does us no good at all to have Joe Biden going on television to explain why the Democrats are weak and ineffective. We don't need excuses, Joe. Excuses are for losers.

The Democrats need to purge the party of incompetent, worthless morons like Bob Shrum and get some people on board who aren't afraid to draw blood. We're not fighting a bunch of nuns in a convent here--we're fighting Republicans, and they KNOW how to fight.

I think things HAVE changed, by the way. Just not enough. Not nearly.

"The numbers would seem to suggest the possibility that the Dem leadership's decision to send President Bush a no-withdrawal-timelines Iraq funding bill may be further eroding public support for the new Dem Congress."

ya think?

And how do you think this horseshit "No Confidence" malarkey is gonna play with the base?

What was that Jeff Beck song? Oh yeah: "Going down! Down, down, down, down, down!"

Clowns. Talk about "no confidence": I wish the rank and file could take a "no confidence" vote in the leadership, especially the worthless Harry Reid.

"Uhm, how about Home. Or Green. Or Reform. Or Libertarian."

Until some third party candidate comes up with the financing to be viable, voting third party is little more than a futile exercise in idealistic fantasy.

The Democrats, for all their faults, are the best hope we have. Which totally sucks, but it's the truth. We just need to keep kicking them real hard in their fat, lazy, defeatist asses.

The People - "Hey go stop that guy from doing that!"

Dems - "Okay"

Dems - "Hey stop that!"

Bush - "Fuck off."

Dems - "Okay."

Dems - "See we tried!"

The People - "Fuck off."

Mr. I agreed with the Republicans and helped GWB take the White House Nader is NOT the answer.

voting third party is little more than a futile exercise in idealistic fantasy.

I disagree. Yes, voting third party and expecting to win is indeed little more than a "futile exercise in idealistic fantasy", but I didn't say anything about winning.

If I see absolutely no difference between voting for D's or R's, that is to say if they both have the same corporatist, war-mongering, let's kill half a million innocent Iraqis (and maybe a few hundred thousand Iranians) so as to steal their oil policies, and that's the way I see it right now, why the hell should I vote for either?

Yeah, I have other choices. Winning really isn't everything. Especially when winning means I only get kicked in the nuts as compared to getting kicked in the nuts and punched in the head....

The argument that people like Stuart Rothenberg often make is that the disapproval of liberals does not matter, because when the time comes, the liberals will hold their noses and vote for the Democrats anyway. While there's a bit of truth to that, some will be so demoralized that they stay home, and the others will be less inclined to support candidates with money or volunteer hours.

And independents wanted Congress to stop the president just as much as Dems did; what Congress missed is that, right now, many swing voters are anti-war.

Some argue that NAFTA cost the Democrats Congress in 1994, because so many Dems counted on labor unions for their get-out-the-vote efforts, and labor was so angry that they refused to play. I can't say for sure that this is true, but it certainly seems that it was a factor.

"Yes, voting third party and expecting to win is indeed little more than a "futile exercise in idealistic fantasy", but I didn't say anything about winning."

Not winning = losing in my book. And I'm not willing to cast my vote into the abyss just to make a point. I'm not willing to go through another 8 years of having a Republican in the Oval Office. There ARE differences, whether your broad brush finds the details or not.

While I understand your point, I'm afraid I can't be quite as cynical as you. I agree our government has been corrupted to its core by corporations and self-interested power brokers, but I don't believe that necessarily extends to the individuals who serve in our government. Some of them, sure. But not all. And simply being a Republican or a Democrat does not, in my opinion, mean that you have less integrity than someone who belongs to the Green Party or the Whigs or whatever.

The fact is, we've got a lot of work to do. But it's OUR work--not theirs. And thinking that simply putting a guy like Ralph Nader in office will somehow change things seems a bit naive to me. No offense intended, but it really does. The two-party system, like it or not, is what we've got to work with. And it will be what we have to work with for decades to come, in my opinion. So I prefer to err on the side of pragmatism and deal with it. An old Zen Master once said, "If you wish to rise, you must get up from the ground. There is no other place to rise from." Wise, if somewhat disappointing words.

I disagree with Greg's argument. It reminds me of Bush's comment a few years ago that his re-election in 2004 was an endorsement of his desire to privatize Social Security.

Greg's argument that Democrats were wrong to act as they did on the Iraq supplemental is based on two suppositions, both bad but the 2nd far worse than the 1st. It'd be better if he made the argument directly on a policy basis, or if he had to use polling, then use a poll that speaks to his point.

The first is that the poll shows eroding public support for the decision. As he Greg gave short shriff to at the end of his post, the poll only asks approval/disapproval of Congress, while it's only in the analysis section that the pollsters editorialize on their data by assigning motives behind the simplye yes/no responses. The pollsters attribute the liberal drop to disagreement with D's over not including a timetable in the Iraq supplemental, and the drop among conservatives as a result of the immigration proposal, and as a result of having no direct data in the poll to back up this attribution, use the word "may".

Greg's 2nd step, worse than the 1st, is to use this poll to say that the decision was a bad one. It's like saying gay marriage or civil unions are a bad idea because Jerry Falwell adherents gave it a bad review. More to the point, Greg argues that the public's support for Dems on Iraq is eroding but doesn't explain how that could be the case if moderates are staying the same. I could argue that moderates' consistent approval/disapproval number indicates that they're okay with what Democrats did; other polls that ask more direct questions indicate rough agree with the Democrats approach. The blogosphere doesn't like it, but it was the right decision, and most of the country agrees with it.

I have sypmathy for Reid. He really doesn't have much to work with. It's not like he's holding a pocket pair - he's stuck with a weak hand and a caucus that is barely a kinda-majority.

But there's no point served in gloating in the inability to get done what the party base wants to get done. The correct spin is: "we tried, the Republicans blocked us so we need a stronger presence on Capitol Hill to get done what the people want done."

What is really needed is a 2/3 majority of Dems for there to be real change.

Nah. Bush could have been neutralized if, in fact, a million had shown up for a "Sign it, son of a bitch" march the first time the bill landed on his desk, because Republicans would have started deserting this sinking ship.

I think the posts reflect, not a profound ignorance of how Congress works, but rather, a profound frustration with how individual members of Congress appear to be working right now. And a profound frustration with an American public that is obsessed with Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole Smith, and American Idol, rather than with what's going on in DC, which has real implications for their lives. Or maybe that's just me.

"The Democrats need to drop Lieberman."

On his head. From a very tall building.

Some candid, honesty will get us everywhere.

As regards the Middle East, let admit it. While the Democrats verbally assail the Republican policies in Iraq, the Democrats too are playing the same game - how can the U.S. stay in Iraq and control the Iraqi oil, and at the same time lyingly convenience the American people that the U.S. should scale down its military operations.

The honesty is, that the Congress doesn't give a damn how many American soldiers die for oil. For that matter, the American congress doesn't give a damn about the American people other than as a way to make money off of them.

You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

Not winning = losing in my book

Then you'd better check the history of the Socialist Party and Norman Thomas, who never came close to winning a national election but whose platform, almost all of it, eventually became law despite being denounced as a threat to the American way of life when first proposed.

You'd better check the history of the conservative movement, which was prepared to run and lose over and over for the purpose of getting its message out and building support until they finally started winning.

And, if you're so inclined, you could check this and this for a fuller explanation of my own thoughts on the matter.

Not Winning = Losing. I sure can't disagree with that.

But you are deluding yourself if you think there are any real differences between Dems and Rethugs.

You yourself admit that our government is corrupted to it's core.

You can't be as cynical as me? Good for you. But I am that cynical. I did work in 2004 to get Kerry elected. I did work in '06 getting a Dem majority. I also gave a lot more money than I could really afford. I was happier than hell when the Dems won both houses. But for what I ask you.

So I can now watch as they negotiate secret trade and immigration deals with the worst president in American history. Secret deals that will almost surely continue to destroy the middle-class in this country. So I can watch as they don't do an effing thing about the most corrupt administration in American history. Nothing that is of course except sends lots and lots of very nasty letters. So I can watch as they sell out our military and the vast majority of Americans, guaranteeing another 5 or 600 dead and 1000's of injured Americans over the next 4 months, just so the Rethugs don't call them bad names.

Feh. Keep them. Yeah sure, if you want to rise you have to lift yourself off the ground, but when the very people you work hard to get elected keep kicking you back down it gets old after awhile.

I am that cynical. In fact I am cynical enough that I have finally excepted the fact that nothing short of deep depression followed by revolution will ever bring true progressive leadership back to this country. If we survive it.

So keep up your spirits, keep working hard for the very people who are more than willing to kick you in your teeth for the effort. Me, I'm going to put my primary efforts into ensuring that me and my loved ones come out the other side intact.

Good luck to you........

We all know how Congress works.

We don't need 2/3 Dems. We can also use more GOPs voting with Dems. Some have; more will in the future.

"Thank God George Bush is our president." -Rudy Giuliani

someone needs to teach the democrats that "compromise" does not mean that the person you are negotiating with gets everything they want.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Best, Terry

Speaking of socialism, I heard Michael Moore on Oprah recently, and he said one of the most intelligent things I've heard in a long time on the subject of health care. He was talking about not-for-profit medicine, and Oprah said, "But isn't that socialism? Do you think Americans will go for something like that?" And he said, "Why not? We've got a socialized police force, a socialized fire department--what's wrong with a socialized health care system?"

Well, when you put it that way...

Norman Thomas is irrelevant, in my opinion. He was living in a different world. He lived in a time when every facet of the mass media wasn't owned and operated by a bunch of goddamned conservative cretins who lie for a living and make truckloads of money doing it. Liberals will never have the foresight or the lack of integrity or the disrespect for their fellow man to try to control information the way conservatives have. And independents will never have the money.

There's no time for the long political view anymore. I sincerely believe we're in the end game. If we don't force the Democrats to do the right thing and turn things around NOW, we're screwed. Ten or fifteen years from now, psycho conservatives will have made third party candidates illegal and our kids will be learning about Jesus in frikking science class. Don't think things are that dire? I do. Look at the damage that's been done to our society and our Democracy in only the last few years.

Like it or not, I think the Democrats are the ones who MUST get the job done.

No, we have a message. Trouble is, the message is: We're feckless.

Nader cost Gore the 2000 election, and I wish fewer votes had been cast for Nader at that time. Kerry has been so awful after his 2004 defeat that I don't care that much that Bush won (by theft, as it were). Our country has been rendered into shit status by the champion bullshitters of the purported two (really one) war parties (y). So I plan to vote for a third party candidate for the first time in my 49 years of regular voting.

Aloha ~~~ Ozzie Maland ~~~ San Diego

I think a mere 27% approval rate of the job Congress is doing reflects a political version of BUYER'S REMORSE from last year's over-hyped elections. It seems this Congress is still WAY more concerned with Party politics than the actual good of the American people. Will that ever change?