Interesting Rasmussen survey:
Congress was front and center in the national news last week and the American people were far from impressed. If they could vote to keep or replace the entire Congress, 59% of voters would like to throw them all out and start over again. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 17% would vote to keep the current legislators in office.
Today, just 23% have even a little confidence in the ability of Congress to deal with the nation’s economic problems and only 24% believe most Members of Congress understand legislation before they vote on it.
Last week, the House of Representatives initially rejected a financial bailout bill proposed by the Bush Administration. Later, after the Senate added a number of items that some call “pork” and others call “sweeteners,” the measure eventually passed. While the bill survived Washington, it did so at a time when just 30% of voters favored it and 45% were opposed.
Only half (49%) believe that the current Congress is better than individuals selected at random from the phone book. Thirty-three percent (33%) believe a randomly selected group of Americans could do a better job and 19% are not sure.
I like that – we can do a whole thing with it: “Random Name, ’08!”. A “throw the bums out” mood has its plusses and minusses – the plus is that it would dethrone Pelosi from the Speaker’s chair, the bad news is that it would leave Harry Reid in charge of a Senate with 60 Democrats in it (Reid doesn’t come up again until 2010…and there will be a rather interesting challenger for him – if this person can win the GOP nomination – which will be announced November 5th of this year, I understand). How it would work on the Presidential level is unknown – McCain is GOP with a GOPer in the White House, but both candidates are running as outsiders, while both of them are Senators (ie, member’s of arguably the most unpopular institution in America).
There is just so much which is unknown – by now, I had hoped to make a prediction of whom I thought would win, but I just lack sufficient data to come up with an argument in favor of either man winning (though Obama is in the lead, if the polls are right – and that is a big “if”). There is, however, one thing I’m dead certain of – people are mighty angry over the whole mess in American government. How this will play out is anyone’s guess – will anger result in massive voter turn out to demonstrate anger, or will it result in low turnout as a disgusted electorate stays home? Will the anger work to Obama’s or McCain’s favor? Has anger shifted voter ID? These and a dozen other questions are “beats all heck out of me”, as far as I can tell.
So, off we go – my view is to pray for serenity (which I have done a bit of, but will do a lot more of) and just keep doing the best one can, in all things. What will be, will be.
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