Two Polls Show Democrats Out of Touch with Mood of Country
Saw something on CNN while I was doing my cardio yesterday about how Democrats intend to use the near unanimous Republican opposition to the 2000-plus page financial overhaul bill against them. Guess they feel that running against Wall Street will burnish their populist credentials. Trouble with this narrative is Wall Street seems more pleased with the legislation than do small banks on Main Street.
Even if Democrats do succeed in peddling their narrative that Republicans are tools of Wall Street (while Democrats have recently been the party raking in the most Wall Street cash), I don’t think they’ll find voter paying them much heed. They have different concerns this year. Bashing Wall Street may earn accolades on left-wing blogs, but it won’t change people’s opinion about the Democrats’ record since Obama took office.
Two new polls show that the top issues for American voters are jobs and the national debt. And the president’s inauguration, his party hasn’t done a very good job of enacting policies which allow for the the creation of more jobs, but they have passed legislation which, will lead to a trebling of the national debt.
According to the latest Pew Research/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll:
The public overwhelmingly views the job situation as a major priority for Congress during the coming months. Fully 80% say it is very important for Congress to pass legislation to address the job situation, which is virtually unchanged from May (81%).
Somewhat fewer (70%) say it is very important for Congress to reduce the federal budget deficit.
A CBS News poll found that Americans had similar concerns:
The county’s most important economic problem, Americans say, is jobs, volunteered by 38 percent of respondents. Coming in a distant second was the national debt, the deficit and spending, cited by 10 percent in the poll, which was conducted between July 9th and 12th.
(CBS Poll via Instapundit.)
Yup, people are concerned about financial regulation, but I doubt they’d support legislation with more support on Wall Street than on Main Street, particularly given that large Wall Street financial institutions can more readily comply with the new regulations than can smaller banks and brokerage houses outside our nation’s major metropolises.
Not just that. According to Pew, opposition to Obamacare has increased since the month after congressional Democrats passed the health care overhaul. Disapproval jumped from 44 to 47 percent in the past three months while approval fell a full five points from 40 to 35 percent. Guess those White House attempts to sell the bill after it had passed didn’t pan out.
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With liberal arrogance they will spin it by saying America is out of touch with them.
Comment by Andrew — July 14, 2010 @ 5:31 am - July 14, 2010
the only thing they could do to help the economy, and thus employment, would be to get out of the way – and this administration is ideologically incapable of that.
Comment by alanstorm — July 14, 2010 @ 9:02 am - July 14, 2010
Exactly. The Democrats are the party of helping the big guy against the little guy, while pretending to favor the little guy. The biggest firms in an industry often support government regulation, because they can afford to comply with it and their competition (the little guy) cannot. Which means it cements the big guy’s position. Which is what the Democrats are about: preventing economic change, and the social mobility that would come with it. The incompetent rich – the Kennedy heirs, the Rockefeller heirs, trust fund babies, people who have money but NO understanding whatever of how money is made – instinctively gravitate to the Democrats.
A further problem with the Dems’ shiny new narrative is, of course, that they pushed through the Wall Street bailouts. Their mask is torn. Nobody believes the town whore when she runs on a platform of marital fidelity.
The trouble with that is, the “job situation” will never be fundamentally improved until the country takes its medicine: huge cuts in government, the restoration of sound money under market interest rates, and a consequent sharp recession that purges the economy of all the bad investments and false growth of the Clinton-Greenspan-Bush-Bernanke-Obama era.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 14, 2010 @ 10:31 am - July 14, 2010
(In other words, just like having an operation, it has to get worse before it can really get better. The country doesn’t understand that, as very few politicians are yet telling it the truth.)
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 14, 2010 @ 10:32 am - July 14, 2010
The Empress is enraged that someone, supposedly on her own team, pointed out her lack of clothes: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39703.html
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 14, 2010 @ 10:35 am - July 14, 2010
Do believe me or your own lying eyes?
Comment by Delusional Bill — July 14, 2010 @ 11:17 am - July 14, 2010
Laura Ingraham on Imus In The Morning, VIDEO, reading excerpts from her new book “Obama Diaries” SNARK FEST
http://youhavetobethistalltogoonthisride.blogspot.com/2010/07/laura-ingrahams-new-book-obama-diaries.html
She reads entries by Vice President Joe Biden….out of touch with Americans? Say it ain’t so Joe.
Comment by keyboard jockey — July 14, 2010 @ 11:20 am - July 14, 2010
Obama’s not a stupid man…. so you would think when liberals like Charlie Cook warn of the “GOP Hurricane” that’s on the way, POTUS would realize he has to be more responsive to the real American sense of value……….. not what his unique beliefs suggest it is.
Comment by Spartann — July 14, 2010 @ 12:02 pm - July 14, 2010
Tim Pawlenty asks, instead of having Americans sacrifice for the government (i.e. pay higher taxes)… how about first having the government sacrifice for Americans (i.e. spending cuts)?
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/07/14/pawlenty-how-about-some-sacrifice-from-obama-democrats/
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 14, 2010 @ 4:29 pm - July 14, 2010
#8 I disagree
These people are either dumb and ignorant or they know exactly what they are doing. They are working against the majority of Americans on Healthcare, Immigration AZ law, the economy, taxes, energy.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — July 14, 2010 @ 5:23 pm - July 14, 2010
How funny that you regularly deride the ever-evil “main stream media”, yet you take great joy in looking towards them when they publish something that you feel fits your agenda.
3: “The Democrats are the party of helping the big guy against the little guy, while pretending to favor the little guy.”
I found it extremely hard to stop laughing when I read this statement.
This statement describes exactly and succinctly what Republican leadership did for this country for years and was responsible for getting us into the mess we continue to struggle to get out of now.
Comment by Kevin — July 15, 2010 @ 1:13 am - July 15, 2010
Kevin, if the Republican leadership got us into this mess, please explain then how the mess begin nearly a full year after Democrats regained their majorities in Congress.
Thanks.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — July 15, 2010 @ 3:22 am - July 15, 2010
I read the other day that in the three years Democrats have been in power (starting with Congress, Jan. 2007), they’ve grown the Federal budget by something like 38%.
That’s astounding. Is there anyone here, among the sane people, who seriously believes that government in January 2007 wasn’t already big enough? What critical matter of national survival in Janurary *2007* required it to be grown by 38%? What have we really gotten for it?
Government was already large, both in itself and consequently as a drag on the economy. Now the Democrats have made it 38% more so – and still growing; no end in sight. Hence, the non-recovery from the 2008 recession. (Which, being caused by the end of a housing bubble that Democrats pushed for over many years, is also at least partially their fault.)
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — July 15, 2010 @ 10:04 am - July 15, 2010