Fear and Loathing

29 October 2010 |permalink | email article

The most revolutionary poll data I’ve seen suggests most Americans don’t have much use for either of the major political parties and think it would be better to dump the entire Congress on Election Day comes from Rasmussen Reports. The anger is such in a national telephone survey of 1,000 likely voters that 65% say that if they had an option next week, they would vote to get rid of the entire Congress and start all over again. Only 20% would opt to keep the entire Congress intact. Fifteen percent aren’t sure. The Political Class strongly disagrees, but 84% of Mainstream would get rid of the entire Congress voters.

There’s one questionable discrepancy in the New York Times/CBS News poll which contains more bad news than good news for President Obama who’s not on the ballot. Over all, 46% of likely voters said they would vote for Republicans and 40% said they would support Democrats next week. But a higher percentage of Americans continues to have a more favorable opinion of the Democratic Party than of the Republican Party, with 46% favoring Democrats and 41% favoring Republicans. Go figure!

What’s interesting in the California gubernatorial race, with Jerry Brown’s 10-point lead over Meg Whitman in the respected Field Poll, is how the former governor has blown the contest wide open since the last survey in September. Tied with MW among women JB is now holding a 16-point lead among both women and independent voters. Ahead by only 3% in September among Latinos, where MW hoped to score impressive gains, JB leads by 30%.

Tea Party

According to a canvass of 647 local tea party groups conducted by The Washington Post, 11% of organizers say President Obama’s race, religion or ethnic background is very important or somewhat important to their members’ participation in the movement. Do their antics help or hurt the GOP?

Comment

“Obama is no more to blame for the Great Recession than FDR was for the Great Depression. But the longest and deepest mass suffering has occurred with Obama in the White House and the Democrats holding a majority in (if not always in control) of our two national legislatures. That – more than the tea parties, more than Fox News, more than the scores of millions of anonymous corporate dollars poured into negative campaign advertising courtesy of five Justices of the Supreme Court—is why, next Tuesday, the Republican Party is overwhelmingly likely to retake the House of Representatives outright and, at the very least, to augment its share of seats in the Senate enough to make its veto power absolute.” – Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker. 

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