The Republican Party Congressional Shutdown And The Polls

It does appear from polling released today that the Republicans are taking it in the ASS big time. Perhaps as happened after the Gingrich shutdown a few years ago, the Democrats will take back control of the the House. Given the numbers reported in today's polls, the gerrymandering and all the attempts to limit voter access will not be enough to save a party that has become a calcified party of older white men who feel very uncomfortable with the changes wrought in our complex changing social system, a system that neither their political nor their fundamental religious beliefs can embrace or even begin to comprehend. In the aggregate their bag of "tricks" have not served them well.

"A Gallup poll released Wednesday found that Americans are now more likely to cite their own government as the biggest problem facing the country. Responding to an open-ended question, 33 percent of Americans said the nation’s most important problem was the government, politicians or Congress – up from 16 percent who said so last month, and the highest since Gallup began asking the question in 1939.

Americans’ naming of the economy or jobs as the nation’s No. 1 issue has been on the decline this year. About 1 in 5 specified the economy, while about 1 in 10 said unemployment. The deficit and health care were also each named as top concerns by about 1 in 10 Americans.

The Republican Party netted the worst ratings during the first week of the shutdown – just 28 percent of Americans now find it favorable, down 10 points from September, and the lowest rating for either party since Gallup started measuring party favorability in 1992. The Democratic Party is holding fairly steady, with a 43 percent favorable rating, compared with 47 percent last month. Gallup’s three-day rolling average of President Obama’s job approval has him at 44 percent, about the same as when the shutdown began." Nytimes, October 9, 2013

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