(Apparently, we've gone off on something of a late afternoon rant...)
At first blush, this looks good:
Democrats are now favored to handle all 10 issues measured in the Post-ABC News poll. The survey also shows a clear majority of the public (56 percent) saying they would prefer to see Democrats in control of Congress after the November elections. Only a third want the GOP to remain in the majority.
But here's the rub:
"More than three in five (62 percent) said they approve of the way their own representative is doing his or her job..."
So six years later, the country's palm has gone to the country's forehead, as the realization that the Republicans are incompetent crooked warmongering nincompoops not only takes hold, but takes root.
And yet, voters are inclined to approve of their incompetent crooked warmongering Republican nincompoop.
By way of example, let's take some area specimens, say, Sen. John Ensign and Rep. Jon Porter. One's tanned. One's in a band. Both have been in lock-step agreement with and support of the Bush administration's greatest blunders and ideological crusades, both foreign and domestic. Party, or partisan, loyalty, no doubt combined with the erstwhile and considerable political advantage of military adventurism, prompted both Ensign and Porter to near-seamless records of backing the wrong decisions -- not just on Iraq (Porter, who wasn't elected until after Congress gave Bush the blank check, has nonetheless supported Bush up and down the line, retroactively and since), but in the nightmarish tax and fiscal policies that the Republicans have pursued. These guys, these Republicans, are also the ones who are out to neuter any and all regulation of industry at every opportunity, because they're Republicans, and Republicans are on industry's side, not yours. So, are we blaming Ensign and Porter for a stupid, stupid war, a $9 trillion debt and, oh, lax enforcement of safety standards that contributed to the tragedy at the Sago mine? Yes, we are.
On John Ensign's fancy-schmancy campaign web site, it says "Re-electing Sen. John Ensign will ensure that we continue to" ... followed by an ever-changing list of things John Ensign will continue to do. Ensign's to-do list boils down to voting for more tax cuts for people who don't need more tax cuts, rewarding corporations at every opportunity and doing his level best to bask in vicarious military glory by saying the word "troops" a lot. In point of fact, "Re-electing Sen. John Ensign will ensure that we continue to" assign no accountability whatsoever to the Republicans who have so eagerly abrogated their congressional oversight role and enabled six years of executive idiocy because hey, for a while there, it was really working great at the polls.
Jon Porter recently, and finally, loaded up his campaign web site, where we learn that Porter's campaign slogan is "making a difference." He's right -- things are different, and he definitely helped make them that way. Student loans are going to be more expensive, so that corporate lenders can make more money. The only thing more obscene about oil companies than their profits is the fact that Congress and the White House just gave them billions in tax breaks. It used to be that the United States didn't launch optional full-on wars for no damned good reason -- and then pretend that everything is going A-OK. But Republicans like Jon Porter have been frenziedly at work, "making a difference."
On any given day, on this site, Scandalmonger, D'Beacon, VT&S, the mainstream papers and elsewhere, there are examples of Ensign and Porter (and of course, gubernatorial wannabe and empty suit Jim Gibbons) doing something that favors corporations or a partisan agenda at the expense of the public interest.
Bush's approval ratings are in the tank in Nevada, just like in the rest of the nation. Presumably, Nevadans aren't much happier with the Republican leadership in Congress than the rest of the nation is, either.
Oh, but we like our Republicans. Ensign is prohibitively favored to beat challenger Jack Carter, and Porter is thought to be, well, favored, more or less over challenger Tessa Hafen.
Ensign and Porter should be held accountable for their complicity in the state of affairs that has led to Bush's low, low public approval. They shouldn't be favored in Nevada. They should be ashamed to show their faces.
...and this is the problem! Isn't this poll an example the definition of insanity?
Posted by: | 05/16/2006 at 08:04 PM